...Crash Movie Analysis Anjelica McCartney HUM/150 January 18, 2016 Victor Armenta Crash Movie Analysis Discrimination, racism, classism, prejudice and more plague today’s society. These horrible issues do not affect one race, sexes, class, ethnicity, or age group; these issues affect all races, both genders, all ethnicities, and all age groups. For this film analysis, I have chosen to discuss the racism portrayed throughout a three-time Oscar award winning movie called Crash. Summary Paul Haggis wrote, directed and produced the film Crash in 2004. The movie Crash interweaves several individuals in Los Angeles over a two-day period. The film shows how a variety of different ethnic characters crosses paths during this period, and it displays their personal experiences involving racism. The movie shows how some are victims of racism as well as how some are guilty of racism against others as well as themselves. ‘Some movies, though, are told very much from the protagonist’s point of view, and the audience needs to go inside of the character’s head, to see the world of the story as the character sees it and feel what they feel’ (Diamond, 2012). Crash will take you there. Characters The movie Crash does not have simply one or two main characters but several. The casting directors, Sarah Finn, and Randi Hiller, carefully selected a magnificent cast to portray the characters in this film. The main characters in this movie include; an African American detective named Graham...
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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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...the film! On February 10, 2014 a 7:00 p.m. film was premiered on Middle Georgia State College Macon campus in the Math Auditorium for the remembrance of Black History Month. A film with underlying positive connotations and significant elements of race, loss, and redemption. A 2004 drama featured film titled “Crash” starring many aspiring actors and actress such as Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, and many more. The movie picked up three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing. Tara Mitchell, Middle Georgia State student, believed that the movie was a great pick for the movie night because it was educational, informative, and entertaining drama. A film that covers a 36-hour period Los Angeles during which the lives a diverse handful of disparate citizens crash into one another as they deal with racial and social tensions. According to the Coordinator of this event, Amy Carter said, “It’s for black history month because one of our main focus this year for black history month was about diversity and acceptance. We chose this movie because it shows the ends and outs of how the racism and prejudice continually perpetuated on both sides from all different types. It goes into five different people from all different walks of life whose pass ultimately crashes into one another”. The movie night had an outstanding turnout and the people enjoyed themselves. One of the viewers Jayla Lyons, a sophomore, was in attendance during “Crash.” “I...
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...Crash: A Disturbing Mirror on Humanity Does everyone hate or dislike a certain type of person? Do people continuously make snap judgments of others based upon their appearance? Do people really believe in stereotypes they hear about other ethnicities? Are individuals naturally afraid of unfamiliar cultures? These questions are explored by Director Paul Haggis in the provocative 2005 film Crash. Set in contemporary Los Angeles, Crash is an explosive exploration of prejudice. The plot of Crash consists of a series of inter-related vignettes about people of assorted ethnicities and socio-economic groups who come into contact with one another—often violently--over a 36-hour period. In the film the interaction of the characters causes viewers to question stereotypes while at the same time acknowledging the grain of truth they contain. Because the vignettes are all related, with characters in one reappearing in another, viewer are able to see various sides of a character: a character shown committing a racist act in one scene is depicted in an act of kindness in another. This structure stresses the interrelationship of human-beings and underscores the complexities of prejudice and racism. The title of the movie Crash is a metaphor for the content. The most obvious meaning of the word crash in contemporary society is an auto collision, and the movie begins and ends with car accidents. But the idea of collision, as it pertains to the film, has a much broader application. This...
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...The movies I have chosen to study are Crash and Boyz-n-the Hood. In both these films I had found numerous forms of the critical race theory in the form of the essentialism philosophy. Essentialism philosophy is the reducing of the experience of a category, gender or race, to the experience of one sub-group . Basically, all oppressed people share the commonality of oppression. However, that oppression varies by gender, class, race, etc., so the aims and strategies will differ for each of these groups. I chose these films because of this portion of the critical race theory. Its interesting how no matter what race or gender one is, they could still be facing some sort of the same oppression. These films are also very representative of both the past and present day California. Situations in both films can be seen directly around us. Crash takes aim at a wide range of essentialism philosophy in that it deals with a string of different situations and racial prejudices. It ranges from typical white on black racism, to more strange indian on mexican stereotyping. Throughout the film we can see how everyday situations had become racial prejudices. In the movie Boyz-N-the Hood it is mostly directed towards black racism, but it is interesting because a good number of the racism is done by blacks on blacks. This was very interesting to me. At the time when this film was made, essentialism philosophy of the CRT was very prominent in the LA area, especially with the gangs. One...
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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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...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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...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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...Often times, ineffective communication leads to the misinterpretation of each other’s actions, leading to inaccurate race bias. This race bias can be referred to as racism. 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...
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...Written Assignment Crash Police Practices Abstract Deviance defined by William C. Levin is “behavior that does not conform to society’s norms for expected behavior.” The film crash portrays several different forms of deviance. The deviances that stood out to me are when Anthony steals the car from Cameron because of racial discrimination. Another form of deviance portrayed is when Officer Ryan demeans anyone who is African American. The last form of deviance I choose was Jean Cabot as a whole, because of her stereotyping of discrimination. Crash is a film that is surrounded by racism and stereotypes that still today act as a problem in our world. Written Assignment for Police Practices The first form of deviance I choose for this paper is when Anthony steals Cameron’s car. Cameron’s car got stole because of racial discrimination. Anthony soon realizes what he did and how discrimination affects people. This situation to me is the labeling theory because racism is just a label. I also believe that racism still happens today in our world. I’ve been bullied before because of my race. Just because the color of my skin is different, people think its okay to stereotype and be cruel to one another, just because in their eyes they are different. It is painful also because those bully’s are only looking at the outside. They don’t look at your personality, or your heart, it’s just about what’s on the outside. That to me is not acceptable and automatically putting a label on...
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...Thao Nguyen Research Review & Film Critique “ Crash” The movie “Crash” is crime drama film. It is produced, written and directed by Paul Haggis. It released to public on may 5th 2005 in United States. It has the budget of 6.5 million dollars. It won the Best Picture Oscar at the 78th Academic Award. The film run 112 minutes long and it is about the tension of racism in Los Angeles. “Crash” was inspired by the author’s real life when he got carjacked in front of a video store in 1991. It won the Best Picture Oscar in 78th Academic Award. The movie briefly indicated the racism, the insight of ethnicity, caste. Characters in the movies included blacks, whites, Asians, Latinos, Iranians and each characters has different story that all connected nicely. There were cops, attorney, criminals, the rich, the poor, hurt and sadness. The movie reflex the life of Immigrants and incidents that happen in real life in the Los Angeles that many people might not be able to see it or might look at it as it isn’t important. But if we pay a little more attention to the movie, we could see that it teach people to become better and not being racist. The movie began with two black men named Peter and Anthony. They were talking about how the waitress in the restaurant was being racist to them because they are black. They also discussing about their feeling living in the central of Los Angeles and surrounded by all white people. On the next scene, a white couple walks on the street_...
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...Crash is the 2006 Best Picture film, that aims to show the audience that racial discrimination and prejudice comes in many forms and nearly every person. No matter how kind and perfect a person may seem, the situation they are in can drastically change the influence of their prejudice. An example being the young cop, who when with other cops are showing prejudice he stands up for the victim, but when alone in a car with a black man, his own prejudice leads him to kill the man without any valid threat to speak of. However, the overall goal of Crash is to highlight the prevalence of racism in our society; the racism present in every cultural group, profession and every smiling face. Even the seemingly wonderful cop who cares for his aging father...
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...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 Hall theorizes that every human being is exposed to so many perceptual stimuli - sights...
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...Crash is a movie that debut in 2004. This controversial movie displayed racism, ethnic relations, differences in social class and much more in Los Angeles, California on the west coast of North America. The movie showed the connection of people’s lives over a 36 hour time span. The 36 hour time span illustrates tense actions throughout the city and in each character’s life. The movie was approximately an hour and a half and displayed everything and more within that time. It interlocks the life of the white, the blacks, the Asian, the Spanish, the Persian, the rich, the poor and even the cops and criminals. Everyone is both a victim and guilty of racism. People’s impulses have been an issue within this movie. A negative impulse have been instinctive and their positive one could be and have been dangerous. This movie shows that everyone feels prejudice against other cultures, groups or races and somewhat resents them for it. The actions and feelings displayed and touched on throughout the movie are simply just the consequences. The first demonstration displayed in the film of racism or an act of racism came when a wife of an attorney, played by Sandra Bullock assumed that the two men walking towards her were to going to rob her. Though that became the case, she made an assumption based on color or ethnic background. I don’t believe that she should have based on the area that they were all in and the restaurant that they came out of. This displayed subjective reality. Subjective...
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...CRASH This movie starts with a car crash between two women out of which one was a Hispanic woman, and one was an Asian woman. Immediately they began accusing each other of being bad drivers. My opinion is that they began accusing each other of bad driving because they belonged to two different races and were immigrants in the country. In this movie, there is physical violence, mental torture, or assault/violence almost at regular intervals. The various elements used to make up the whole movie are racism, different religions, portrayal of immigrants trying to make a mark in the country. Instead of showing us the actual reality of racism, it portrays some scenarios that showcase a distorted reality that forces us to look inside ourselves for self inspection. The sound effects used in this movie are creditable. Those effects make it seem as if the audience is a part of the film and is experiencing it as it happens. The story is narrated or rather portrayed as a series of stories. There are several stories running parallel to each other, but despite each story not being related to the other, there is a connection between them. The dialogues in the movie are full of weight as the characters are seen discussing heavy topics like racism, poverty, and the American institution in general. After the Hispanic woman Ria crashes into the Asian woman (I don’t remember her name), and when she asks the police to write the report, she says “Officer, can you please write down in your report...
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