06 January 2009

CRASH


After viewing CRASH do you think it is an accurate representation of race in the United States today? Why or why not - explain...

21 comments:

erinzenzie said...

I do think that the race that we saw in the movie is an accurate representation of race in the United States today. I feel this way because alot of the same things go on today such as murder, robbery and racism. I also feel that with the police today in comparison to the police shown in the movie, they are alot alike. Police today are said to be just as racist in situations such as pulling people over supposedly just because of their race. The part that the cop molested the wife i feel was more drastic than what acutally goes on today, but I could be wrong. The movie showed both sides of people. The ones who are racist against others because of their race, and the ones who take race as nothing and don't care about others' skin colors. This is how accurate i feel the movie shows race in the US today.

Courtney Maratta said...

I believe that the movie Crash was definitely a good representation of race in America today. I showed us that every ethnic group has problems with race everyday, people you would not think would get discriminated against. The movie showed me the struggles that someone who is discriminated against has to face. In the beginning the things that Sandra Bullock was screaming to her husband about how she wanted the locks to be re-changed because she thought that since the man wasn't white, that he would make copies of theirs keys and sell them to others. I thought it was totally outrageous the things she was saying, but it was an accurate representation of race in America today, the racist things people say are that hurtful. You wanted to feel bad for the locksmith, you wanted to yell at Sandra Bullock for the things she was saying, but Crash showed us that were all guilty of being prejudice to others.

theBaraness said...

Crash was an accurate representation. It showed how certain situations of life can stop racism or even provoke it. People's lives are shaped and molded by the people they meet and the situations that come their way. Racism is everywhere and the movie shows how even the smallest interaction between people can change someone's life for the better or for the worse. The people in the movie were very realistic and everyday kind of characters. I find Officer Tom Hansen's situation very realistic. He went from being an innocent cop to becoming a racist due to his experiences with black males. Jean Cabot turns her racist life around after she realizes that the very person she showed her anger and hate towards (Maria), is her only true friend. The people in the movie turned into better or worse people due to the people they met and the problems that came their way. I find this extremely realistic and an accurate representaton.

Kiran said...

To some level Crash is a very accurate representation of race today in United States. In some areas it may have been a bit too blatant, meaning it’s not common to see people voice such opinions on other races as the characters had, but even then, the stereotypes that they gave us are very much still active today even if people don't necessarily say so out in the open. Subconsciously, we all have these types of convictions whether we choose to admit to them or not. They may not be as severe, but they're there, and we can't necessarily be to blame for them because it’s the people around us who mold our minds to think in such a way, even if indirectly. I felt that one character in Crash, Officer Tom Hansen (Ryan Phillippe) was a suitable representation for many people in the U.S today. Many claim to not be prejudiced at all, just as Officer Tom Hansen did, but then later it was exactly that which became his downfall because even he, who requested to get reassinged because of his racist partner had lingering notions on other races whether he was aware of them or not.

Natalia said...

I think that CRASH accurately represents race in the United States today. The film includes most of the races present in the US and shows how each person contributes to the racism. I think that the US faces the same problem as the characters in the movie did. There is also racial profiling present today, as in the movie. What strikes the most from this movie is the representation of all of these races together. No race is superior, there is something wrong with every race, and every race discriminates against another. This is a struggle present in the real world as well. There is so much fighting and hatred between various races, and this shows that no race is better, they are all equally look on.

Amanda Butler said...

I without a single doubt that the way race was depicted in this film was accurate as how it is in the real world. Andrew just read an article to us in class about a a black man being shot even after following orders that the police gave him. We are constantly stereotyping and assuming that because someone is of a certain color that they are going to be robbing banks, going to hurt someone, or be stuck up and rude. It is a very unfortunate but that is the way of the world.

S.Costa said...

I think that it is a very accurate representation of race in the united states today because it showed a variety of the cultures that make up america today and how they interact and how the react to different situations in the real world. Also becuase of race in the US many things like rape, murder, robbery and vandalism happen todayas a result of this.

Melissa A. said...

In my opinion, the movie "Crash" was definitely a correct representation of race in America today. The majority of people in a socity tend to follow stereotypes even though they know that they are wrong. Even though they may not always show it, feelings of racism are in many people and this movie illustrates those feelings. For instance, in the beginning of the movie when the white lady grabs on to her husband's arm when she sees Anthony and his friend coming down the street. These are feelings that many people have towards other races, but simply do not show. All you have to do is turn on the news and you will hear about a robbery or a murder. If the majority of those crimes are comitted by a certain race, people will begin to feel intimidated or scared around that race. "Crash" shows people what really goes on in Ameica, whether they want to realize it or not.

Julie Pietrycha said...

The representation of race in this movie was very accurate. It may have been an extreme depending on where you live in the United States, but i feel that this stuff does happen. I think that people are so used to how everything is everyday and no one thinks about how what is happening may be bad. Racism is all over our country and especially after 9-11, everyone grouped all of the people of middle eastern decent in the same group of people we associate with terrorists. Americans can be very close minded to the world and how it is not always what it seems. So, Crash was a good representation of what America is really like. It opens eyes and shows the truth that we sometimes choose to ignore because we like to live that way.

Little Bermudez said...

I think it is a accurate representation of race today because it shows how white people are scared of black people and how they assume that most latin americans are "Gang Bangers" willing to do anything to make some extra cash. And how alot of cops will pull over people just cause of there race.

Tim McDonald said...

I think this is an accurate representation of race today because as depressing as it sounds, everbody everywhere is racist or has racist thoughts. For example, a member at Indian Hill, where I work is a wealthy man that happens to be Hispanic, was pulled over by a cop for because the cop thought he stole his car. This is an example of racial profiling, simular to what we see in Crash with the cops and the driver of the Escalade. Besides this one example, there are many others that show that CRASH is an accurate representation of race in the United States today.

Melissa Florio said...

I believe that the movie Crash is an accurate representation of race in the United States today. There are most defiantly racist people out there that would treat others the way we saw people getting treated in the movie. There are the Sandra Bullocks and the Chris Bridges out there that would jump to conclusions about people based on their race knowing nothing about them. However the movie doesn't only show the racist people out there. There are characters like Daniel, Michael Pena, who are not racist and just trying to live a normal life. Even though in the movie he is one of the few characters that were not portrayed as racist he is a symbol of all of the people out there that are not racist, and as shown in the movie he gets stereotyped in a negative way. There are plenty of people in the US that wrongly accuse people of being or acting a certain way because of their race. This movie covers a lot of ground showing the good and the bad people that certainly exist in America today.

Rimshah: Changing With The Seasons said...

Crash, I would say, is a correct interpretation of race in the United States today. I believe that people have allowed outside perceptions to affect their personal judgments and this movie shows how different people are affected by stereotypes and that everyone is connected and affected by it in some way or another. This movie shows how different ethnic groups face racism, discrimination, and how stereotypes affect their lives. Most people say, "don't judge a book by it's cover", but people base their judgments subconsciously on, how a person appears to look. At first, I thought the situations that people were faced with in this movie were extreme, but after considering the setting of the movie takes place in, I thought it was appropriate. Crash, showed the sides of people and media tend to hide and not admit having, including law enforcers and government officials. Matt Dillon's character is a police officer who harasses African-Americans as a result of the prejudices he developed following his father’s bankruptcy years ago, but his view changes when he has to save the same woman (Karina Arroyave) who he sexually assaults in the beginning of movie, from a car accident and sees how she's shaken to see him and how his actions affect people. I agree with Ola, People's lives are shaped and molded by situations and experiences they are faced with and even the smallest interactions can change someone for the better or worse as shown in this movie. The Characters are very realistic, and also this movie shows people can start out innocent and have good intentions and change to the worse through experiences also. Officer Tom Hanson is a great example of this, in the beginning of the movie he asks to be assigned to a new partner becuase his partner is racist against African Americans, but at the end the roles are switched and Officer Tom Hanson ends up murdering the African American who he thought was going to pull out a gun but pulls out a saint instead and this all because of the situations he has faced with African Americans on the work force. Jean Cabot, at first is an open racist and is paranoid everyone who is not white will end up either robbing her or killing her at the end she comes to an realization after having a break down that her only friend is Maria the cleaning lady, who is the only one who helps her after she calls all her so called friends and none of them show up. People don't like to admit that there is Racism in the U.S. still to this present day, media covers up discrimination and racist stories and only state the facts, Like Melissa told us in class about the African American who got shot by a police officer even after he followed directions due to a racist and biased judgment by the police officer. After 9-11, anyone who is of Middle eastern descent or who is Muslim is automatically considered a terrorist, and this movie shows that side which people rarely take in, when Farhad and his daughter go to a gun store and are trying to by a gun and the gun store owner gives them a hard time for buying a gun. Every group has been discriminated against whether people have noticed or not, it occurs everyday. This is why I believe this movie is an accurate interpretation of race in the United States today.

Anonymous said...

After viewing CRASH, I think that this movie was definitely a good representation of race in the United States today. This movie showed a powerful lesson and this lesson was that no race is superior to any other race. In this movie there were people of different ethinicities which is what we have in the United States today. These people discriminate against each other and there is really no race that does not show hate toward another race. This movie showed the different sterotypes that exist today and that are associated for the different ethinicities. Also, in this movie we saw different examples of discrimination, from small incidents to much larger and serious ones. The different events that occured in this movie are events that occur on a daily basis in the United States. The major thing is that some people don't really come to realize this, but discrimination is a part of everyday life.

A Holzhauer said...

I feel that crash is an accurate represeintion of race today. Even though I have only lived in Newington for 17 years, and only dealt with a handful of people, I do know that black people feel like the police are "waging a war" against them. This was recently said by a family member of a man who was shot and killed while corroperating with the BART police in Oakland California. I can understand that Officer Tom Hanson became racist after a short time being on the job in L.A. Just imagine day after day your dealing with only criminals, and people who would like nothing more than to hurt you. I'm not saying it is acceptable what he did, but the events in his life/on the job, made him this way and I feel like this could happen to anybody who is pushed to the limit. And of course your going to have the people who are racist to begin with, such as Sandra Bullock's character. She was untrusting of the two black men walking down the street, and she was even untrusting of the hispanic male putting the new locks on their door. People are always racist, and this movie did a good job showing us how people become racist, and the end results of the racism.

katie w said...

I feel that the representation of the races in the movie is an accurate representaion of what they are today. This is so because the people in the movie are real and they act very similar to what most people act like in today's society. Some races act the way they do becausee they are only following what they were taught growing up and they are only acting on what they know. In the movie for example, the officer who pulled over the black couple because he thought they were doin something illegeal when really he just pulled them over because they were black. He them continued to rape the wife and the husband was not allowed to do anything because due to their different races, he would be arrested for "assaulting" an officer.Different races act different ways in different surroundings and it could be because this is how they grew up or because this is how they feel toward certain races and people.

Mikayla Belle said...

I think that the race issues we saw in the movie were defiantly a good representation of race issues in the United States today. It showed us all different races against each others, and how racism can develop in a person. It also showed us, that people can overcome their racism. The police officer being racist showed that many arrests made today are based on race and ethnicity, rather then real suspicion to a crime. It showed that racism is everywhere, and it is installed in all different kinds of people.

Michelle Post said...

When you first said before we watched the movie that this movie was an amazing dipiction because it doesnt show one race as good and one race as bad and that they are equal. As i was watching it, i wanted to believe that what you were saying is true and that everyone in the movie had faults. To an extent, yes every race was dipicted with good and bad moments but not as severe as some races. For instance, the most equal represented race would be african americans. there were many characters that had good and bad moments and bleded together nicely. I thought that the whites were made out to be the bad guys in the movie. The one guy that i thought was going to be the good white guy ended up shooting someone. It seemed, obviously, fabricated but i liked it overall.

Brenda said...

Absolutely it is because people hate other people. In all cities you have these underlying problems in which one group feels abused and oppressed and blames all their problems, financial, etc that are usually their own fault, on another race. These intense feelings of hatred lead to desire for revenge. That means there are numerous murders, robbing and car/store vandalism. In crash the violence is circular, everyone is interlinked without even knowing it, and so one person's action affects all the rest. I know that to say 'what goes around comes around' is very cliché but this movie proved that wronging one person effects many other people, at least one of whom will get angry and take revenge on someone of the race that did the wronging that will probably be a relative or close friend or at least a friend of the person who did the hurting in the first place and the vicious cycle continues. In the end we have hope though because one act of kindness can go just as far as any wrong act and can restore peace and happiness if accepted and passed on.

sean parent said...

the movie Crash was a very racial and cruel movie. it depicted many points of view of hatered. In todays world this movie is a pretty accurate representation of race in the USA. In todays day of age cops can be like this. My grandfather was a cop for hartford for 30 years. the whole squad was irish cathloic and they were so raceist. he is the raceist man i know. and he is jsut one person. im sure that pretty much his whole squad was like him. also there was a rich girl who was stuck up and thinks that she is better than every race even he own white race. this happens in todays world. The creator of 30 days did a skit on a muslem family. they were called rag heads and were accused of the 9/11 attacks jsut because they looked like a terrorist. these things happen in every day life. so this movie is a good depiction of race in the USA.

Tom burch was here said...

i think that it is an accurate representaion because you see the racism from all sides and races. Also the United States today has come a long way but this movie shows the reality that its still not all gone. so that is why i think its accuate. Finally police can take advantage of there power and in the movie it shows that so i do believe it is accurate.