Sociological Analysis Of The Movie ‘Crash’ (by Paul Haggis 2004)

SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MOVIE ‘CRASH’
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'Crash' is an American drama written and directed by Paul Haggis and released in 2004. The film is set in Los Angeles, to represent the urban setting, and involves a series of ‘crashes’ and altercations between different racially divided groups of people who conceal stereotyped misconceptions about and against each other. The movie exposes various social constructs that people have against other races through different situations and issues. The characters in the movie are all different but also possess similar traits especially on their prejudice and racism and each holds their disparities over the other creating a racially oriented conflict but in the end have reconciliations over the similarities. This paper looks at the definitive issues that bring out the racial segmentation in the film and offers a sociological analysis of the movie based on social control theory, conflict, and symbolic inter-actionism perspectives. To achieve this, the paper illustrates the social interactions between the characters and discusses the sociological perspectives evident through them.
Racial Discrimination in the Movie
Racial discrimination is the main theme of the movie as the title suggests, it exposes the racial crashes in Los Angeles at the time of setting, i.e. after the 9/11 incidence. Racial intolerance is the main focus of the movie as it shows the prejudices that the characters harbor against each other through their interactions. The racism aspect in the movie is magnified by the racial difference of the characters in the film with some of the racial stereotypes turning out to be true. The sociological analysis of the movie offers the rationality, custom, and tradition in the interactional decisions between individuals (Langlois, 2001). These theories help in the sociological analysis of the racial interactions between the different situations that erupt as the movie unfolds.
* Conflict perspective
The conflict theory is perhaps the most applicable perspective for a detailed sociological analysis. The theory posits that the diverse interests of various groups generate conflicts that eventually spawn negative attitudes towards the social units that exist in an interactional society (Lancee and Pardos-Prado, 2013). Farhad’s growing security threat due to his Persian identity is the first major racial conflict that the movie highlights as he fears for his life as the country had anti-Arabic chants as the infamous 9/11 attack raised racial prejudice against people of Arabic origin as terrorists. The graffiti he finds smeared on his walls shows the hatred that the society holds against people of Arabic origin. As the scene unfolds, the gun seller, who is white, even throws him out of the shop and does not sell the guns to him but instead sells it to his daughter.
The hate towards black people comes out with the introduction of two African American men, Anthony, and peter, who come out complaining about the struggles they go through because of their race. As soon as a white couple sees them, the wife recoils behind her husband and grasps his hand an action that leads to Anthony and Peter carjacking them. This is one scene where the racial prejudice people hold is confirmed to be true as the black men turn out to be exactly what the wife feared they were. The underlying perception of black people by the whites can be attributed as the cause for the reactions that describe the scene as Anthony and Peter jack Jean whom they take to be a racist and her, on the other hand, perceive them to be dangerous. Another scene that amplified the conflict by the blacks is the scene where officers John Ryan and his partner Tom Hansen harass a black couple who are driving home from a party despite not having an obvious reason why it was necessary. He, Ryan, then goes on to sexually harass the wife (Christine) by roughly conducting an inappropriate search but his partner does not intervene during the incidence and just watches on. The blacks are seen as a source of danger and can steal or possess a weapon. The conflict seen between the white characters and the black exposes they harbor against each other as a result of their racial identity. The movie also captures the ‘thug perception’ of the black population when an antiracist officer, Hansen, accidentally shoots peter when he thinks that he was reaching for a gun and ends up shooting him. The conflict theory operates under the assumption that the interest of the involved parties will not always align and are bound to clash which explains why they do not get along well unless connected by a common interest and emotion (Berger, 2001).
The movie also shows gang-related untrustworthy Hispanic people judging from the reactions and perceptions of Daniel by Jean and Farhad. We see Jean again holding the same prejudice against a Hispanic guy the same was she perceived the black men during the carjacking. This shows that racial discrimination is not directional and is directed towards all the involved races. Despite Farhad being a victim of racial discrimi...