"Crash" has approximately 1.5 millions topics relevant to this course ;)
have fun!
Crash-The Movie
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"Crash" has approximately 1.5 millions topics relevant to this course ;)
have fun!
TrackBack URL: http://www.psychologicalscience.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/1093
This is a film that touches on many subjects that touch a verity of issues that categorize racism.
Chris Bridges plays a role were he is over analyzing what racism is in the sense of explicit attitude, and playing the stereotypical role of a thug: towards the middle of the film he shows different conduct disorders and antisocial personality disorders. Towards the end of the film he realizes, and finds redemption in his actions by freeing "china men, women, and children" that would have been sold on the black market by a chop chop owner.
Sandra Bullock plays a prejudice role, towards a African American, and Mexican/Latino/Hispanic that all of them are gang banggers because of the accident of her and her husband getting carjacked at gun point. The reality of it is that she feels alone, because her husband is a District Attorney. She has and accident were she falls down the stairs and the only one that has there to help her was the Hispanic maid, "that she was the only friend that she had", as she hugged her. Her husband played by, Branden Fraser is a district attorney who is in denial or unable to show is love for his wife, by spending most of his time with is team of district attorneys, to me it looked like he was having and affair with his a African American assist-district attorney as he could not say I love you to his wife after he found out that she had and accident on the phone.
Don Cheadle played a role as a detective, which is someone who has overcame odds, or relate to most everyday people who have overcome obstacles. The Fact that he plays a role were his own family members our doing something that is against his moral value as his job description were his mother is a heroin addict and his brother is a known car jacker/ thug on the street but has done nothing about, so people think. In real life know one can wants to see there family member bother, sister, mom, or dad hit rock bottom but the reality of it that it happens everyday.
Matt Dillon uses his position of power as and police office against a couple when pulling them over, the use of excessive force, and his actions of searching the female passenger is against protocol, because it is a female they she should be searched by a female officer. He took the dignity away for the husband played by Terence Howard. And violated the rights of the wife played by Thandie Newton enacting the bias of people not trusting the police. After the scene of the couple being pulled over it demonstrates reverse racism within one own race and the argued saying that her husband is not black enough, and the husband saying that she doesn't know anything about being black because she was raised as a white person.
Honestly, when we first started watching this movie I had no idea what to expect. I had heard about this movie vaguely, but I didn't know any details about it. I was blown away by all the different applications to this class.
I think the characters were fairly true to life. Sure, there was a certain extent of exaggeration in terms of characters, but I think that this movie captured so much of all the factors involved with discrimination and prejudice.
One thing that I found really interesting from the movie was when Chris Bridges and his friend come out from the restaurant and are complaining about the Black waitress and tipping. I had posted an entry on the blog about this issue previously. I can't remember the exact conversation that they had, but they were waiting over an hour for their food and their waitress was Black. The article that I posted about this talks about how Black people do think they are receiving inferior service, which leads to reduced tips. So, it is sort of a vicious cycle. The perceptions and stereotypes we have about each other continue to fuel the continuing discrimination.
Communication and distrust difficulties were also displayed prominently in this movie. The scene where the father and daughter were talking in their own language really irritated and frustrated the store owner, so he lashed out using racial slurs. I can relate to this to a certain extent. When I was in Texas over winter break with my family, we were in the minority. My family members do not know Spanish, but I know a little (I don't claim to be an expert, but I took some Spanish in undergrad). So, when we were in stores, I remember some members of my family being uncomfortable around a lot of people speaking Spanish. Coming from Iowa, it is sort of a culture shock. My mom asked me what people were talking about, and I told her from what I could understand, people were just talking about normal things (groceries, etc.). I was even surprised that she asked. Another story of mine related to communication: When I was in Europe during college, I was surprised at how patient people were with us because we didn't know their language (French, Italian, etc.). In the U.S., it seems that the perception is that you need to know English to be here. I think ethnocentrism may be involved to a certain extent here.
As far as distrust, the scene that stood out to me was when the guy who changed the man's locks kept calling him a "cheater." The man simply replied, "No, I'm not. You need to get a different door." I think they understood each other fine, but distrust played a part here. The owner of the store simply thought the guy didn't fix it because he just wanted the money without doing the work (stereotypes at work). Also, the situation just kept escalating to the point where they were yelling at each other, and obviously, nothing was going to be solved at that point.
Anyway, those are some of my random thoughts that I didn't include in my paper about this movie. What other scenes made an impact on others?