The Film "Crash"

Crash: Illustrations of Racial Issues
Have you watched the film Crash directed by Paul Haggis? It is a marvelous film which consists of sensational and emotional realistic scenes, and was played by professional actors. Moreover, it is directed by a well-known writer whose works have won several Academy awards, and Crash is one of them. In this film, Haggis tends to represent major issues that occurred in a city of diversity by exposing different kinds of social and multicultural differences. The title of this film Crash, which also means collide or clash, gives me an idea about the theme of this movie. It is so ironic that there are scenes of car crashes at the beginning and middle of the movie, yet this movie is more about collisions of different culture. The interaction between strangers often results in chaos, hatred, fear, and as well as sympathy and understanding between one another. Throughout the movie, we can see several racial discriminations and acknowledgements of different races.
Los Angeles, a big city where people from all over the world meet, gather, cooperate and unite with each other. Representatives groups include Asians, Caucasians, and Africans. In order to have a peaceful life, they need to be able to accept and tolerate each other differences. For instance, they might be different in their physical appearances, beliefs, social classes, or even opinions. However, it is not an easy thing to deal with as it often results in discrimination. Therefore, Haggis chose Los Angeles as the city of where his film took place. The film ‘Crash’ successfully portrays contemporary racial issues based on the power of its emotion, and the realism of its situations, characters, and dialogue. It indeed acts as an eye opener to the unnoticed problem of the society racial discriminations. Each character in this movie is dramatically interrelated with one another in many ways and events.
It all started from the scene of two young African-American’s, Tate and Ludacris, came out from a restaurant complaining and arguing about how others are being racist towards black people. Sometimes even the black people themselves are being prejudice with their own race. It was implied in their conversation, “Do you notice that the waiter just now was black?” and “Black women don’t think it stereotype?” They said so because the waiter is a black woman, yet she treated them unequally. Both Tate and Ludacris were the only black customers there, and for that reason they need to wait for an hour and thirty two minutes just for a plate of spaghetti. Moreover, they say that the moment the waiter saw them it is in her mind that Tate and Ludacris are black, and black people don’t tip. Nevertheless, it is not true that all African’s people never give tip, whereas Caucasian’s people always give tip. Nevertheless, at the end Tate and Ludacris didn’t tip the waiter. We do realize that these kinds of situations often occur around us. African people are most likely to be treated unequally and terribly by the others. Furthermore, in this scene the waiter was being prejudice as she treats the white costumer on top of the black. Similarly, Tate and Ludacris are being prejudice too, as they made their own assumption about the waiter thoughts.
After the prejudices scenes between African’s people with their own kind, it moves on to the scene when Tate and Ludacris met Sandra Bullock and her husband. The moment Sandra Bullock saw them, her facial expressions, gestures and vocal expressions changed straightaway. She also hold onto her husband’s arm tightly which obviously show the feeling of being cautious, feared and need to be protected. That one glance of hers’ at the two young African guys had dramatically scared her off. As if it is written on their shirts that they are criminals. This particular scene implied that Sandra bullock is being stereotype against the black people consciously or even unconsciously. She might not know whether they are a bad guy or not and has no purpose in offending them, but it is been buried in people minds that when they saw black people they need to be cautious. She plays her role professionally, for her emotion felt so true that we can feel how scared she was. On the other hand, Tate and Ludacris who tend to noticed her changes felt offended of being racist. However, those made them feel superior instead or fear. They don’t agree with the way people being stereotype towards their race, as if all Africans are as bad as the criminal. Nevertheless, in this scene they ended themselves as a criminal by carjacking a white couple car.
The highlight scenes of this movie are those which include the presence of Officer Ryan played by Matt Dillon. The most captivating scenes in this movie are those when he was patrolling and intentionally pulled over Cameron and Christine’s car without a specific reasonable claim, and when he saved Christine from a car accident. At first, he purposely molested and humiliated Christine in front of her husband, for the reason that he knew there’s nothing Cameron could do other than to accept and watch his wife being humiliated. Besides, Cameron and Christine is an African-American couple while Officer Ryan is white, and at that moment there are unequal treatments and injustices of the white people over black people. Later on, when Christine got into a car accident and was stuck in the car, she was saved by Officer Ryan. In the beginning, Christine refused to be saved by the officer who had ruined her life, but his promised had changed her mind. Both incident had shows her and the viewers that Officer Ryan is not only a racist officer, but he is also a brave officer.

We know that nothing is neither perfect nor impossible, and there is always a way out of every matter. Dialogues and situations in this film successfully represent racial issues that have occurred now. This film is one way of opening the viewer’s eye about racial issues. Nevertheless, there are some critics of this film which I do agree but not completely agree. For instance, the movie Crash in some ways are too exaggerated, and it was implied in Sledgehammer review. The review says that the movie Crash proposes the people today, especially in city such as Los Angeles, are racist. Moreover, Crash extends this theory by proving their apparent racism through actions and dialogue, but these only works as a tool for awareness and not resolution. The author of this review also said that, “It is now the twenty-first century, and bigots and racists know who they are and embrace this fact. We don 't need a warning, anymore – we need a solution, and Crash provides no solid answers.” Well, at first I did felt that the movie is a bit exaggerated, but as it moves on to the end of the movie all seems amazing. Matt Dillon who was at first a racist Officer who had humiliated Christine in the end became a hero for her. His character plays important role in representing that a bad person also have a good side. Indeed, this film didn’t promise viewers for solutions or conclusions to the problem racial issues. Nevertheless, the major purpose of this film is to wake people up by showing, representing, and warning those whose eyes have been closed.
We can’t solve racial issues just by watching this movie, there’s no way to, but we can reduce racial discrimination and prejudices by being aware of our own steps. One person’s step may mean nothing, but one person’s step added to another’s could make a huge differences. This movie not only represents, but also persuades the viewer to start thinking of what you did, what you do and what you will do. Just like Matt Dillon, he did something wrong by humiliating black woman but that doesn’t determine all white guys have the same attitude, manner and character as him. Also, Sandra Bullock who had offended a Mexican guy yet ended by being given a warm hugged from a Mexican nanny. Christine who hated Officer Ryan started to forgave him after the accident. In real life, we used to say that this person is typically white people, Asian people or black people, but think about it carefully and clearly about what you actually mean by typically that kind of people. Typically is not an assumption to say all black people are bad or all white people are rich. The movie shows that miscommunication is the major problem that causes the collision between races and resulted in racial issues. For example, things would be better if the Asians, Caucasians or Africans have communicated properly about each other’s view and not being prejudice about it. Crash helps and reminds us of each other’s view. No one is perfect and so do all the characters in this movie. Life is tough, and some matters are indescribable, but avoiding those problems is not the solution.

Works Cited
Crash. Dir. Paul Haggis. Perf. Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon. CRASH - Lions Gate Entertainment. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. .
Sledgehammer, Rusty. "Crash." 16 Mar. 2006. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.
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Cited: Crash. Dir. Paul Haggis. Perf. Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon. CRASH - Lions Gate Entertainment. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. . Sledgehammer, Rusty. "Crash." 16 Mar. 2006. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. .