A Crash Course on Racism and Contemporary Society Essay

When you see the news program crash, it always summons to mind an unfortunate event that has to deal with vehicles. soulfulness even told me that it is prohibited to say this word when you argon boarded on an plane because you might cause panic among an early(a) passengers. Planes, cars and even computers crash. smash-up essenti ally means collision. Similarly, the title of Paul Haggis recent movie is Crash (2005). However, viewing audience will see not only when collisions involving cars, moreover collisions involving race, culture and classes.The movie Crash tackles the cross-cultural panorama of Los Angeles urban life, involving people interconnected to to each one other in vestiges of crime, racism, corruption, obligation, indignation and chance over a two-day period. The storyline superimposes the complexity of the multifaceted narratives of their lives entwined under the numerous social and psychological issues ordinarily hidden inside the closet of the American cons ciousness. The Plot Crash or ClashThe story revolves around two cops, one senior and the other junior. The other jaded and abusive, the other one is a novice and willing to learn the ropes. These cops are played by Matt Dillon and Ryan Philippe respectively. One day, when they were delegate in their beat site, they pull over and eventually harass a d let(p) couple (Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton) because the SUV theyre driving vaguely fits the description of a carjacked vehicle that was reported.More complications swiftly supersede inside 24 hours, these lawsuits all cross paths again in separate incidents of incredibly high stress that challenge both the prejudices that have formed between them and the assumptions we draw bring out from their different perspectives about race and culture as a whole. It dark out that Christine (Thandie Newton) was surprised that she feels Sgt. Ryan (Matt Dillon), the racist cop who sexually molested her during a work stop the previou s night, the officer on the scene who pulls her from the burning car.To except intricately muddle the conflicts, characters encounter and reencounter one another in highly convenient ways. For example, a young African-American criminal Peter (Lanrez Tate) is murdered. Fortunately, he has a brother, Graham (Don Cheadle), an LAPD detective, who discovers Peters dead body in the desert. Prior to learning of his brothers death, Graham is thwarted by the district attorneys office into suppressing evidence that may partly absolve a white police officer charged with cleanup a black cop.Incidentally, the district attorney (Brendan Fraser) is looking for a assurance that would help him gather enough support from the black community, since he is seek to manage a potential media scandal. He and his wife (Sandra Bullock) were carjacked in Sherman Oaks by two young black men. Moreover, more table-turning events are revealed in the lives of the characters because positive carjackers is Pete r and his friend (Larenz Tate and rapper Ludacris).Surprisingly, the carjackers and their victims these four are, in turn, connected through other events to a young Hispanic locksmith (Michael Pena) desperately trying to put up a better life for his 5-year-old daughter after moving out of a crime-ridden neighborhood, and to a struggling Iranian shopkeeper (Shaun Toub) desperately seeking to lay blame for the vandalization of his convenience store, and to a pair of internal personal matters detectives (Don Cheadle and Jennifer Esposito), whose lives and jobs are complicated by politics, tested principles and personal secrets.As convey involves various crashes and clashes, forcefully it does not just invoke commonly tired racially charged confrontations found in some films, but it roughly subliminally show incidents how passive prejudice and pre-conceived notions are often prevalent in childlike day-to-day life. Thus, people could just collide and all these complications happe n within a blink of an eye, unaware that they are villains and victims all at the similar time of the milieu they are placed in.Although the dominant illusion that Crash could perpetuate among its viewers about its own narrative is that each character does something virtuous in one situation, and something unconscionably racist in another. Entirely, this is not the case because some characters could be deemed as purely good people. The Latino locksmith Daniel exists but to incur racist threats and insults from other characters, then to belie their opinions through his mathematical function as the most upstanding of family men.Unfortunately, other characters display no redeem traits, like the DAs wife, Jean Cabot (Bullock) is depicted as a self-involved rich and uptight woman who is there to speak the unutterable truth when justifying her fear of black men. Eventually, she stops just short of affair Daniel a wetback, and undergoes a quite insincere transformation that resulted from her inability to realize that her housekeeper Maria (Yomi Perry) is nice to her when she fell down some steps and fractured her leg, and zero else has given her sympathy. She had no choice, but be nice to the person who helped her (Sicinski, 2005).Craig Detweiler (December, 2005) analyze that Haggis portrays the film as a depiction a fine interconnectedness of realistic portrait of pertinent issues with a subliminal touch of magical realism. The movie offers a range of familiar types, attempting to prick his viewers consciences without world overbearingly preachy or nearly jingoistic. As the film kicks off, tempers are already surging as invectives and epithets are blurted out without batting an eyelash. Prejudices are looking for confirmation. I am angiy all the time, and I dont know why, laments a frustrated housewife.The first half of the film whips up the melting pot of complications, with racist assumptions spilling out of the characters ears. Viewers relish a platter of racism and crime, seasoned with sexual harassment, a broken health-care form and the purchase of firearms. In the softer second half, Detweiler explains that the isolated moments suggest a contingency of redemption for the characters. A motorist hassled by the cops for driving while black turns out to be a conflict-avoiding Buddhist for Christs sake. moreover that doesnt dissuade the police from violating his humanity and that of his wife.A statue of St. Christopher shows up at surprising times, but it last-ditchly proves ineffectual. A protective icon inspires a random act of violence. As Christmas unfolds in the movie, we see images of the nativity that could only summon unrealized prayers for peace on earth (Detweiler, 2005). Circumscribing the circle that goes around the films plot, a realization could smack its viewers that in the small world we are living in, we are connected to each other, like it or not. Conclusion Racism is a topic well-tackled among discussions.We are aware that it is generally loathed by people and we heard calls of putting a stop to it. We have seen the fall of Apartheid, we have seen those protests voicing out equality, but people still commit racism unconsciously as they encounter each other in their daily lives. Is prejudice primarily a question of color? How do differences of language and culture play into our misunderstandings? What must be done to bridge understanding and permanently inculcate the dreadful face of prejudice regarding our differences? The film Crash does not present the ultimate panacea to racism and prejudice.But certainly, it is a mirror of what American nightclub has be deal. It is presenting a consciousness about the interconnectedness of people and the situations that made them come up with their own realizations. Thus, the film invites its viewers to come up with their own realizations about the contemporary cross-section of American society and provide a space about perspectives on how to dea l with their own prejudices. Works Cited Detweiler, Craig. pagan Collisions. Sojourners Magazine. Washington, (December 2005), 34 (11) 45-46. Sicinski, Michael. Crash, Film Review. Cineaste. New York, (Fall 2005), 30 (4) 51-54.