Writer-Director Paul Haggis’s Crash

Writer-Director Paul Haggis’s “Crash” is an interlaced story of race, loss and redemption of citizens of Los Angeles and how they clash and crash.Each character is portrayed by what their lives revolve around, but there is no telling how they will react and who they really are.Overall, each character portrays a different ethical system. In the film Crash, utilitarianism, formalism, ethics of care and virtue are all brilliantly illustrated. Each character is facing an ethical dilemma whether making them an egoist, rotten apple or or just plain corrupt. There is just one overall ethical issue; whether Caucasian, African American, Mexican, or Persian, rich or poor, powerful or powerless each individual is defined by racism. They are all victims of and guilty of racial profiling. Even though they did sometimes rise above it, their prejudices, dilemmas, morals, and ethical values unfortunately set them back.      

In the movie, Daniel the locksmith is constantly judged by his race by but as the movie goes along one come to know that Daniel is a good guy, trying to earn and take care of his family and try to do some good to the society. Farhad, the Persian shop owner, is trying to live his American dream which is not satisfied, as his store is repeatedly robbed so behavior depicted is like to seek vengeance from them.Farhad requires the lock on his shop's door to be changed. The locksmith, Daniel, attempts to communicate to Farhad that the entire door needs to be replaced, but Farhad misunderstands and believes that Daniel is attempting to cheat him. When Farhad's store is eventually broken into, without having proof or knowing Daniel he blames Daniel and even holds gunpoint at Daniel demanding him to pay for the repairs. Other case was the car of District Attorney i.e Rick Cabot gets hijacked. Later at Cabot’s House, Daniel was changing the locks when Jean i.e wife of Rick notices that Daniel and tattoos. She complained Rick about being hijacked and now to endure such a person changing their locks, she judged Daniel as a gang banger and would sell the copies of the locks to his friend for some money.

So, Daniel was judged by different people as a thief, gang-banger based on his race “HISPANIC”. Daniel, on the other hand, has lived his life only trying to do the right thing, not only for himself but also for those around him. Daniel looked out for his family, and did his job even when individuals showed him great disdain and discrimination. He did what he believed was best for others before he allowed his personal feelings to become involved.

Hence judging someone without even knowing the person just only because of his/her race is totally wrong. Robbery at Farhad’s shop and hijacking of District Attorney’s car was the wrong thing happened to them and in this case any person would seek for justice. But was it viable to just to take any action without knowing the consequences of your action and without even having proof on that person.

Let’s think it through the ideas of Utilitarianism and Deontological Ethics, Let talk about the decision of Farhad to gunpoint Daniel and ask to pay. Now through Utilitarian perspective which only focuses on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain(i.e consequence of that action) would say that because of the robbery, Farhad had faced great loss and doing that action will provide him money so that he can deal with the loss.While the Kantian’s would say that does Farhad’s action justify and respect the goals of humanity. Then it would be the time for decision making that whether the action is moral or immoral. Gun-pointing someone is always against humanity. Hence according to Kantian’s Farhad should not have done such action.

On the other hand, Jean's husband Rick uses race as part of his political strategy during his campaign. Rick's ethical dilemma in the film is how to receive the most votes from multiple parties. His idea as district attorney is to show society that he is not only allied with the whites, but that he too appreciates the minorities in the community. Rick wants to publicly present African-American Detective Graham receiving an award from him in order to allow him to win the "black vote."