Introduction
The following paper is a film review of the film “The Crash” that was produced and directed by Paul Haggis. The film depicted the social stratification in terms of racial discrimination, Social Tension, Insecurity and Globalization in Los Angeles and California. The movie is inspired by a real life experience which involved an incident in which his Porsche was carjacked of him.
The movie revolves around the life of a Black LAPD detective Waters, who is responsible for conducting security patrols around the city (Los Angeles), in the same city there are a lot of criminal activities that range from Racial Discrimination, Car Jacking, Sexual Molestation and Incidence of Mugging and Robbing that is spread all over the city, these are some of the reasons that have made it difficult for the police officers to maintain law and order in the society (Haggis, 2004).
In the film there are different incidents of killings and hijacking that have made it difficult for the detectives to conduct their activities peacefully, this is as a result of the increased cases of social injustices and racial discrimination that has prevailed in the society, this is as a result of the citizens and the police having hate between themselves thus making it difficult for the process of peace in the town to be maintained in the society and this resulting to the our right incidents of racial discrimination, stereotype and prejudice that is portrayed openly amongst the society in the movie thus exposing the social injustice in America.
The themes ported in the movie
Incidents of cultural differences is well expressed in the movie Crash, it is noted that the director chose the name Crash as a form of symbolism which didn’t only mean the Crashing of cars in the society but it also symbolically meant the crashing of the cultural ideologies and believes of the cast (Haggis, 2004). This is where each of the actor /actresses had as dilemma that tended to affect the ways they were reacting with one another in the society.
Cultural differences were mostly experienced in the movie “Crash” this is when the deferent characters in the movie were strongly / openly against the other characters culture, this is openly expressed just in the beginning of the movie, this is when there is an accident occurred involving a the detectives car and another character Kim Lee, Whites partner who is Mexican, Waters being a Afro-American and Kim being an Asian are all from different cultural background and the car crash is seen as the reason that will openly resurrect the incident of cultural crashing this is openly seen when Ria and Kim exchange insults at each other, instead of apologizing to each other and thus ensure that the satiation is solved in order to make peace with each other thus reducing the cases of animosity as a result of their cultural indifferent (Haggis, 2004).
The movie has also indicated that there are several other incidences of cultural differences this is when there is a car jack which involves two young men carjacking two whites including a district attorney and his wife Jean they are rescued by the people that consist of Ria and Waters, thus killing one of them instantly and critically injuring the other one thus showing that the blacks are the ones that are most likely to be involved in the criminal activities in American streets, as was said by Jean in the movie this is when said was telling her husband in their house that she was nervous of the black men and couldn’t say it in public as she never wanted to be seen as a racist, this is a clear indication that the waters society still looks down against the black police officers and instead that would not like to be offered any services by the Black Police Officers (Haggis, 2004).
The other theme is the theme of racial discrimination this means the associating of a given group of people with a given characteristic, thus the movie has totally associated the Afro Americans with negative aspects such as the use of drugs, drug trafficking, poverty, robbery with violence, car hijacking amongst other social injustices, this is clearly depicted in the movie this is when the movie starts with a conflict that involved a black man in it (Haggis, 2004). In other cases in the movie, there is a complain that is seen from the dialogue between two young carjackers that is Antony and Peter, this is when Antony is complaining of how the Whites in the society are treated in a very fair way that aims at giving a them better services that will ensure that they are better as compared to the Afro Americans.
The movie also stereotypes as criminals in that they are involved criminal activities that included drug trafficking, and other violent activities, in the movie it emerges that Antony is the blood brother of detective Waters and he is supposed to protect him from the arms of the law this is what his mother had asked him to do but by accident he was killed in the process of conducting his car jacking activity.
Poverty is also used to draw the difference between the whites and the blacks in the society, this is when detective Waters went to visit his mother and see how she is doing the movie portrays to us that the mother of the detective is very poor and is engulfed in the use of drugs, this is because she is enslaved in the use of drugs and is very poor to afford any meal this is when Detective Waters noticed the emptiness of the shelf and the lack of food in the house and would allow Ria accompany him to see his mother because he was embraced of the situation in which his mother was in, and when he was asked by Ria if his mother was around he reapplied that she isn’t in the house this was as a way of disguising himself from any further questions about his family from Ria (Haggis, 2004).
The other incidence include the physical molesting the Blacks who poses high class products this is because they believe that the Blacks are dealing in drugs or any other illegal trade this is when the two policemen John Ryan and Tom Hansen stopped Cameron and Christine, who were black from their car in order to conduct a search on their car and confirm if they had any illegal thing thus when Christine became resistant she was sexually assaulted by the Ryan, this is because she was a black woman and thus the judicial system will not be able to hold her allegations seriously (Haggis, 2004). Another incidence is when Cameron was confronted by car jackets and tried to resist their attempts this resulted a confrontation between the police and Cameron who thought that he was involved in an activity that was against the law.
In conclusion it has become clear that the society that we live in today is in a state of division as a result of the ideological differences between the individuals, this will definitely result to the prevailing differences in attitudes that is portrayed in the movie crash and these differences will result to the crash in the relationship between the different individuals who will be suggesting that there are different ways of ensuring there is respect amongst each other in the society.
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