Stereotypes In The Movie Crash

The film “Crash,” directed by Paul Higgins, takes place over two days, following a handful of intertwined lives, all with their own stories, in Los Angeles where racial tensions are high. These tensions hold true with the theme of the film and give way to criminology theories.

Although the film has many themes, the most prevalent is that of racism and stereotyping. Racism is the discrimination again someone because of their race, in the belief that one’s own race is superior. Stereotyping, which can also be racist, is have an oversimplified image of a particular type of person. For example, Jean, a white woman, noticed Peter and Anthony, two black boys, walking towards her and her husband on the sidewalk and grabbed his arm. This is stereotyping because she grouped

Anthony, who recognized that she probably felt threatened, acted on a self-fulfilling prophecy, acting in a way that would actually cause her to be scared, and pulled a gun on the couple. Jean later admits to her husband that she did not feel safe when she saw the two boys but did not say anything because she knew it would make her look racists for being afraid. There are an abundance of other examples of stereotyping and labeling during the film. In one scene, the District Attorney of Los Angeles, a white man, while searching for an African American hero to help boost his ground with the community, mistakes an Iraqi man for black man; He mislabels the individual saying, “He’s Iraqi? Well, he looks black.” The D.A. oversimplified everyone of color, or of a seemingly different race, as African American with little respect to other races not his own. In another scene, a detective refers to his lover as