"Crash"

Where to begin except that I would say this is probably the best film I have watched for this class.  I now understand why it won so many awards.  Before seeing it being nominated on the Oscars I had never heard of this movie but now after watching it I am sure glad that it was a choice for us to watch.  It was fast moving and kept me interested throughout the entire movie.

This film was centrally about making a statement about racial discrimination.  It is constantly making a point about how different minorities were treated differently after September 11.  Especially the shop owner how they broke into his store and vandalized it just because they thought he was of the nationality that the terrorists were when in reality he was a United States citizen.  The film had all these separate people and eventually at the end it shows how they all begin to know each other and are intertwined with each other.  With the cop who harassed the man and wife shows how being afraid of what a person in authority could do changes how a person stands up for themselves and for others.

Based on what the book describes I think that it is best to use the humanistic approach when viewing this movie.  I think this because this movie does more than just show the racial injustices but it also shows how most of our stereotypes are wrong.  Like with the repairman and how the D.A's wife thinks he is a gang member when in reality he is just trying to support his wife and child back home.  This also shows how one person's thoughts about a ethnic group can rub off on others to make them have those same feelings.  This movie also showed how even though most people do not realize it their actions can intertwine with another person's life.  This shows how some people forgot what their moral responsibilities were after a tragic and life altering event like September 11.

You can also view this film with the emotional approach just because as an audience we can see how what most of these people are doing to minority groups is wrong.  This causes us to become emotionally attached to the minority groups who are being unjustly treated.  This way of analyzing though throws out any message that was being portrayed throughout the movie so it isn't the best way since "Crash" has many messages being portrayed throughout it.

I really liked how the movie jumped from one person's life to another's life and then in the end they all relate to one another.  At first it was hard to see where this was going since most of the movie was done from the previous day after we saw that a kid had died the next day.  Eventually though I saw how each of these characters had a significant part no matter how big or how small.  Sandra Bullock for instance was featured in the beginning and then they didn't show too much more of her until the end and she did a great job at being the racist wife and then at the end becomes utterly grateful to her housekeeper who saved her after falling down the steps.  This was a way for them to show that stereotypes are mostly wrong and the minority groups that fall to these thoughts are just like anyone else.

In the movie during one of the scenes with the D.A. he talked about how minorities only receive the bad news and when they do something honorable it never appears on the news.  I feel this was true in almost every way since that is how these stereotypes come to be.  All we ever hear is how a black teenager shot someone but we never hear how a black male graduated valedictorian from his high school class.  It is so much easier for us to talk about the bad things instead of the good things that happen to a person.

Another great movie! I would really enjoy watching this one another time just to try and catch even more of what was going on.  I would recommend this one to anyone.