Stereotypes In The Movie Crash

Angelica Salvador
Mrs. Hunter
English 121
12/16/15
Crash Analysis
In the film Crash, Writer and Director Paul Haggis intentionally portrays his characters as the typical ethnic stereotypes that are prevalent today: an upper-class white woman who is uneasy by the sight of two young Black kids, a Latino with a shaved head, tattoos who steals, a Persian man who could not speak much English, and Asian men/women who do not know how to drive or speak proper English. The dialog presented clearly provokes an uneasy feeling when hearing such absurd and racist words. Crash shows how people often exhibit racist behavior, even when defending themselves from racist behavior, causing collisions (both literally and figuratively). By examining the screenplay,

The film opens with a car crash that instantly becomes a racial and literal crash. Kim Lee, an Asian American, rear-ends a car driven by Ria, a Latina American, in which both end up accusing the latter for the crash. Kim Lee assumes that Ria is an illegal Mexican immigrant who is incompetent of driving and who should be deported, while Ria mocks Kim Lee’s dialect-influenced speech, classifying her as a foreigner. Once Ria gets out of her car, Kim Lee, the police officer and she are in a triangular grouping composition with Kim Lee in the middle facing the camera. Because Kim Lee is trying to defend herself against the police officer and Ria, this camera angle depicts the situation as two against one and the same for when Ria mocks Kim Lee’s accent against her accusations. This composition of the subjects is called triangular grouping in which three subjects are organized in an image to portray a certain feeling of stability, instability, or aggression. Clearly, there is much instability to the situation occurring. The film ends by demonstrating this continuous cycle. Shaniqua Johnson gets into a car crash with an Asian American who rear-ends her and does not speak English well. This ending brings the film full circle to the opening scene. Both situations invoke that those who do not speak English well are inferior to those who are American

Through Haggis’ depiction, people tend to put up this front to protect themselves when anxious or insecure, having a lack of self-esteem, and when frightened that racial opposites may jeopardize their place in society. In the film, Sandra Bullock’s character, Jean Cabot, is a prime example of this. Jean is portrayed as a prejudice and successful white woman. In one scene, Jean and her husband are walking down a street when they come across two African American men, Anthony and Peter. Automatically, she links her arm around her husband due to her blind fear. The competition of dominance is showed through the camera composition of the two sides. As Anthony and Pete are walking out of the restaurant, they come into the frame as a balanced two shot, showing they are both equal in dominance and are leveled with one another. At the same time, Jean and Rick Cabot are shot the same way, a balanced two shot, evening out the dominance. However, because of the similarity of the camera work, it depicts the personal struggle the two situations are battling with. Both see that they are in the right, fighting for the balance of their situation: black vs. white. In another scene where Jean pulls Rick aside to change the locks again after a Latino locksmith came to change the lock, Jean begins to feel patronized by her husband because he thinks she is overreacting. Throughout this scene, there are highlights