Crash Movie Analysis PDF

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Crash Movie Analysis Essay...

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Crash is a movie about racial stereotypes and how individuals let them influence the way they see people. The film has earned positive acclaim from critics and it’s easy to see why. Crash is unafraid to ask the hard questions and show a jarring reality that is often avoided on the silver screen. For this reason, I thoroughly enjoyed the film. Although the film is often greatly dramatized, I believe the filmmakers were successful in their attempt to promote racial awareness. To accomplish this, the film boasts an ensemble cast of white men and women, several African American characters, several Hispanic characters, a Persian family, and several Asian characters. Through their daily lives and perspectives, we see many instances of discrimination from them and against them. An example of a character demonstrating prejudice comes quite early in the film. Jean Cabot is a white woman who is the wealthy wife of politician. She doesn’t work and ultimately lives a very privileged life. We watch as her and her husband are walking to their car from dinner. Upon seeing two African American men, she quickly grabs her husband as if she wants protection. Of course they are later robbed by these men, but regardless of this, her original fear was not “correct” and was still a prejudice against black men. She assumed because they were black, they might act violently towards her. The men’s subsequent crimes were not an excuse for her own prejudice. An example of racism comes from Officer John Ryan. He is very overt in his racism and makes it very clear that he does not respect African Americans. In fact, in the first scene we see him in, he displays racism as he speaks to someone over the phone. He is speaking to his father’s insurance and becomes irritated with the worker. He asks to speak to the person’s supervisor and she reveals that she is the supervisor and that her name is Shaniqua. He is immediately disgusted and is unsurprised that the person who is unable to fulfil his request is a black person. He rudely

responds to her name and she hangs up on him. This is clearly a display of racism. As soon as he discovered she was black he gives up all hope of receiving positive service and believes she is completely incompetent. A clear illustration of a stereotype is displayed by Graham Waters towards his girlfriend Ria. He frequently refers to Ria as Mexican despite her irritation and protests. In an argument, she gives him a “geography lesson” and revels that her parents are from El Salvador and Puerto Rico therefore she is not Mexican. He responds not by apologizing, but by asking her a question, he wonders how all Hispanic people have learned how to park their cars on their front lawns. This is not only a mean thing to say to your girlfriend, but a stereotype towards Hispanic people. She understandably responds by storming out of his apartment. The character that I have chosen to write about is Officer John Ryan. He is certainly a complex character with many facets of personality. However, his fundamental racism makes it hard to sympathize with him as holds many prejudices against black people. For example, he pulls over a black couple and subsequently molests an innocent black woman to establish his racial dominance and authority. He also later meets with the insurance worker, Shaniqua and informs her that there are white men who are more qualified for her job. He believes that he is superior to black people and that they deserve to be treated poorly by him. He further displays discrimination in the form of antilocution when he pulls the black couple over. His power was previously stripped from him on his phone call with Shaniqua, so he pulls over the couple to gain his sense of control back. He makes negative remarks and racist jokes towards the couple making him feel dominate and important. The function of prejudice he displays is knowledge function. He does not perceive black people as individuals, but rather as

members of a group. He denies them unique characteristics and simply labels them as “black people”. As the movie comes to an end, we see John rush to help a person involved in a car accident. It’s reveled that this person is the women he molested and she is utterly terrified to see him. He eventfully calms her down and pulls her from the burning car, saving her life. I think this dramatic event makes him look back at his past actions and remember why he started his job in the first place. He realizes the people he swore to protect are the very people he has been terrifying. I don’t believe his act of heroinism redeemed his past actions and the movie ends before we can truly see if he will change for the better, but as an audience we hold on to the hope that he will. And despite my aversion, John Ryan was actually the character who impacted me the most. It’s terrifying to think that there is law enforcement who hold similar views to him and will treat a person of color in inhuman ways due to racism, stereotypes, and prejudices. In conclusion, Crash is a powerful film that ignites relevant and important conversations about race. It displays just how dangerous “harmless” stereotypes can be and how racism and prejudices affect individuals in their daily lives not just groups of random people. If I were to give someone advice on how to avoid displaying these outcomes themselves, I would tell them simply to be empathetic and think about how they might feel if they were in that person’s shoes. If we are to truly see changes in the world, we must first start within ourselves....