...November 2014 Racial Profiling and Stereotypes Issues In a city such as Los Angeles, racial profiling takes places constantly throughout the day. In this film, “Crash”, Paul Haggis follows the lives of over 10 people from different backgrounds, and how they are faced with racial profiling or stereotypes. This movie is not only thought provoking, it shows the reality of such a complex world. The director, Haggis, shows how each character is faced with racial profiling/stereotypes and how it creates a snowball effect in each of their lives, as well as affecting the lives of others. The film “Crash” assumes that profiling is a bad but that people do it anyways. Self-serving attributions, revenge, victimizing, scapegoat, etc., can motivate stereotypes. Haggis wants us to feel guilty by watching all the different stereotypes that exist in today’s world; he wants us to realize not to judge a person by their physical appearance and/or race. Even Haggis illustrates anger and sympathy towards people that use stereotypes on other people. Most will say that because we are human it allows us to be imperfect but it being human doesn’t allow us to discriminatory towards other imperfect human beings. Racial profiling is when a person is judged by their race or ethnicity. The movie allows it’s viewers to see how racial profiling is a moral issues. It is projected be people of all races and classes. We can still see in today’s world people are still being judged; meaning stereotypes still exist...
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...depict certain racial observations. Theaters insulate moviegoers in a cocoon-like setting with little distractions. This setting is an ideal situation to sway an audience. Movies are at their most potent when seen at the theater (Harper, 2003). Movies can desensitize people to issues and shift public attitudes through influence. While there are many real scenarios portrayed in fictional film, to say that movies similar to Crash are completely accurate portrayals of reality is an oversight. With this influential medium, the film Crash is an attempt to accurately portray the various racial, ethnic, and racial stereotypes within the cast of characters in Los Angeles, California. I am from Los Angeles, and while I understand what the film-makers were trying to do, I thought it was rather shallow and merely a portrayal of what people THINK L.A. is. The film is supposed to be snapshot of America; as a melting pot of cultures. The movie is complete with a racial mix of every nationality. Prejudices are the strong backbone to the concept of racism. They are the labels and images that we designate to a group of people on the basis of what we imagine to be the characteristics of all members of that group. More often than not, they are incorrect and incomplete. The film Crash, directed by Paul Haggis, addresses the strong existence of racial and racial prejudices against many groups from various perspectives in today's society. Racial perception and racial sensitivity Edward...
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...Crash Misty Ward University of Phoenix August 15, 2009 The movie Crash interweaves several stories during a 36 hour period in Los Angeles involving a variety of characters, an up and coming police detective with a two time felon for a brother and a drugged addicted mother, two car thieves that constantly discuss race and society, the white district attorney and his typical stay at home wife, a white veteran cop who does not hide his racist feelings from his young non racist partner. Also in the movie is a successful Hollywood director who coming home from a party with his wife crass paths with the white racist cop, a Persian-immigrant father who buys a gun to protect his store, a hardworking Hispanic locksmith and his young daughter trying to escape a dangerous neighborhood. Through what could be considered daily coincidental interactions, the movie seeks to describe and examine not only racial tensions, but the stereotyping that each ethnic group faces on a daily basis. Crash address the various types of diversity in America by illustrating basic stereotypes of each character’s cultural background for which they represent. The movie also address how society handle racism on a daily basis through interaction with each other, and how the view various races. For example the white district attorney and his wife were walking down the street. At the same time two African American men were walking towards them When the D.A’s wife sees them walking towards them, her immediate...
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...Racism in "Crash" Physical Characteristics and racial differences are distinguishing traits that keep people in our world apart from each other. Crash is a movie that showcases prejudice and racial stereotypes. The movie is set in Los Angeles which is a city with the cultural mix of almost every ethnicity. Crash is a perfect analogy of how the different people intersect with others in society. The movie crash shows differences between the lives of different people. It displays the interactions of several multiethnic groups such as African American, Caucasians, Asians, Latinos, and Arabs. All of the groups are striving to overcome their fears as they weave in and out of each other’s lives. They are all tied by an invisible chain of events, so the movie shows how we all have an effect on one another whether we realize it or not. The basic premise is that we can not live our lives without crashing into others. Others may look different and come from all walks of life but ultimately we are all the same. We are ultimately connected and the sooner we realize this, the better society as a whole will be. The opening scene begins with a crash and the statement is made that we don’t touch each other enough, so we have to crash just to interact. We need each other to survive, so connections have to be made. The ultimate goal should be to touch each other’s lives in a positive and lovely way and not to violently “crash” into one another. This makes one question their own personal prejudices...
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...Crash: Of Racial Discrimination and Stereotypes November 3rd, 2011 Crash: Of Racial Discrimination and Stereotypes Directed by Paul Haggis and produced in 2004, Crash was the Oscar Awards winner of Best Picture in 2006. Aside from Best Picture, the movie won only one other award: Best Original Screenplay for Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco. Despite its little recognition, Crash is an important movie to watch. Plot The plot of Crash is not about a typical, narrative story in the usual sense. Instead, it focuses on a theme or message and weaves several linked stories to highlight the theme. The movie is essentially about racial discrimination and the consequences of stereotyping people. Set in LA, the story covers a 24-hour period. The movie depicts the stories of several people whose lives are intertwined by accidental and casual encounters, usually on the streets. The characters in the story are people of varying ethnic groups: a bad and a good cop, a group of police investigators, a couple of teenage robbers, a DA and his wife, an Arab family, a Hispanic locksmith and his family, and an affluent African American movie director and his wife. The story revolves around how all of these people have deeply ingrained prejudices and how they themselves could suffer from discrimination. Theme and depiction Discrimination and stereotyping of people sometimes happen as a result of reinforcement of the behavior of the people being discriminatory...
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...Final Film Critique: Crash (2004) Jay Dennis ENG 225 Introduction to Film Instructor: Cicely Young April 13, 2014 Final Film Critique Draft: Crash (2004) There are many different critical elements and artistic aspects to examine when analyzing and critiquing any film. In 2004 Paul Haggis wrote and directed the award winning drama Crash about various intertwining experiences involving racial relations and the socioeconomic status levels of the diverse cast of characters. This film addresses how humans being deal with real life circumstances and addresses how racial stereotypes and prejudices impact our society by causing a separation of customs, ignoring human and civil rights, and demonstrating how racism can cause moral, cultural and economical suffering. This detailed essay will address the cinematic elements employed throughout the movie, and provide a critical analysis on the various components and techniques used to create this compelling and powerful film. Crash is a movie that involves several different stories and plots that all manage to somehow connect the characters to each other in a series of events that take place during two days in California. America’s ever-growing melting pot is distinctly represented in the film as the audience is introduced to a black LAPD detective, two black mischievous car thieves, a white district attorney and his prejudice wife, a white racist beat cop and his neophyte partner, a black Hollywood director and his wife, an...
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...Title of Assignment – Move Analysis Paper - CRASH Student’s Name – Emmanuel Rweyemamu Professor/Institute – Dr. Lisa McDonnell Course, Date – SOC 1101 Analysis of Movie, Crash Introduction and Thesis: Written and directed by Paul Haggis, “Crash” was released in 2004. The movie highlights the trials and tribulations experienced by a various racial ethnical groups from varied geographical locations. Acculturation is not easy for these several Racial Groups such as Hispanics, Asians, or Africans, as the incidents in the film covering a time span of 36 hours, reveal. The characters are portrayed in the context of several ethnic stereotypes in prevalence, even in the 21st century due to ethnic differences. To illustrate, “The predominant modern stereotypes are the violent, brutish African-American male and the dominant, lazy African-American female - the Welfare Mother (Green, 1998-1999, p. 1).” Set in a mixed society of different cultures the aim is to prompt the audience into ‘looking into themselves’ and acknowledge their own personal prejudices; they are overt or covert racists too. The 3 elements of cultures openly portrayed are the language used, the norms maintained by society, both formal and informal. As far as how many viewers actually have the courage to accept their faulty mindsets, is left to them. While at first glance, the movie appears to send out a passionate appeal about ending racism and discrimination, an in-depth probe reveals that the ‘wrongness’ of proclaiming...
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... Typically people in society are somewhat discreet about their racism and it is not something they openly admit to. The movie Crash, daringly tackles the issues of intercultural communication, and race in an unconventional way. It takes racism and makes it an open conversation amongst the characters to ensure the viewers can clearly identify each characters racial bias. As the characters in this movie communicate, there is frequent use of racial slurs, profanity, as well as racially driven insults and stereotypes, to further exaggerate the bigotry present in the film. Crash provides a series of examples that show just how powerful effective and ineffective communication can be when it comes to social relations. This film touches on various communication theories and concepts, in which many of the scenarios presented in Crash can be explained. These theories and concepts include: symbolic interaction theory (self concept), assumptions of communication accommodation theory (indirect stereotyping), assumptions of expectancy violations theory (violation valence), and cultural communication. Synopsis Director Paul Haggis’s, 2005 explosive film, Crash, tells a very provocative story of how absolute strangers can impact each others lives in both negative and positive ways. In a seemingly coincidental chain of events the multicultural characters of this movie are in one way or another connected. Within a thirty – six hour period in Los Angeles California, about eight main characters...
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...Social Constructs Found In the Movie “Crash” The aptly named movie, “Crash”, is a depiction of how humans crash into each other, collisions in personality, attitudes, and understanding. In the opening scene we are introduced to the premise of the movie as the man says “We crash into each other, just so we can feel something.” This is the thesis statement for the movie, setting up the idea that our interactions with each can be as traumatic and life changing as a vehicle collision. Each character in the movie played a role in showing the viewer the different influences and behaviors the numerous cultures have towards their very own culture and that of others’. Ethnocentrism, prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination are the core themes presented in the movie “Crash.” At the very beginning of the movie, two African American men are seen leaving a coffee shop, Anthony, the obviously more dominant of the two, and Peter. Anthony is complaining about the poor service they received, blaming the poor service on being African American. Peter is quick to point out that the waitress was also black. Anthony expresses to Peter that black women can also think in stereotypes believing that they, as black men, would not her leave a tip thus not putting forth the effort to provide them with good service. This is an example of stereotyping within a culture. This ties in to the social-conflict theory in that the woman did not see them as worthy of her effort because they would not enhance her...
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...Morgan Daley Professor Goodwin November 9 2015 Ethics _07 Crash The movie “Crash” brought racial profiling to an extreme. The main characters Officer Tom Hansen, Officer John Ryan and Cameron Thayer were characters who stuck out at me through the movie. Throughout this movie I thought about stereotypes that exist today and how this movie exampled them. Officer Ryan showed racism throughout the movie. He was rude on the phone with a black secretary and when he went into her office. He told his old partner to wait a few years and he’ll get knowledge of who commits crimes, basically saying it is minorities. During the movie he pulled over a black male (Cameron Thayer) and lighter skinned black women over (Christine Thayer). Sexually violated the women and was being threatening to the men and women for no reason and when the black male apologized he let them leave with a warning. One stereotype today is that black males commit crimes. White people tend to feel inferior when they see a group of black males walking down the street. Although, this cop took it over board, he has the mentality of many other white Americans. Officer Ryan saw a car flipped over and Christine Thayer was in stuck in the car. She didn’t want to get out with the officer because she remembered what he did to her. You could tell officer Ryan felt a sense of guilt. Even when the car was on fire he did everything in his power to take her out, and succeeded. Cameron Thayer wasn’t your “typical” black...
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...Diversity in society - “Crash” Diversity and discrimination have forever been an indispensable component of human nature. Whether we move back to the hard times of the Great Depression or come to the modern day’s society, we find a strong reflection of racialism everywhere. These aspects have been well reflected in the movie ‘Crash’. The movie ‘Crash’, released in 2005 was directed by Paul Haggis and written by Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco and won three Academy awards. The movie revolves mainly around the overlapping or interlocking events in the life of whites and blacks, rich and poor, cops and criminals, Iranians, Koreans and Latinos - everything defined ultimately by racism. The idea is that “moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other”. It is based on everyday racial reactions in the human society. How we react to situations adds hue to our perceptions of living life itself. All the people involved are guilty of the discrimination but sometimes through indifference, they rise above these. Assuming something about the person before us is rather a dominant feature in Crash. Crash describes a number of people with almost equal importance and shows the psychological inhibitions each of them has based on these narrowness of discrimination. The movie contains coldness, cruelty and pain, but finally unfolds to generate sympathy from general audience and an expectation that people would learn to share similar hopes and fears. As far as Crash is concerned, the...
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...In the film Crash, there are many stereotypes about each race and ethnicity throughout the movie. I feel as though these stereotypes were challenged in this movie, as each character found their own truths in their lives. At the end of each story, the stereotypes each character held were broken and proven to be wrong. A stereotype that I’ve held in the past was broken in this movie. The stereotype of only small-town police officers being racist and using their power to do bad things, while officers in major cities are the opposite. Officer John Ryans was a police officer on the LAPD force for many years. He used his status as an officer to do wrongful things to those he pulls over, such as inappropriately touching women. However, not everyone on the force purposefully does wrongful things. Officer Tom...
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...Rowland CRASH: SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES “Sociology is the study of human behavior in society” (Kimmel and Aronson 2012). Sociologists study humans in their environments and the social interactions that occur in those environments in order to develop theories of how human behavior is shaped by groups of people and or how life is affected by those individuals. Paul Haggis’ movie Crash (Haggis 2005) contains both social and multicultural differences that we as humans experience in our society and in our world everyday. In the movie, he takes us on a journey through a sociological process made up of racism, social class, and gender which all play roles in stereotypes and assumptions we make about others. Crash is set in the city of Los Angeles, California as it continues to grow as a multicultural society, exploring how racial intolerance and prejudice are problems for all of the United States. The movie Crash (Haggis 2005), explains many of the sociological concepts that explain how one’s behavior or actions can have a direct effect on another persons life, shaping it profoundly and changing the outcome forever. The first few lines of the movie basically set the sociological tone for the film. Graham, played by Don Cheadle says, “It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each...
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...STEREOTYPES ON CRASH. Believing that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities, and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race is know as racism. This phenomenon in the sociological area is defined as a system of group privilege. In Portraits of White Racism, David Wellman has defined racism as “culturally sanctioned beliefs, which, regardless of intentions involved, defend the advantages whites have because of the subordinated position of racial minorities”. Sociologists Noël A. Cazenave and Darlene Alvarez Maddern define racism as “...a highly organized system of 'race'-based group privilege that operates at every level of society and is held together by a sophisticated ideology of color/'race' supremacy.” Sociologist and former American Sociological Association president Joe Feagin argues that the United States can be characterized as a "total racist society, a statement that can be clearly proved in the film Crash. In United States, people tend to be judgmental and learn to develop a very deep fear towards other cultures. American citizens are know by their extremely nationalist attitude, which lead them to build a rejection when they are being raised, to foreign human beings. Following this further, although throughout the years this country has had many important leaders battling against racism, nowadays the expressions of it keep being rougher as we can see in the movie. This film differs from many other...
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...Classism and Racism A Narrative Analysis of Paul Haggis’s Film: Crash By: Alexis Couillard Introduction: In 2004, Paul Haggis directed the Oscar winning film crash, a drama about race and class and its effects on those residing in Los Angeles, California. This film paints a vivid picture of the harsh reality that classism has and will always exist and it is intertwined with racism in this film and in our realities. This film promotes racial awareness which is a topic not typically seen on the big screen and it demands a close inspection. Haggis wanted us to understand each character and to see them as real flesh bleeding humans that make mistakes and aren’t perfect. We see different races involved in the film such as African American, Persian, Hispanic, white and several Asians. Each scene intertwines with the next and we find out that all the characters are connected in some way or another. This technique of the characters being connected keeps the viewers on their toes. The audience is not stuck on one story or scene for too long. An idea or event is presented from the perspective of one person or family, and then the same event is expanded on by another characters connection to that particular event. Different ethnic stereotypes and racial prejudices are presented within the film such as the so called “gangbanger” who has tattoos and is Hispanic, and the black man who steals cars Anthony aka “Ludacris”. The director delivers and promotes this awareness but...
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