The movie “Crash” and its intercultural sub-context

Intercultural communication occurs when people or groups from different cultures communicate. The actual process of listening and responding to people with various cultural backgrounds can be difficult. The movie Crash demonstrates a number of diversity problems and intercultural barriers. It tells a story of multiple different individuals and families and how they are all intertwined, even if they want to think they are not. Most obviously, the characters come from different races, but race set aside they are each a part of different subcultures of the Los Angeles area.
Crash used excellent interpretations that showed how pre-judging and stereotyping have the power to influence other people and their own behavioral patterns. Three scenes in particular stood out to me as examples in which intercultural barriers were present. The Hispanic man that was a locksmith with his child, the Caucasian police officer (played by Matt Dillon) and his judgment of an African American female (played by Thandie Newton), and finally the scene of a notable instance occurs between a Caucasian gun storeowner and a Persian man and his daughter.
Other people that were portrayed in the movie had a different opinion, but the Mexican locksmith was a man who was very family-oriented, docile, and good-hearted. Throughout the movie though, he was viewed as a bum, gang-member, and menace to society. The people in the movie formed their pre-determined opinion of him simply on the fact that he did not appear "clean cut" or well dressed. These people fail to explore the values and experiences that they may have in common with someone who is different, and do not realize that they have as much in common with each other as they actually do. I like to think I leaned my lesson of not judging people for how they look, because life has taught me