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What Is The Theme Of The Movie Crash

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The 2004 film Crash, directed by Paul Haggis, brings to the forefront of the audience’s mind the prevalence and harmfulness of racial discrimination and xenophobia. The movie’s screenplay was written by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco. The movie seeks to condemn the common use of racial stereotyping, racial discrimination, and xenophobia within society. Every piece of the movie works towards the end goal of showing the true horrors that these actions inflict. Although it may not seem so at first since the movie is not a documentary or based in true events, Crash does in fact appeal to ethos to support its theme. The characters in the movie, despite being fictitious, are depicted to be credible sources for conveying the theme because they are …show more content…

The audience is taken on an emotional rollercoaster exhibiting the horrifying effects of discrimination. Some scenes that especially evoke this emotional reaction include but are not limited to the scene where Sgt. Ryan (Matt Dillon) molests Christine Thayer (Thandie Newton), when it is presumed that Farhad (Shaun Taub) has shot and killed Lara (Ashlyn Sanchez), and when Mrs. Waters (Beverly Todd) is brought to identify the corpse of her young son (Larenz Tate). These scenes are well played out and successfully evoke an emotional response in the audience. When Sgt. Ryan has his hands on Christine’s leg, an audience member can almost feel the fear and shame going through Christine’s mind at the time. I observed that as our class viewed the scene where it was believed that Lara had been shot and killed, many students began crying along with Lara’s parents and Farhad. I myself found tears in my eyes seeing Mrs. Waters identifying her dead son, who had been shot because his race made Officer Hanson (Ryan Phillippe) believe he was drawing a gun when he reached into his pocket. Seeing how she broke down, realizing that her precious son was gone and would never return, brought to the forefront of my mind the horrible effects that can result from …show more content…

It connects the end to the beginning by including a car crash followed by racial slurs for both events. This connectivity of ideas ties the entire movie together and helps the audience to truly appreciate the message being carried. In movies today, problems are often sugar coated with happy endings that may or may not happen in real life. If such a method had been used for Crash, then it would have ended with Anthony (Ludacris) releasing the Cambodian ex-slaves. A sugar coated ending also would not likely have included Anthony still referring to the Cambodians as “Chinamen.” However, Crash was not made to sugar coat reality or put happy endings where they would not realistically occur. The movie ends with confirmation that although there are people out there who respect human life, racism is still a rampant problem in today’s

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