Examples Of Stereotypes In The Movie Crash

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The movie Crash is a movie that questions stereotypes and prejudice, consisting of a intertwined vignettes about people and families of differing cultural and socio-economic groups who interact with each other, over the course of three days. The interaction between the characters causes viewers to question stereotypes, while simultaneously presenting them with a grain of truth, and the frequency with which they occur. All the vignettes are related, each character appearing more then once, and across different story lines, allowing the viewer to see many different sides of the same character. A character shown being prejudice or racist in one scene, is depicted in an act of kindness in another. This design stresses the interrelationship of human-beings …show more content…

Stereotypes are exaggerated, oversimplified generalizations, and make the user come across as ignorant. Interacting based on stereotypes causes us to engage in inaccurate and unethical communication that can damage relationships. There are many examples of stereotyping in this movie, and one that stuck out involved Jean Cabot and her husband, during her lock change at home. The locksmith, Daniel, is shown with some tattoos on his neck and she views these noticeably with disdain, striding into her husband’s office and telling him that she needs to have the locks changed again, because Daniel is going to sell the keys to his gang members. She complains about the Daniels’s “prison tattoos,” and her husband is outraged and defends that they are not prison tattoos. Jean explains her reasoning, that she just had a gun pointed at her, and says that, “If a white person sees two black people walking towards her and she just happens to turn and walks in the other direction, then she’s a racist! I got scared, and I didn’t say anything, and ten-seconds later I had a gun in my face. Your amigo in there is going to sell our keys to one of his homeys and this time it would be fucking great if you acted like you gave a shit!” (Crash, 2005). While Jean comes across as a racist, because she is stereotyping the locksmith for his tattoos, she has also just had a traumatic experience, and has had a stereotype recently