Crash Movie Evaluation
Multiculturalism
In the film Crash we are given a picture of all different kinds of social and multicultural differences, giving us an eye opening example of how these conducts and racisms affect our society. Two of the most obvious biases within the film are prejudice and stereotyping. These behaviors are viewed as thoughts and feelings that almost everyone has felt at some point.
In the first scene we meet a Muslim man, attempting to buy a gun. The store owner is a Caucasian male that has a negative attitude towards the customer because of his Muslim background. The owner’s stereotypical feelings set off negative attitudes because of the bad feelings he had about the Muslim race; being immediately associated with the Al Qaeda terrorist group of 9/11. The negative attitude and hostility observed in this particular scene, is an example of prejudice. Although it has always existed in humanity, most would assume it would have fizzled out by the 21st century because we are now better educated and informed in understanding that one group's actions should not be stereotyped to the entire race. Unfortunately in this film, it does the complete opposite and shows our “stereotyping by appearance” attitude.
Crash was made to intentionally show biased prejudices against minorities. Latinos are shown to be gang bangers; for example the depiction of Daniel the locksmith (); the wife of the D.A Jean Cabot (Sandra Bullock) insists on having the locks changed when Daniel leaves as she believes he is a (gang banger, with prison tattoos). Blacks either become gun-toting criminals as Anthony () and his side- kick Peter Waters () are depicted as or are righteous upper class characters such as Cameron (Terrance Howard.) Asians become greedy smugglers, and whites oversee this chaos with arrogance and bigotry. This is shown in the depiction of the two white police officers, Officer John Ryan () and Officer Tom Hansen (). A more current representation is shown in the character of Farhad (); Middle Easterners are depicted as stubborn, confused convenience store owners. Toub’s character may reflect the current Middle Eastern stereotype caused by the aftermath of 9/11. This current representation is revealed when we see Farhad shoot a gun at a small child, many other guns are raised by characters of ethnic origin, but Farhad who is mistaken for being “Iraqi” (when he is actually Persian) is the only character to attempt murder. The only character that I believe shows us a true alternative to race negativity is the character of Daniel (Michael Pena). Daniel is mistaken to be a gang member because of his appearance (having a shaved head and “prison tattoos”) but he the movie then shows him in a more positive light as a father who is working hard to provide and protect his wife and young daughter. The alternative stereotype of an African American is offered in “Crash” through the characters of Christine and Cameron. Educated, successful and well off African American citizens, however after an unwarranted police stop, Christine is enraged by her husband’s refusal to intervene when white cop Ryan takes frisking too far. She criticizes him for what she sees as a cowardly, he insists he acted the only way he could, that when a white man has power there is no way to win, so you do what you can to survive. This is a perfect example of the ‘White Privilege’ that we’ve discussed in class. This exploitation of African Americans at the hand of white people would imply that racism is mostly institutional; however the thought behind the movie suggests that discrimination and racist attitudes are down to the people who enable it; for example Officer Ryan verbally abuses Shaniqua (Loretta Devine); a black case manager at an insurance company. She takes Ryan’s racism with dignity as he unloads his frustration with the insurance company’s rules about his father’s care onto her. She seems to be a more reasonable character in the film. However this is short lived, in a key point at the end of the film. Shaniqua has a car crash were an Asian woman rear-ends Shaniqua’s car. She then emerges from her car shouting “don’t talk to me unless you speak American.”
