Crash Movie Analysis

Paper 2 Movie Review – ‘Crash’ There are several movies that can challenge the way we view the world or bring it into perspective. After recently watching the movie ‘Crash’, it made me realize how racism continues to be a problem in our country, even in people one doesn’t suspect. In addition to racism, the movie shows concepts of groupthink, deviance, and sexuality. Groupthink is shown in the film through various ways. Car thieves Peter and Anthony became criminals probably due to groupthink. Their group is identified as African Americans that faced racial discrimination throughout their lives. Other people outside their group, such as whites, thought of them negatively and assumed they were overall wrongdoers. This caused many of black

Although deviance is often depicted as an unacceptable violation of norms, it could always vary in how extreme. In the movie ‘Crash’, there’s several examples of breaking norms such as the gun store owner refusing service to Farhad. He even calls Farhad “Osama” even though he’s Persian. Refusing service to a customer is an act of deviance because there’s laws in place that one can’t refuse service on basis of race. Another example of deviance was when Officer Tom Hansen shot Peter. Murder is a major violation of social and cultural norms, society doesn’t approve killing someone which is a reason why there’s laws in place to punish those who do. A minor, less incriminating deviance is Peter’s interests. When riding with Officer Hansen, he admits he loves country music as opposed to “the music of the oppressor” or hip hop, as Anthony called it earlier in the movie. An African American listening to country music wouldn’t be fitting to cultural norms because society stereotypes portray blacks’ music taste as hip hop and

Throughout the movie ‘Crash’, there were issues with race by mostly all of the characters. Officer Hansen seemed to be a racial tolerant individual, especially when he helped Cameron escape arrest. However, during a heated argument with Peter, Hansen assumed Peter was going to shoot him when he reached for his pocket, leading Hansen to shot him instead. Hansen still had the underlying hints of racism and expected Peter to be a stereotypical black criminal. This shows the audience that everyone could have racism roots even if it’s not obvious. Sexuality and race played another role. When Officer John Ryan stopped black couple Karen and Cameron, he made them be searched for any weapons. Even though the couple weren’t doing anything illegal, racist Officer Ryan clearly already suspected them to. It angered him that Karen seem to verbally fight back and then went to sexually touch her inappropriately while he “searched” her. Officer Ryan took advantage of his authority status and the situation because the couple could not fight back unless they wanted to be arrested or even