Ethical Dilemmas In The Movie Crash

Crash, The Ethical Dilemma

The motion picture, Crash (2004), is a multi-themed and multi-story based film that seamlessly illustrates ethical and moral issues. Additionally, it is a film taking place post-September 11th, 2001 in Los Angeles, California. It follows the identity journey of several characters who are in some way affected by prejudices. Director, Paul Haggis, maps together each character’s morality to reveal ethical and moral issues that span across all races, occupations, and walks of life, as some characters use their race as a reason to do illegal things, while others use their race as privilege over culturally diverse people. Although the entire duration of the film takes place within one city, Haggis (2004), pieces together

Each character acts out of what will bring the best outcome for what they care about. Even though each hold to something different as personal importance. Williams and Arrigo (2012) point out that “all varieties of consequentialism ethics ultimately raise questions about the relationship between ends and means used to achieve those ends” (p. 159). Each main character, despite the ethical challenges they faced and fell to, embodied this idea of doing “tremendous good by committing some minor bad” (p. 35), yet it does not always have to be seen as a tremendous good, it can also be bad. Furthermore, Williams and Arrigo (2012) point out that the focusing on good and bad consequences of actions will determine “what course of action will produce the best consequences for all affected by the decision” (p. 37). Throughout Crash (2004), many characters prove this revealing theory of consequentialism. For example, Daniel, the locksmith works at any hour, even after tucking his daughter into bed, to be able to move houses so she can be safe. Even the Cameron, the film director, chooses to ignore sexual assault of wife because he could face arrest from the angry police officer and be in the news and even listens to film producer of his show about the racist tone of one of his characters in order to keep his job.

However, throughout the film there are points where a character’s morality and ethical foundation are stronger than most. Analyzing themes, main characters, ethical characters, and ethics based theories attempts to bring to light the importance of Crash (2004) and its timeless role in society, where many individuals face ethical and moral challenges every day. This multi-themed and multi-story film seeks to map together each character’s morality to reveal ethical and moral issues that span across all races, occupations, and walks of life in an attempt to appeal to the viewer and create thought-provoking reactions towards each character’s