The opening scene of the film Crash, sets the stage for microaggressions with a microassault. Microassaults are blatant verbal, nonverbal, or environmental attack intended to convey discriminatory and biased sentiments (Sue, 2016). Individuals will engage in these overt behaviors when there is some degree of anonymity, they are in the presence of others who share similar beliefs, or they lose control of themselves (Sue, 2016). In the opening scene, Maria is involved in a car accident where she is rear-ended by a woman of Asian descent (Kim Lee). The police instruct Maria to remain in her vehicle while the officer interviews the other driver, but Maria ignores instructions and engages in a verbal altercation with the other driver. During this …show more content…
They both were reacting so strongly to a minor accident. They both were yelling racist comments at one another, and I did not understand why the officers were allowing them to continue to scream these things. I also wanted to yell at both the women to stop being immature and realize it was an honest mistake. Later on when I found out Kim Lee was going to see her husband in the hospital, I was even more frustrated with Maria’s reaction to the distraught woman. Maria was a cop, she should not have reacted in such a manner to the accident and Kim Lee. They both should have apologized and admitted to being in the wrong and behaved like civil adults, especially because the reason for the long line of cars was due to a body of a young man being found. I was just frustrated with both the characters for behaving in such a manner; they are women of color, they should be empowering each other and not tearing one another down. I was also very annoyed with the officers who were just treating the situation as women being overly emotional, and not interrupting upon the racist comments. The whole scene just made me frustrated because the women were not taking the time to calm down and assess the situation, they were just
The word microaggression is a term used to describe the insults, brush offs, and slights directed at a person or particular group of people either because of their sex, age, race, gender, and/or their sexuality, particularly those marginalized by society.
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.
Self-concept is an idea based on the beliefs someone has about themselves and the responses of others. Two characters that displayed poor self-concept in the movie were Anthony played as Ludacris, and Christine Thayer played as Thandie Newton. Anthony is an African-American male living in a city where he is surrounded by many people of another race. Because he is one of the only African-American males seen in the city, he is perceived as dangerous by other races. In one of the scenes of the film, Anthony was walking down the street with another African-American male and passed by a white couple. As the white couple passed by Anthony and his friend, the white woman clinched her husband in fear. After seeing this response, Anthony expressed
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" tells interlocking stories of whites, blacks, Latinos, Koreans, Iranians, cops and criminals, the rich and the poor, the powerful and powerless, all defined in one way or another by racism. All are victims of it, and all are guilty of it. Sometimes, yes, they rise above it, although it is never that simple. Their negative impulses may be instinctive, their positive impulses may be dangerous, and who knows what the other person is thinking? The result is a movie of intense fascination; we understand quickly enough who the characters are and what their lives are like, but we have no idea how they will behave, because so much depends on accident.
In the film Crash, a voice over says: “We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into one another just to feel something.” Crash is a mirror and reflection of who we are as individuals. There are many tasks we each have to do in our daily lives, and we encounter many people without realizing that we are connected. The results of these social interactions are often with violence, racial discrimination, and power struggles. We begin to judge people on their common appearances and begin to group them. Stereotyping and the misperception of people create these conflicts and ruins our society today, just like a car crash.
Racism, prejudice, stereotypes, discrimination, these are just a few of the topics that the movie Crash touches on. This film was well written and shows an honest depiction of the racial and social tensions that we face every day. However, the film shows us that no matter who you are, we all have some type of stereotype ingrained into us and it is not one group of people that believe in the stereotypes of others.
"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.
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 movie can also be seen with the conflict theory that affects and changes the social life and behavior of a person. (Henslin 18). Conflict theory is the theory which states that “the society is composed of groups that compete with one another for scarce resources” (Henslin 18). Henslin states that conflict arises more likely in the people who are more attached with one another (Henslin 18). In this movie, when Greg sneaks out of the motel with Rodrick to go to the gaming expo, Susan becomes mad at them.
In movie "Crash" it's about a large mixture of people of different race in Los Angeles, California and also how people all intermix with one in another. In the film Crash there are many characters that starts to change their strategy throughout the film. However, there was one character in the movie that has changed the most that was Sandra Bullock who played Jean Cabot.
In Crash, we could see a practice of non-linear editing. „This is how meaning circulates […] since every change causes a chain of local events leading to another […] The narrative of Crash is a weaving together of random incidents, instead of a linear chain of cause and effect" (Laine, 2007:36, 37-38). In my opinion, this statement is half true. Actually, the literal structure of cause and effect is not ceased just because we split the events in the movie. We always see the cause first then the effect. What the filmmaker does is that he splits or breaks these parts into pieces and fills the gaps with another action (which are parts of other causes or effects of course).
We crash constantly. We crash into the cultures and lives of those that surround us in our society. We judge because we do not know or unwilling to understand the differences that surround us. The director wants the audience to make an unfair judgment on Officer Ryan because of he inappropriately searches Christine, however, as the movie progresses our judgments crashes as we begin to identify with Officer Ryan. When Graham states ?We are always behind metal and glass,? it is not the metal and glass we are behind, but the fear of understanding and trusting someone that is different from us. This fear is where our preconceived notions and racist habits come from. It is the fear of trusting that in which can cause us to crash.
Stereotypes have negatively affected people globally for hundreds of years. They are to be both hurtful and incorrect despite the few that may subscribe to them. Movies such as “Crash” portray these stereotypes and try to educate on their inconsistences and the harm they cause. However, they still exist in the lives of real people, making them a growing problem in today 's society.