Conflict, Racism, And Corruption An In-Depth Analysis Into The Movie "Crash"

In 2006 the movie "Crash" won the Academy Award for Best picture and received outstanding reviews from critics across the country. Director Paul Haggis was stunned that his picture won such acclaimed awards. Haggis surely thought Ang lee's "Brokeback Mountain" would have taken the award for best picture. This shows that the American people and the academy thought Haggis's movie had pointed out real issues that are relevant in today's society. An analysis of the movie "Crash" reveals three main reasons why other countries would accept this movie as depicting American life and culture correctly; the realism of race conflict, the movie isn't biased to one race, and shows the true nature of the government when it comes to race issues.

In the movie "Crash" there are racial conflicts throughout the entire movie. In the beginning of the movie it shows two cops (Matt Dillon, Ryan Phillippe,) pulling over an African American couple, (Terrence Howard, Thandie Newton). The moment Mat Dillon's character sees that they are black he tells them to step out of the vehicle even though they have done nothing wrong. This happened because earlier he got in a quarrel with his insurance company about his dad and the person who helped him was black. He felt mistreated and then took out his anger on the couple he pulled over. He knowingly sexually assaulted Thandie Newton's character and he blackmailed them. This is one of the many race conflicts in the Movie. Another good example of racial conflicts is with Sandra Bullocks character and Michael Penas. When Michael Penas character comes to Sandra Bullocks house to fix their lock Sandra Bullocks character looks at him and sees all of his tattoos and how he wears baggy clothes She gets the impression that he is a gang banger and that he is going to sell their key to his "homies" so they can rob them. But he is really just a family man that is trying to get away from all these conflicts and have his daughter be able to grow up in a safe environment. These two racial conflicts are perfect examples of how this kind of racism can happen on an everyday basis. These aren't outstanding conflicts but ones we can think can happen. Neither one of these examples is biased to one race.

The movie "Crash" does a good job at not being biased to one race. In the movie they cover all race conflicts ranging from African American and Caucasian conflicts to Hispanic and Persian conflicts. In the movie though, it did seem like the Caucasian characters were more racist than the other races. Throughout the movie you can't connect all the conflicts to one race. All of these conflicts apply to every race and everyone has to face the same problems. The only race that could be considered unbiased towards to in the movie would be Caucasians. It seemed that there were a lot of stereotypes of different races, but the Caucasians didn't have that big of conflicts and never seemed to be on the receiving end of the arguments. This could partly be because of the role Caucasians play in everyday life in today's society. They are usually the ones in powerful positions such as the government and judicial system which are crucial.

"Crash" portrays this best