by Rosalia Dimatteo

Created on: April 30, 2009

Racism, prejudice and self examination. These are just some of the many universally controversial themes addressed in the movie Crash. Crash is the creation of Paul Haggis from 2004. The movie follows the lives of several individuals in the city of Los Angeles over the course of forty-eight hours. All of the characters are of differing ethnic backgrounds and are essentially all interconnected. The way in which their lives are woven together sends a strong message to viewers about human kindness and respect for others.

The movie opens with a car crash between an Asian women Kim and a Mexican women named Ria. The list of characters also include a police detective with a thriving young brother, two car thieves with their own views on society, a white district attorney and his irritated pampered wife, a racist white cop and his idealist young partner, a black Hollywood director and his wife who are harassed by the racist cop, a Persian immigrant store owner who is mistaken for an Iraqi, and a Hispanic locksmith and his young family. All these characters have varying personas. Crash is a movie enriched with many themes and principles that can be examined through a variety of different lenses. The movie is as much about the prejudice and discrimination of the characters as it is about the viewers own personal thoughts and beliefs. It brings implicit beliefs into the concious.

As human beings we tend to make certain self assessments about ourselves. In the movie Crash the character of Tom Hanson is a young white police officer who fits the universal archetype of the "good cop". Police officer Hanson has many self attributes and things he believes about himself. Basically he appears to himself and to outsiders to be one of the few non-racist characters in the movie. One scene is able to shatter this view of officer Hanson within the amount of time if takes to shoot a gun. In this particular scene it is night time in Los Angeles and Hanson is driving down an empty, poorly lit road. As he is driving he [like the nice character he is perceived as] stops to pick up Daniel who is hitch hiking to leave Los Angeles. There is some talk between the two men, there is even a comment about the difficulty of a black person to catch a break and Daniel is thankful to officer Hanson for stopping for him. When Daniel puts his hand in his pocket police officer Hanson tells him to take his hands out of his pocket. The scene intensifies as Hanson assumes that Daniel is carrying a gun. Daniel

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