Essay on Black Like Me and Crash

Paul Haggis directed an Oscar winning film in 2004 called “Crash”, this movie basically talks about racism and the impact it has on the lives of people in Los Angeles. This movie got a good response from the viewers, as it concentrated on some real harsh realities of racism and asked some hard questions which are generally avoided in movies. This movie clearly promotes the a very delicate issue, and hence requires some detailed assessment. I personally feel the movie was good and it portrayed some very common events of racism, I think “Crash” shows realities, but in a not-so-realistic way.

The much applauded and critically acclaimed film, “Crash” (2004) directed by Paul Haggis is a film which appears to want the viewers to observe themselves and their world inversely. This film presents a truthful representation of race relations, racial discrimination, and social and cultural tensions in modern American society. It shows the stereotypes and racial myths that still occur today and continue to create racism. The film presents the intricacy of the relationships between diverse social groups and about the effects of discrimination on the everyday life experiences of a number of people. More specifically, the movie touches on three different types of discrimination. First and foremost, it deals with racism. Next, it depicts

If you stop and sit on the curb, a police officer will pass and probably ask you what you’re doing. I have heard none of the Negroes speak of police harassment, but have warned me that any time the police see a Negro idling, especially one they do not recognize, they will surely question him.(pg.43)

Crash is a movie about race and stereotypes and its effects on the various people living in the Los Angeles area. The movie boost racial awareness and it requires close observation from the viewer. We see a variety of races including African American men and women, several Hispanics, a Middle Eastern family, and a few Asians. We see the ups and downs of each character and it helps us see where they are coming from, and potentially why they are racist against different people. It seems that we almost begin to feel sorry for the different characters regardless of what they are doing or how they are acting because of each of their circumstances.

Physical Characteristics and racial differences are distinguishing traits that keep people in our world apart from each other. Crash is a movie that showcases prejudice and racial stereotypes. The movie is set in Los Angeles which is a city with the cultural mix of almost every ethnicity. Crash is a perfect analogy of how the different people intersect with others in society. The movie crash shows differences between the lives of different people. It displays the interactions of several multiethnic groups such as African American, Caucasians, Asians, Latinos, and Arabs. All of the groups are striving to overcome their fears as they weave in and out of each other’s lives. They are all tied by an invisible chain of events, so the movie

The movie “Crash” tells complex stories of caucasian, african american, latinos, koreans, iranians, law enforcement, criminals, low and upper class in which all is characterized under racism within each group. Each race is guilty and are victims of racism. Throughout the movie, it portrays racism against other members of different races which results in repercussions of those perceptions. By stereotyping people, this causes people to be judged by their cover. Most people do not understand a person's culture, so they will be first to judge them based on what they have heard from outside sources.

The movie “Crash”, by Director and Writer Paul Haggis, follows 8 ethnically diverse families/ individuals facing the struggle of modern day racism and stereotypes created and faced in modern Los Angeles, California. These individuals take the roles of individuals living their daily lives within Los Angeles, California while facing stereotypes. The cast portrays: 2 caucasian white male police officers, an African American director and his wife, a white district attorney and his wife, a Persian immigrant family, and a Hispanic father whose occupation is a locksmith. The scene chosen from this film involves the police officers (Officer Ryan and Officer Hanson) pulling over the African American Director (Cameron Thayer) and his wife (Christine Thayer) at a traffic stop. This scene establishes two different types of theoretic sociological concepts of Thomas Theorem and cognitive dissonance.

Have you ever wondered what life is like in someone else's shoes? John Howard Griffin is walking in his own shoes as a different person, or so everyone thinks. In his novel Black Like Me John Howard Griffin changed the pigmentation of his skin to discover what life is like for an African American in the deep south of the United States. Not all of his discoveries are pleasant about how whites would treat Blacks, but some are completely astonishing.

Discrimination, racism, classism, prejudice and more plague today’s society. These horrible issues do not affect one race, sexes, class, ethnicity, or age group; these issues affect all races, both genders, all ethnicities, and all age groups. For this film analysis, I have chosen to discuss the racism portrayed throughout a three-time Oscar award winning movie called Crash.

After reading the book BLACK LIKE ME by John Howard Griffin. My eyes where open to the great injustice of the time and the general unknowing of the south and the rest of the nation. I will start at the back of the book.

The movie, Crash, demonstrates the lives of various individuals from divergent socio-economic classes, who have life changing experiences in between their conflicting prejudices and stereotypes. The theme of multiculturalism has also made its influence on the major characters of the movie: a white American district attorney and his wife who is constantly scared of "the other"; two African American thieves who steal their car, a racist police officer who offends an African American TV producer and harasses his wife, a non-racist police officer, a Latino lock maker, a Persian family and another African American detective in the search of his brother.

Throughout the movie showed a sociological concept known as ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the means that we judge other cultures by the standards of our own and that we also believe that our own culture is better than everyone else's. For example in the movie Graham and his Latina girlfriend fight and he pokes fun at her culture by calling her Mexican even though she isn't. Ultimately Graham was mock his Latina girlfriend, assuming the superiority of his own culture. Another example would be when Officer Ryan makes a joke about the name Shaniqua which is more of a known name from the African American culture. (The Movie Crash and the Concepts of Sociology - Yahoo Voices - voices.yahoo.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://voices.yahoo.com/the-movie-crash-concepts-sociology-437437.html). The movie also showed elements of Microaggression which is the idea that specific interactions between those of different races, cultures, or genders can be interpreted as small acts of mostly non-physical aggression; the term was coined by Chester M. Pierce[1] in 1970.In Crash the film director gave examples of subtle insults which would be him people telling him the film wasn’t black enough or the he advises him to tell the black characters to make his movie sound more “blacker”. These would be

In the film Crash (2004), the director’s use of internal conflict reveals that the main idea of the film, which is that some people stereotype others based on their skin color or countries of origin without knowing them, which is dangerous because it can lead to violence and unrest. Haggis, the director, uses the film to suggest that people should not judge anyone just because of their skin color or countries because it may cause people to hate each other.

One must never judge or discriminate a person based on their physical attributes. Prejudice and discrimination directed against someone of a different race is known as racism. It is evident in the movie “Crash” directed by Paul Haggis, that people misconceive others due to judgement on their physical traits. Throughout the movie, the characters living in Los Angeles face the challenges of fitting in a town populated by people of different colours. The offenders are the “white” people whereas the victims are everyone else. The presence of racism is the main cause of every conflict that occurs in the movie.

unflinching look at the complexities of racial tolerance in contemporary America. Diving headlong into the diverse melting pot of post-9/11 Los Angeles, this compelling urban drama tracks the volatile intersections of a multi-ethnic cast of characters' struggles to overcome their fears as they careen in and out of one another's lives. In the gray area between black and white, victim and aggressor, there are no easy answers. Funny, powerful, and always unpredictable, "Crash" boldly reminds us of the importance of tolerance as it ventures beyond color lines…and uncovers the truth of our shared humanity (plot synopsis from film's official site).