12-6-11
Extra Credit
Crash: Racially Charged
The movie CRASH pertains to a day of encounters of people of different races. An interaction between strangers ended in chaos, hatred, and fear. The movie portrayed interactions of different races causing clashes between victim and aggressor, superior and inferior and an idealist and racist. Racism was portrayed as a common attitude of the characters played. Crash is an eye opener to the problem of our society; racial discrimination and stereotyping.
In the movie, communication played and important factor. Communication is an important factor for people to understand each other. However, in the case of the movie, crash communication between the individuals created misunderstanding aggravated by racial differences. It can be seen at the first scene where two cars crashed. Ria, a Mexican detective who was driving her car collided with the car of an Asian woman. Instead of acting civilized, they argued about who was at fault while pointing out each others race. The Asian woman said Mexicans know no how to drive. The Hispanic even said to the black police officer to make sure to put it in the report that the other driver was Asian. It is obvious that both of them had created anger by pointing out the stereotypes of their races.
Another scene portraying misunderstanding through communication of significant symbol is when Farhad is buying a gun from an American store owner. The American storeowner was irritated by the conversation of his customers, they seem to be debating on what type of gun to buy. Farhad was furious and felt insulted when the store owner referred to him as Osama. In turn, he stressed that he speaks in English and he is an American citizen. The interaction between a Persian and an American ended in an argument where they insulted each others race. It is also visible in the scene where Farhad engaged the service of a Mexican- American locksmith. The locksmith politely