Crash Analysis

Crash is an action film directed and written by Paul Haggis that’s made the film win a total of three Oscar awards along with many other nominations. The film was produced by a number of different studios such as Lions Gate Films, DEJ productions and Blackfriars Bridge films. The main focus of the film revolves around racial profiling and white privilege while also exploring ethnic stereotypes in modern day American society. Crash was produced in the year 2004 and then released to the public in 2005.

The opening title sequence for the film features an ambient soundtrack to create a sense of unease within the audience which is further emphasized by the dark colour codes, the purple lights that adds to the ominous mood the audience is intended to feel while also symbolizing nobility, power and the meanings of wealth that are explored through aspects of the film such as shown through the lives of the higher class attourney, Rick Cabot and his pampered wife, Jean Cabot

This film explores how people from various different ethnic backgrounds try and live their lives in a society that’s corrupt and forces them to abide by the protection of the police and government when in turn, instead of protection it is merely just an adjective that’s used to cloak the real exploitation that they have to undergo in American society. For decades, ethnic minorities have most certainly suffered at the hands of white people. This has been an on going problem for countries that hold a white dominance in society. However the cause of this isn’t all to do with white people being prejudice against the other minorities.

The trepidation of ethnic minorities that is made by the media just strengthens the white hegemonic hold that controlling classes may have over the populace in the States which just adds to the ethical frenzies that at present exist in out society. For instance the rise in unlawful acts that may have been submitted by blacks, or the apprehension of the other ethnic minorites which is produced from the media and makes a 'us and them' circumstance where whites may feel a feeling of prevalence over ethnic minorities.

Here we have a nation that is as yet rising up out of a profoundly bigot history, a general public in which white individuals have treated (and keep on treating) dark individuals with hatred, suspicion and a significantly unmindful feeling of superiority. In spite of the fact that the period of black racial isolation in America is over (1930’s America for example), the American media still sustains segregationist belief systems. Occasions, for example, 9/11 just settle in these philosophies and make individuals more prepared to accuse law violations, for example, homicide and robbery on the dark populace.

Each of all the characters in this film Crash all live up to their own ethnic stereotypes to a certain extent but purposely deny the false accusations that are forced upon them from the media as a whole. They mention what other ethnic backgrounds think about them all the time and display their own opinions about other racial groups but in the conclusion of their own respective parts, they ‘crash’ with an opposite ethnic group which leads them to form a new opinion and enforces the belief through the act that all people are human. An example of this is when the corrupt cop, officer John Ryan who had molested a black man’s wife through a stop and frisk in order to anger her husband and exploit them, then spots his wife in a car crash and acts as a hero who saves her from being oliberated by the explosion that the car causes.