Prejudice In The Movie Crash

Luka Lokmer
The film "Crash" directed by Paul Haggis challenges the audience through the theme of prejudice, isolation and through the use of characters how the audience views them. The film is set in Los Angeles, and shows the confrontation of people 'crashing' into each other, due to their views and beliefs. Haggis shows this through cinematography, music, irony and through the use of characters. Haggis portrays the lives of every-day people who collide with each other because of their racial, gender and cultural differences. As well as the collisions the characters have with one another, Haggis shows the collisions and confrontations that they have with their own values and beliefs.
One of the primary scenes of he film shows a Persian
man named Farhad purchasing a gun in a gun store with his daughter. The audience is first challenged with the owner of the store, a Caucasian male. He shows an immediate negative attitude towards Farhad, due to his foreign ethnicity and minor language barrier. Through the use of dialogue and script, Haggis portrays the prejudice that the shop keeper feels to people who resemble a middle eastern ethnicity. "Yo Osama, play the jihad in your own time!" This scene immediately gives the audience an impression of the racial stereotyping that Haggis attempts to illustrate. Due to Farhad's physical characteristics, the shop keeper demands the security guard of the store to escort him outside As the close-up of the shop keepers face pans out, we are left with a perspective of Farhad himself, the victim of a national prejudice. Farhad has no affiliations with the Taliban or Iraq for that matter, but is made to feel racially marginalised for his middle-eastern decent. The owner expresses his prejudice further by shouting, "Yeah I'm ignorant? You're liberating my country, and I'm flying 747s into your mud huts and incinerating your friends?" Farhad is made to feel like the perpetrator of a crime he had nothing to do with, due to prejudice. The cross cutting in this scene challenges the audience's perception, demonstrating a sense of angst and intensity to the conflict between the two types of people, one being an average day-to-day American citizen, and the other being a racist. I feel as that because this film is directed in 2005, four years after the infamous September 11 attacks on th twin towers, Haggis tries to portray the strong prejudice felt by the middle-eastern population of America, this further challenging society in the sense of every-day communication. Throughout the film, Haggis shows a motif of character 'clashes, which are caused by their fears of the very confrontation that they have with one another. The shopkeeper feels angered about terrorism in America, so he pins his irritation onto Farhad, someone who looks like the guys he saw on TV who committed the crimes against his country. Haggis shows how this prejudice; this form of preconceived opinion provides society with a false sense of judgement about people. "When did Persian become Arab?"
The theme of isolation also challenges the audience in this film.
As Anthony and Peter walk down a busy city street in LA, Anythony feels as if his race has caused him to be unfairly treated in society. A medium shot shows Jean with her husband Rick, walking up the same street as Anthony and Peter. "Wait wait, you see what that woman just did?" "What? She got cold?" "She got a lot colder when she saw us!" Anthony points this out as Jean grabs Rick's hand whilst walking up the street. Haggis shows how Anthony feels about isolation, mainly through the use of dialogue, "Look around. You couldn't find a whiter, safer or better lit part of this city. But when this white woman sees two black guys, who look like UCLA students, strolling down the side-walk and her blind reaction is fear! I mean look at us. Are we dressed like gangbangers? Huh? No. Do we look threatening? No. Fact, if anybody should be scared around here it should be us. We're the only two black faces in a sea of over-caffinated white people, patrolled by the trigger-happy LAPD. So you tell me, why aren't we scared?" This is a bold statement from Anthony, before Haggis uses irony to challenge us by revealing them as the actual "gang bangers" The scene is filmed from a mid-shot, showing the two together in an idle position. This shot shows the duo physically isolated, whilst Anthony preaches his belief. Anthony believes that him, and his race are isolated in society. The use of costume is also shown as a technique
because Anthony mentions his clothes being ordinary, but suggests that his race is the reason for his isolation. Anthony has a habit of comparing himself to normal law-abiding citizens, in a way that almost confines him within his forsaken stereotype, suggesting that he has no other option apart from crime, leaving him marginalised in some aspect. Consequentially, Anthony feels as though it's not his fault for his criminal occupation. When he meets Cameron, he instantly clashes with his morals and personality. I feel as if though Anthony saw something in Cameron and truly looked past his own race, which was becoming his mental-barrier to becoming a part of law-abiding society. "You embarrass me" Cameron said to Anthony after their conflict. The audience is challenged because although they both come from the same race, Anthony blames society to justify his actions whereas Cameron blames his actions to justify society. We see this in Cameron when he is told to re-shoot a scene for his T.V. show but to make it 'more black'. I feel as though Haggis attempts to further illustrate how society's views on people can confine them, demonstrated by Anthony's views of his position in society.
Another way that Haggis challenges the audience is through the way he makes the viewers see the character.
In some instances, Haggis makes the audience judge the character from a different perspective. In most films, you can clearly distinguish between the "good" and "bad" guys. Haggis interprets this but makes the viewer judge the characters personality before defining their intentions. For example, Officer Ryan has a prejudice against African-American people. He pulls over a black couple while on patrol, as they were returning from an awards show. The scene is done through mostly close-ups, intensifying the event due to it's up-close-and-personal nature. Ryan immediately has a negative attitude towards the couple. He begins a frisk search on unreasonable alligations, in order to find 'weapons'. In order to cause conflict, Officer Ryan is illustrated in close-up shots intimately harassing Christine. The shots are taken in the perspective of Cameron, who watched the incident hesitantly but remained collected due to his calm persona. The scene shows the hostility in Officer Ryan's personality, as Christine was obviously discomforted by his actions shown through dialogue, "Get your filthy fucking hands off me, you pig!" The close-ups of Christine's face challenge the audience as her discomfort is accepted so easily by both her husband and the police officer that was enforcing it. It is the audience's first proper interaction with Officer Ryan, and he presents himself as an
officer who abuses his power on a racial front. The audience's judgements are then challenged when faced with the upside-down gasoline soaked car that is about to detonate with Christine inside. Officer Ryan was the only person who could have done something to prevent her from dying, and he risked his life during the process. Haggis uses an ambient music track that is seen throughout the film at the pinnacle of conflicts/character crashes during this scene. It shows the moment where humans don't look at each other through the facade of race or culture, but looks at each other as humans that need one another. The audience is then faced with a different side of Officer Ryan, a calm human that is prepared to risk his life to save the people that he previously treated unlawfully. "I need to each across your lap to unbuckle your seatbelt, can I do that please?" He asks Christine politely. The audience is challenged by Ryan because they judged him previously on his detrimental behavior, but through the course of being in a near-death experience, we see Officer Ryan break the boundaries of racial prejudice and instead do something a good human-being would do.
To conclude, the film Crash revolves around the isolation, prejudice and cruelty that people deal with on a daily routine. The fear of strangers defies the characters and effectively leaves the audience confronted as well. Haggis attempts to give people a reason to have more sympathy for people not like themselves. All the characters in Crash may be superficially different, but we learn that they have similar fears and hopes, which challenge and in some cases relate to us.