Film Analysis: Crash

As a student in media literacy and digital culture, I would like to offer insight into the movie Crash which was written and directed by Paul Haggis and has been nominated for many awards and won many awards such as Best Motion Picture of the Year at the Academy Awards in 2006 and Best Writing for an original screenplay. For the purpose of the Race and Representation course I am currently enrolled in, as well as my own deep concerns regarding issues of race, I will analyze how race is represented within the film and I will strive to do so through strong evidence. While it is necessary to include specific examples from various scenes through out the film, the heavier focus will be on the critical analysis aspect in regard to race. There are three important factors regarding race that I will mention, define, and reference through out this film analysis. The first is that race is a social construction, but the effects of race are real. The second is that we need to understand the concept of race through the lens of intersectionality. The third is that representation matters. Ultimately, my main argument is that movies like Crash force us to consider issues of race as an inappropriate social construction with major life-changing realizations and implications.

According to the Internet Movie Database, aka IMDb, Crash is briefly summarized as “Events and prejudices set a multi-ethnic cast of Los Angelenos on collision course.” In other words, the film features characters of different ethnicities who find themselves in many times hypocritical and ironic scenarios with a blunt connection to issues such as class differences, racial tension, stereotypes, discrimination, and idealism. The characters are Los Angeles residents who happen to be Asian, African American, Latino, Caucasian, Persian, and of mixed race. At many times through out the film racism is both overt and/or inferential and it is obvious that Haggis emphasizes these concepts in a purposeful way. Interestingly enough, popular reviews of the film are both similar and contradictory to each other. Overt racism refers to racism that is open and transparent. Inferential racism refers to racism that operates on an unconscious level and in a widespread type of way. At the end of this analysis I would like to reveal how Haggis’ himself came about writing the film. Even though every scene is rich with racial connotations, I would like to briefly summarize the major scenes that help solidify my analysis of the film.

In the beginning of Crash, a father and daughter, both of whom happen to be Persian, go into a store to buy bullets. An example of overt racism is when the cashier says, “Yo plan the jihad on your own time.” The daughter asks for a specific type of bullet package which we don’t find out until later in the film are blanks. The film seamlessly skips from one scene to another as the whole film is about a 24 hour period. A wealthy white woman who gets nervous around two men of color on the street and simultaneously robber of her car is also extremely nervous later on about the repair man who she hires to change her locks and he happens to be Latino. This concept references inferential racism, which she most likely thinks only her district attorney husband knows about after venting to him, even though people of color tend to overhear her arguments. Meanwhile, a white male police officer is upset about his fathers health issues. The same officer and his white partner pull over a wealthy couple, both of whom appear to be of mixed race. The officer who is frustrated about his fathers health issues sexually assaults the wife of mixed race. Later in the film, the woman of mixed race is in a car crash, hence the title of the film, and the racist officer gets to redeem himself by saving her. The other officer who happens to be white is clearly appalled by the sexual assault from the beginning of the film. Later in the film, he accidentally shoots and kills a man of color, one of the same men of color who the wealthy white female was afraid of, after he was seen hitchhiking. It was all because he was going to show off his lucky bobblehead doll he had in his pocket in the passenger seat. This idea is relevant to the Black Lives Matter movement which is an activist movement against systemic racism and violence towards people of color. Flashing back to the Persian family who owns a convenience store, the father goes to Latino repair-man’s home to kill him. His daughter runs out of the house to save her dad from being shot and the gun with the blank bullets goes off and the situation is dismantled leaving the Persian and Latino men dumbfounded and grateful.

Clearly, Haggis is trying to portray the interconnectedness and naïveté of individuals. At many points throughout the film, the scenarios are either hopeful or disheartening, or both at the same time. However, it is my opinion that the film reveals that race is an unnecessary social construction. Since the scenes I described carry a great deal of realizations and implications, it is obvious that issues of class, profiling, tension, injustice, stereotypes, power, discrimination, and idealism are at work. For example, when two men of color are racially profiled on the streets, it is evident that the one who does not end up getting accidentally shot in the end, is bitter about the profiling of people who look like them. This reminds me of the book Scapegoats we read which highlights Islamophobia which is commonly defined as dislike or prejudice against Islam or Muslims. In the book, author Arsalan Iftikhar says that the Prophet Muhammad would do nothing during times of discrimination against the culture, as unfortunate as it is to remain poised during such disheartening times. Therefore, Haggis reveals hypocrisy, irony, but more importantly disappointment regarding the fact that two brothers who happen to men of color are put into the category of people who would stereotypically steal a vehicle. In my personal opinion, this emphasizes the fact that race is an unnecessary social construction. When inferential racism in society is counteracted by the notion that race is not a biological reality, maybe a solution can arise.

Now I would like to discuss the concept of intersectionality. In the passage “What Is Intersectionality?” written by Collins and Blige, intersectionality is defined as the following, “Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences. The events and conditions of social and political life and the self can seldom be understood as shaped by one factor. They are generally shaped by many factors in diverse and mutually influencing ways” (3). With that being said, I would like to offer further analysis regarding Crash through this lens. While I do believe that Crash is valuable for its power to promote critical thinking regarding race, I also feel as though the film may not be enough to truly provide a framework as a strong representation of complex racial discriminations. Collins and Blige explain that ordinary people can use the concept of intersectionality to analyze situations and recognize when better frameworks are necessary (3). While Haggis had his own artistic vision for the film, if I had the opportunity to make changes I would strive to consider different techniques that could emphasize the overwhelming issue of racism we are dealing with in the world today. How that would be accomplished would take a great deal of time, nuance, listening, and action, all of which are worthwhile efforts for such an important issue.

It is important to note that while the film references specific topics regarding race, that does not necessarily mean that what Haggis represents is ultimately the message he is trying to reveal. This idea is similar to Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding theory. Encoding refers to the production or construction of media while decoding refers to how we make sense of images and what they suggest (Casey, et. al). While it seems as though Haggis is trying to create awareness about the interconnectedness of human beings as well as implications of racism, there are representations of racial issues that are present within the film that are simultaneously problematic and helpful. For example, when the white male policer officer rescues the female of mixed race who he had molested during a frisk when she was pulled over with her husband, white savior is represented. He gets to redeem himself and reconsider his racism as the hero of the film. This is problematic because the white hero is a typical theme within popular films, but it is helpful in that the character is provided with the realization of his own racist issues in an impactful way. The real issue lies in the fact that society was built on white privilege stemming back to the initial era of slavery in the United States, but the hope is that in the future, people who harbor racist feelings will learn that racism is a social construction and should be thought of through the lens of intersectionality.

Now that we have discussed race as a social construction as well as intersectionality, I would like to offer insight into why media representation matters. Although the main scenes that are referenced are commonly remembered because of the characters, the situation they’re in, and the racial encounters, elements such as sound and perception of time matter as well. Considering the film takes place over a 24 hour period, this may allude to a notion that we have learned about as media literacy students, which is that racism is not an abhor-ration, but rather ordinary, common, and daily. Music plays in the background of the film and sounds Middle Eastern in nature, is in a different language, and is paired with ethereal and instrumental sounds in times of distress or interest. While this does not seem as much of an issue on its own necessarily, it does seem like an issue when a typical American sounding song in English plays in the end. Luckily there are many ways to interpret the important and heavy scenes in the move, where most people seem to learn their lesson about racism even though the way to which each character has to discover this the hard way is rather unfortunate. The reason representation matters is because no matter what, we are impacted by what we see, especially because the world relies on constructed media images for information. If a movie like Crash encourages someone to alter their feelings about racism or worse, become more or less racist because of a single film, this is problematic.

A simple way to summarize my take on Crash is to say that I have mixed feelings about the film. I had seen the film many years ago before finding myself in a race and representation class as a student of media literacy and digital culture. My feelings about the film have changed after having almost completed the class. The first time I watched it I definitely felt impacted, but watching it for the purpose of writing a film analysis allowed me to think critically about the issues at hand. The best way I can describe my mixed feelings about the film is to say that human beings are far too widespread, complex and nuanced to analyze through one film. However, Haggis’ purpose for writing the film is interesting to note. He wrote Crash after having been carjacked once before and changing his locks because of it. He began to think about how all of the characters in the story could emerge from his story which is the same story in the beginning of the film. Interestingly enough, Ryan Buxton with HuffPost notes that Haggis said Crash “was an exploration of people who fixate on political correctness but are often blind to their own prejudices” (1). In many reviews Haggis seems to admit that he has battled his own prejudices like many people in the film. An important element here is that racism is a historical and current issue that should not exist, but it is important to recognize and change existing issues of racism whether or not one harbor’s racist feelings. As an optimistic person, I would like to believe that this film analysis can inspire someone to investigate the existing racism in society as well as take action for the sake of humanity and equality.

Buxton, Ryan. “Paul Haggis Wrote 'Crash' To 'Bust Liberals'.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 Dec. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/19/paul-haggis-crash_n_5511665.html.

Casey et. al. “ENCODING AND DECODING.” Encoding and Decoding, pp. 97–101.

Collins, and Blige. “What Is Intersectionality?” What Is Intersectionality?, ser. 1, 2016, pp. 1–30. 1.