Two of the greatest stories told about the city of Los Angeles come from different art forms, but both tell just as equally thought-provoking tales. Twilight: Los Angeles, written and performed by Anna Deavere Smith, is a one woman play that recalls several interviews of LA community members that talk about their experiences during the 1992 Rodney King trial verdict. Crash, directed by Paul Haggis, is a story about racial tensions amongst citizens of Los Angeles. Although both stories tackle similar issues, they differ in terms of critical race theory, feminist views, and their narrative structures. One of the main topics of both stories involves racial tension within a community, focusing specifically on the tension between white and black Americans. Many of the people that Anna Smith interviewed had something to say about the race of Rodney King or how the white cops controlled the power of the city. With racial tensions boiling in the ghettos of Los Angeles between the white policemen and the black communities, violence became all too common in the community. By the 2000’s, the time setting for Crash, violence from the police became less prominent, but still evident. Every character in Crash had some sort of prejudice against another race in the city, including the white woman afraid of the minority man, the black couple afraid of the white cops, and the Middle Eastern man stereotyping the Hispanic man. Both Twilight: LA and Crash focus on race more than any other topic and neither would be such a deep story without this main theme. Another similarity in their themes of race and critical race theory happen to be which perspectives they include. Crash is a story that involves many different races and has the plot revolve ev... ... middle of paper ... ...er, but couldn’t be any more different because of the color of their skin or status in society. Both stories show the different perspectives of characters when it comes to race in their city, and are told in such a different way that the audience will definitely remember the story told to them. Crash and Twilight are two great pieces of art that may be separated by art forms, but tackle the same themes that society will continue to write about forever. Works Cited "Crash - A Sociological Analysis Of The Movie”. Hubpages.com. Web. 20 December 2013. Goyette, Tori. “White Power: An Analysis of Racial Tension in Crash”. Print. Haggis, Paul. Crash. Lionsgate, 2004. Film. Solberg, Muriel. “’Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?’ – Rodney King”. 27 May 2011. Print. Smith, Anna Deavere. Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc. 2003. Print.
Minneapolis: ABDO, 2014. Print. " Rodney King Beating. " Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society.
Living in the United States can be hard. People need to deal with racism, sexism, and any other kinds of abuse. Even today, racism, prejudice, and stereotyping still happen. There is no way of stopping it. Immigrants have the hardest time moving to a different country because they need to know the language and the culture the country has to offer. However, the language barrier concerns most immigrants and frightens people. In the movie Crash by Paul Haggis, it displays the clash of different ethnicity and their challenge in the world. People were stereotyped, sexually abused, and judged. In the book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman describes a Hmong family struggling to help with her medical problem, but the language barrier between the family and the hospital causes conflicts. America offers a great challenge to its people because of the vast diversity of ethnicities.
The Journey started out with the huge reality of black life from the bondage of slavery to the bondage racism, bigotry, and disrespect due to the cultural ideology of the black and white race. Then we back further to explore the cross-culture American Indian heritage and the new culture they had to conform to with the new Caucasian Americans. The Latino and Asian writers expressed the clashes between cultural heritage and American culture. I cannot say that any of the writers has changed my thoughts on cultural diversity because I have experienced some of the same struggles that their stories address throughout their characters. Their struggles depict, discrimination, being a minority within the majority, cultural values, traditions and life
Throughout, the documentary one can come to the conclusion that most of these African- Americans who live in this area are being judged as violent and bad people. However this is not the case, many of them are just normal people who are try...
The movie Crash examines the interpersonal communications that exists between different groups’ of people. In this film, characters are highlighted by the contact that occurs when disparate people are thrown together in large urban settings. Crash displays extreme instances of racism and shows how the thought, feeling, and behavior of individuals are influenced by actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings. My analysis will focus on Social Cognition and how people process, and apply information about other people and social situations.
Crash is a movie based over a day and a half in Los Angeles. It is an overview of a group desperate people 's lives overlapping as the deal with tense situations such as race and privilege that accompanies city life. One of the main characters is the white district attorney who uses his political prowess to step on other races; his wife who was recently carjacked
The movie Crash was directed by Paul Haggis is a powerful film that displays how race is still a sociological problem that affects one 's life. It also focuses on how we should not stereotype people based on their color because one may come out wrong in the end. Stereotyping is a major issue that is still happening in today 's society and seems to only be getting worse. This movie is a great way to see the daily life and struggle of other races and see how racism can happen to anyone, not just African Americans which seems to only be seen in the news and such.
In addressing the Los Angeles riot, Dr. West, wrote, “The riot of April 1992 was, neither a race riot, nor a class rebellion, rather, this monumental upheaval was a multiracial, trans-class, and largely male display of justified social rage.” These events were unfortunate, and attempts were made by ‘the powers that be’ to blame them on “the black underclass, the action of criminal hoodlums, or the political revolt of the oppressed urban masses miss the mark.” Instead, Dr. West attributed the cause to: economic decline, cultural decay, and political lethargy in American life. He stated, “Race was the visible catalyst, not the underlying cause.”
(125) Privilege is inclined to white males through every facet of our everyday that inconspicuously creates racism through classism. While Crash holds a very touching message on a personal level of human compassion, it unfortunately is also a perfect snapshot Aude Lorde's "'mythical norm,' which each one of us within our hearts knows 'that is not me.'" (178) This is otherwise known in America as "white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, christian and financially secure," where "the trappings of power reside..." (Lorde 178) So why all the fuss about a movie? It's just a film, and some would say that it's not meant to solve the America's issues with racism and classism. While this is true, it is dangerous for such a prevalent film like Crash, which won three Academy Awards including Best Picture in 2005 in addition to a slew of other accolades, to perpetuate that elusive, intangible type of oppression that we all live in, but some still deny. As Langston writes in Tired of Playing
Tension between the African Americans and Caucasians have been present in America since slavery. In the movie Crash (2004), race and culture are major themes that can be seen in the lives of the characters in the film. One character in particular, Cameron, a prestigious color vision director, displays the friction between two cultures. He belongs to the educated, upper class of the Los Angeles area. He is also an African American, yet he seems to have no ties with that class. He has a light-skinned wife, attends award shows, and it appears that his acquaintances are predominately white. When he and his wife, Christine, get pulled over by a racist cop, he experiences emotions of powerlessness and helplessness that he never knew he would experience due to his upbringing and place in society. Cameron goes through a radical transformation where he comes to grips with his background and how he fits into these two clashing cultures.
This quote refers to the diversity in Los Angeles and how people put up personal barriers and are hesitant to trust others. Crash is a movie that really gets people to look at their own prejudices and to the roots of their morality by showing the hidden racism and prejudices that are very present in our society and even in ourselves today.
"Crash" is a movie that exposes different kinds of social and multicultural differences, giving us a quick example of how these conducts affect our society. Two of the behaviors observed, are Prejudice and Stereotyping. Identified as the causes of where all the events eradicate.
Both novels demonstrate the characteristics of gender, race, and family relations. Black culture has endured through challenges as represented in these books. Both books present the struggle that individuals go through regarding slavery or society changing. They present diverse stories regarding things actually falling apart in both books.
The four white policemen who brutally beat Rodney King Jr., a black man, half to death for merely speeding is determined by the court¡¦s judgment, as officers performing their duty. Hate, to those particular jurors and judge, was not a valid concern. To them, the beating was not due to the officers¡¦ resentment for a black man, but because they were simply disciplining an offender of the law. To the minority groups, the court¡¦s ruling was outrageous.
In class we learned about the Los Angeles 1992 riot which was the overflowing point of civil anger from the suppressed minority in Los Angeles. With the anger over the October stock market crash, the police brutality that was routine in Los Angeles, social and racial injustices that were never righted, and the economic disenfranchisement of the minorities. All that was uncapped by the final verdict for the four white police officers as not guilty of the assault of motorist, Rodney King. Within hours, riots burst and a civil uprising was in motion.