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More handpicked essays just for you.
Cinema as a medium of mass communication
Cinema in our society
Cinema as a medium of mass communication
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Although I have watched the movie, Crash, many times, I had never looked at it through a sociological perspective. It blew my mind how much you can relate this movie to sociology, but also the more I got to thinking about it, the more it seemed to make sense. Everywhere I looked I found someway to connect this movie to some sort of sociological term, which I thought was pretty cool.
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
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One of them was racist and would use his authority to exploit minorities. During a traffic stop, the movie director and his wife were pulled over for allegedly performing felatio on her husband. During this stop, the racist cop thought they were drunk, so they were taken out of the car. During the pat down of the wife, the racist cop sexually assaults his wife reaching his hand up her cocktail dress. The director did not say anything when the officer felt up his wife because he was worried about his social role. Social role is a set of expectations for a certain group or type of person. In this case, he was a director and worried that his social role may be tarnished if he were to argue with this police officer. We saw that later in the scene he and his wife began to argue because of …show more content…
Later on in the movie she has her locks changed and the guy that changes them is a Spanish guy. She ends up accusing him of selling her spare keys to fellow gang members because he dressed similar and looked like the people who robbed her, she is stereotyping this man. Stereotyping is assuming that all members of a group are going to act and be the same. She fails to realize that his exterior does not reflect who he truly is. He is a hardworking father trying to make a living to keep his family safe in a world that is working against
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.
Throughout history, mankind has changed and been influenced by the acts of one another. Sociologists have studied the behaviors of humans and they have coined numerous terms, theories, and principles to try and describe why humans behave the way they do. In the movie West Side Story numerous sociological terms are depicted, such as labeling theory, social norms, formal and informal sanctions, and the results of what governs groups within society when all else fails.
In the world of sociology and the studies of human interaction, the term intersectionality has been defined as, “the idea that various biological, social, and cultural categories – including gender, race, class, and ethnicity – interact and contribute towards systematic social inequality” (“Definition of Intersectionality – Sociology”). However, as Dr. White defined the term on the Spring 2014 Final Writing Assignment sheet, these categories that make up one’s identity can “intersect or interact in ways that can either advantage or disadvantage the person’s well-being and development” (White). In regards to the text, David M. Newman’s Identities & Inequalities: Exploring the Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality, Newman progressively explores the concept of intersectionality throughout the entirety of the text, but he does not ever actually define the term itself. Although an exact, clear-cut definition of the term “intersectionality” has not been officially established, the concept of the term is fairly simple to understand. Every person has different social identities that they carry to their name. Intersectionality is simply an analysis of how those different identities play off of each other and how they affect the person they are describing.
Officer Ryan is a white bigoted police officer who has a clear hatred of African Americans. The scene depicts Office Ryan pulling over a vehicle, because it looks like one that was reported stolen. However, after running the plates, he knows the vehicle is not stolen, but using his Legitimate Power, he pulls the vehicle over anyway. Like most power, legitimate power is based upon perception and reality, and the ability to influence others based on their status, and the right to comply. However, once the stop is initiated, he then engages in Coercive Power, and sexually assaults the female passenger, Christine Thayer, as her husband, Cameron Thayer, watches helplessly. Ryan hatred of blacks is so intense that he does even care that he has just committed a crime in front of his partner, a partner who knows that he has just crossed the line. Officer Ryan has no respect for blacks, and used racial profiling as a means of pulling over and harassing the couple. When a person with authority uses their position to force someone to comply with what they want, by using acts of threats and intimation is coercive power.
Crash is a good movie that portrays all the racism and stereotyping that people and communities are facing. There are more issues than what I found during the movie but I will talk about the ones that stood out to me. One thing amazing about the movie is how the story develops and how all the stories tie into one another. Crash evokes the "racial" problem that faces the United States because of its diversity that should be an advantage but in general, it is not often the case. It often does not work as expected because of stereotype, discrimination and racism that face different minority communities. Whether emotion, terror and rage, Crash depicts the brutal realism of cynicism, or the American collective fantasy into force of a dominant race.
What is sociological imagination? Our textbook describes sociological imagination as the ability to see our private experiences, personal difficulties, and achievements as, in part, a reflection of the structural arrangements of society and the times in which we live. The movie entitled Forrest Gump is a great example of sociological imagination. In this paper, I will cite examples from the movie and tell how they correlate with sociological imagination. Sociological imagination allows us examine the events of our lives and see how they intersect with the wider context of history and tradition of the society in which we live. (Hughes/Kroehler, The Core, p. 7)
The movie I watched was Brokeback Mountain. It was released in 2005 and produced in the United States. The movie is 134 minutes long. The screenwriter for Brokeback Mountain was Larry McMurty and the Director of the film was Ang Lee. The movie stars Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar opposite Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist. Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams play their wives Lureen and Alma respectively.
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.
Before the civil rights movement could begin, a few courageous individuals had to guide the way. Dr. Vernon Johns was one of those individuals. Dr. Vernon Johns was a pastor and civil rights activist in the 1920s. Johns became the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in the late 1940s. During his time as a pastor, Johns preached many sermons on how African American people were being treated not only in the community but in society. Johns on multiple occasions upset his community through his ideas on social change. Through a sociologist perspective, many sociological concepts were displayed in The Vernon Johns Story. Some of those concepts included: ascribed status, conflict theory, deviant behavior, alienation, and
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 Monopoly?
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.
The much praised and Oscar winning film Crash presents an uncompromising insight into what is considered to be a modern and sophisticated society. The film challenges viewers to examine the issues of race, gender and ethnicity and to which extent they plague society even now, thirteen years after it’s theatrical release.
In Crash, it was basically about characters judging individuals based on their ethnicity and their stereotypes. Especially the stereotype that African Americans have guns and are immoral people. One scene in the