Crash Analyst

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Armond Jordan Mrs. Weatherford Nov. 08, 2010

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The movie Crash Crash, is a movie about a Brentwood housewife and her DA husband - a Persian store owner - two police detectives, who are also lovers - an African-American television director and his wife, a Mexican locksmith, two car-jackers, a racist cop, a rookie cop, a middle-aged Korean couple and they all live in Los Angeles. During the next 36 hours of there lives, they will all collide. Crash takes a provocative, unflinching look at the complexities racial tolerance in contemporary America. Diving headlong into the melting pot of post-9/11 Los Angeles, this urban drama tracks the volatile intersections of multi-ethnic characters as they struggle to overcome their fears while careening in and out of one another's lives. In the gray area between black and white, victim and aggressor, there are no easy answers. All of these characters have learned a lot in the movie, but there were some change in a few characters and their perspective on the thinking s of people they encountered. First up, Sandra Bullock s character, Jean Cabot, was shaken up when characters Anthony (Chris Ludacris Bridges) and Peter (Larenz Tate) car-jacked her and district attorney husband, Rick Cabot (Brendan Frasier). She has had a bad case of paranoia after the car-jacking. Afterwards, at the Cabot house, Daniel Ruiz, a Hispanic locksmith (Michael Pena) is changing the locks. He overhears Jean, who is frustrated having felt nervous about the two black men who robbed them but refrained from saying anything to avoid appearing racist. She instructs Rick to hire another locksmith in the morning, believing Daniel to be a gang member (Wikipedia). At this point, Jean does not trust no one, not even own her housekeeper, Maria,

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who is Hispanic. With cruel intentions, Jean starts to become more of a Bitch to her housekeeper, who she berates a number of times during the movie. Jean slips and falls down some stairs and with no one to her aid, she is later taken to the hospital by her housekeeper, Maria. She embraces Maria, calling her my only friend . At this moment in the movie, you can tell that Jean had some personal issues that changed very quickly. She changed simply knowing that Maria was always there for her. Jean couldn t punish the men that robbed her and her husband, so she took it out on Maria. All of her friends were not supportive and didn t seem like good friends to begin with, and Jean realized who her true friend was. This might come as a surprise to her but when someone helps you around the house, you get to know that individual more personally and grow a relationship. For all she knows, she could ve been tearing the relationship apart. I believe Jean now understands not to judge a person so harshly because of unfortunate events that may occur. There was not much evidence in the movie to say how drastically she changed, but that scene says much about how wrong she was to treat another person in that manner. To me, she then knew what it may feel like to angry all the time, and don t know why (Scott 304). One thing that happens, again and again, is that peoples assumptions prevent them from seeing the actual person standing before them (Ebert 302). The next character is Anthony (Chris Ludacris Bridges) who was to me, the main character always talking about how African Americans deal with life, people, and our own experiences. The movie starts off with him and Peter walking down a L.A. street coming from a restaurant complaining about the poor service they just received. Anthony is convinced because of their skin color, the waiter staff thought we re black, and black people don t tip. They argue amusingly about this possibility clearly, they carry the unending pressure of casual

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racism as both an everyday occurrence and, depending on their moods, something to be shrugged off or confronted with righteous anger. They later pull out guns, leads a couple that passed them earlier to their big SUV, and carjacks them. Anthony has experienced things that many African Americans deal with on a daily basis. His thought process only comes from the frustration with life and the people in it. During the course of the film, I believe that Anthony has experienced some things that will change his opinions much more. For instance, he and Peter attempted to car-jack Cameron (Terrence Howard) but was unsuccessful. He later finds the white van where he and Peter hit an Asian American with the stolen SUV. He then finds out that there are people in the van being sold as slaves. Looking surprised, he understood then, that even though slavery stopped for African Americans, it continues in other countries. He could have sold them for a quick buck but he had to put himself in their shoes. His decision to let them free shows a big improvement, a price his ancestors had to pay years ago. He had to understand that people feel prejudice and resentment against members of other groups, and observes the consequences of those feelings (Ebert 302). Those feelings were dead smack in his face when he discovered the Asian s locked in the white van. That then drove him to make the right choice and feel good about what he just had accomplished. Lastly, John Ryan (Matt Dillon), who played the prejudice cop, had the most change to me with the last minutes of the movie. What drives his anger towards Black people is that his father had lost a lot when John was growing up. His father was not racist but John developed hatred for what Blacks and what he feels they done to his father s business and his life. A traffic stop shows Dillon s character as a vile and hateful police officer (Ebert 303). He feels that he can terrorize people because of his gun and badge that have the authority to do so. His anger

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was also targeted to a Black HMO worker that controlled most of his father s health plans. What makes him learn the most is because he had to save the woman he groped earlier in his traffic stop. Not knowing who he was saving in the fiery car crash, he then knew he was wrong for what he did to Christine (Thandie Newton), the woman involved in the traffic stop. A simple lesson was learned purely by ones behavior and that the behavior of John changed when he ended up saving a life. Being wrong is sometimes hard to admit but John was clearly affected by his wrong doings. In conclusion, Crash is the perfect comparison of how we as a human race deal with living, populace and our own experiences. Physical individuality and racial differences may be interpreted as two distinguishing traits that separate us. I think it s what keeps us apart. All races can tend to be sensitive when they feel like they re being mistreated or mishandled because of different backgrounds and because of skin color. It is a shame that even the three characters experienced change in the movie, it is uncertain how long this learning experience will last. The writers of the Crash managed to extend my viewing experience beyond the 90 minute film, thus forcing me to analyze my own prejudices and racial stereotypes towards others.

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