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screenshot from The Wash

The Wash
dir. D.J. Pooh
Lion's Gate Entertainment

The Wash, a film written and directed by D.J. Pooh (co-writer of Friday), made an awesome $9.8 million at the box office during its theatrical run. The film was released on DVD and video Mar. 12.

J.R. Norton: First things first. The Wash is funny. At times, it's funny as hell. The bikini wash thing was funny. The voice-recognition cellphone that wouldn't dial "fo'" was funny. And the "asshole/ asshole lite" bit? Crisp and golden.

James Norton: Yeah, it had some moments. But I have to admit that a large percentage of the film made me profoundly uncomfortable.

J.R.: Why, because you're so goddamn white that you glow in the dark? Loosen up.

Jim: That's exactly what I'm talking about. This whole anti-white thing. Was there even a single white character in the film, except that one idiot cop?

J.R.: Well, maybe this was actually sort of an educational experience for you. How do you think blacks feel when they watch comedies like High Fidelity?

Jim: Well, Lisa Bonet was in that. And the black guy from "The Flash."

J.R.: Yeah, exactly.

Jim: Look, we're totally skirting the basic point. It's not just that white people were totally absent from the film. That's fine. But what about the Snoop Doggy Dogg character?

J.R.: Dee Loc.

Jim: Dee Loc. He wasn't just a petty thief and drug dealer; he was also a complete jerk to his roommate, Dr. Dre.

J.R.: Sean.

Jim: Right. Snoop plays an anti-social, personally unpleasant, hedonistic drug-dealer. With the exception of one tacked-on moment of bravery to stop a gun-wielding Eminem from gunning down Sean at the end, he was about as sympathetic as a non-homicidal Hannibal Lecter.

And despite that, we're supposed to sympathize with his cool sense of style and ability to get whatever he wants, whether it's nailing beautiful women on the job or making major drug deals with Tommy Chong.

J.R.: This is a light comedy, and you're peeing in your pants because one of the protaganists isn't a John Ashcroftian moral American. Was John Belushi a model of the heroic ideal in Animal House? What was the underlying moral philosophy of Caddyshack?

Jim: Look, that's not it. It was just that whole world was so … greedy. Materialistic. Immoral. It was all about pneumatic cars, pneumatic women, guns and piles of cash.

J.R.: Have you been paying any attention to what's been going on in urban America over the past 30 years? It's not a world where everyone gets a chance to go to college and live peacefully ever after.

If you're a director trying to connect with your audience, you're not going to make the uptight, small businessman owner of the car wash your hero. You're not going to make the cops your heroes. The heroes are the guys on the street who preserve their dignity in a situation that seems designed to humiliate them. When Dee Loc deals dope while working his minimum-wage job, that's cool — he's not letting himself get trapped by the system. That's how he pays his rent, as opposed to the perpetually broke Sean. And when Snoop refuses to turn his music down, it's a gesture of defiance to a world of uptight assholes.

Jim: Yeah, but one of the major driving ideals of The Wash seems to be that Sean (excellently played by the surprisingly flexible Dr. Dre) has gotten too big for his britches by taking an assistant manager job at the car wash. Basically, by putting himself in a position where he has any interest in preserving the system that generates everybody's paychecks, he's "sold out." So because he's not endorsing wholesale chaos and theft, the film craps all over him.

J.R.: You're being naïve. When you pretend The Wash has any "major driving ideals" to begin with, you're totally missing the point. The Wash is designed to do too things: replicate the everyday world of urban black America through its language and cultural reference points, and make people laugh. If you're going to do the latter, you've got to suspend some disbelief and make the film have at least one message of hope: that by sticking with your friends and cooperatively fucking up the system that makes you a wage slave, you can enjoy some sense of freedom and happiness in an otherwise crappy, unfair world.

Jim: Now who's being naïve? Do you really think this film has a damn thing to do with the conditions that most urban blacks are living under? It's a broad, colorful, caricature. It's one West Coast gangsta dream world, writ large.

J.R.: Look, the fact of the matter is that neither of us has a goddamn clue. We grew up in middle-class, lily-white middle America, and most of our understanding of the contemporary black experience comes from hip-hop records and The New York Times. But is it possible that a lot of The Wash — like wage slavery, police harassment, abusive landlords and lousy public transportation — is directly relevant to the film's target audience?

Jim: I guess so.

J.R.: Thank you. There's nothing wrong with getting your hackles all up about the film not reflecting your own personal moral scruples and your own situation in life. It wasn't written for you. But hell, The Wash has witty lines, a bizarre, loose script and the constant hilarity of rappers plowing their way through what must, somehow, be considered "acting." Plus Dre's seriously credible appearance as Sean.

Jim: And I appreciate that. I'm not saying The Wash is a threat to the children or anything. But I am saying that when the principle protagonist is someone I find to be completely without redeeming qualities of any kind, I'm not going to dig the film, and I'm sure as hell not going to recommend it.

J.R.: And I appreciate that, right back at you. But you're wrong; The Wash is funny as hell. And it might be a decent way to get folks like yourself thinking about your judgmental way of looking at parts of American culture outside your own personal braised tofu-eating, Volvo-driving garden of snobbery.

James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)

RELATED LINKS

Official Site
IMDB entry
Trailer

ALSO BY …

Also by James Norton:
The Weekly Shredder

The Wire vs. The Sopranos
Interview: Seth MacFarlane
Aqua Teen Hunger Force: The Interview
Homestar Runner Breaks from the Pack
Rural Stories, Urban Listeners
The Sherman Dodge Sign
The Legal Helpers Sign
Botan Rice Candy
Cinnabons
Diablo II
Shaving With Lather
Killin' Your Own Kind
McGriddle
This Review
The Parkman Plaza Statues
Mocking a Guy With a Hitler Mustache
Dungeons and Dragons
The Wash
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