The Movie Crash

CRITICAL ESSAY ON "CRASH"

The film "Crash" written and directed by Paul Haggis was taken place in Los Angeles. This movie illustrates how discrimination and prejudice has affected our everyday lives, due to the misconceptions we have of each other. All the characters in this movie are either victims of prejudice and discrimination or are guilty of it. To help us give more understanding about this movie I am comparing the movie Crash to Joseph Healey textbook, Race, Ethnicity, Gender & Class.

In this movie we see a wide range and depth of prejudice and discrimination and it is not only the whites who are prejudice or discriminate but also minorities who are prejudiced and discriminate against other minorities. For better understanding first
Another term from Healey 's book that is closely related to the movie Crash is "Selective Perception," which means that "people often see what they expect to see, so stereotypes are often confirmed in a vicious circle." The example can relate to Officer Hansen; from the first scene he is in, we can tell that he is not prejudiced and it seemed to me that Officer Hansen doesn 't have lots of experience with people outside of his race. In the movie he helps Peter, who is walking on the road side, by offering him a lift. This was the first time Officer Hansen seen prejudiced in the whole movie. Peter began laughing without explanation and Officer Hansen asked him to leave the car. Peter wanted to show him what he had in his pocket that was so funny. While Peter was reaching in his pocket, Offer Hansen panicked and shot Peter, who was innocent. That was the first time Officer Hansen had shown prejudiced; even though he was shown as a good man in the movie, he end up killing an innocent man. I think Office Hansen shot peter because he was afraid that his own life might be in a risk. Officer Hansen thought Peter was reaching his pocket for some kind of weapon and in seconds he made his decision and fire at