A Closer Look at Crash: Discovering Male Supremacy After the Blast!

Crash, written and directed by Paul Haggis, was another film that I got to see from a completely different perspective after learning more about race and gender from the media. Crash is quite a unique movie in the sense that it tries to compile various stereotypes about various races and ethnicities in a story that serves to show the humanity, bad and good, found in all people when they are forced to face unexpected situations with get off guard.

Although Crash may turn out to some, including myself once, as a movie in the right direction for humanity and togetherness, I was disappointed to find that it actually falls within the hegemonic institution of white male supremacy discussed in the book “America on Film. “Crash ultimately leaves viewers with the notion, whether consciously or unconsciously, that white male characters are generally strong heroes, whose random acts of bravery outweigh the wrongs they have committed against others. The main male characters in this film have the characters developed in a more complex way, because their characters were written with real conflicts within their personal lives that did not originate from other characters who crashed into their lives, as were the problems of the undeveloped female characters played. by Loretta Divine, Jennifer Esposito, Sandra Bullock, and Thandie Newton. For example, Thandie Newton’s character Christine Thayer experienced her conflict created during the action of the story when Officer Ryan came into contact with her character, however Officer Ryan’s character had a backstory written into the script. which allowed viewers to see the personal conflict at home with his dad who was very ill and did not have good health insurance. Additionally, viewers also saw some personal conflict from Cameron Thayer, Christine Thayer’s husband in the film, which had been written into the script when a co-worker on set told Cameron that his actor did not sound black enough. The lack of backstories for female characters compared to male characters perpetuates the stereotype that female roles and characters are not as important as male roles and characters.

There were several stereotypes in this movie because it was about stereotypes, as a result, I will address a stereotype that was not resolved at the end of the movie. The first was the problem with Lieutenant Dixon, who encouraged Hanson to create an elaborate story about why he could no longer work with Officer Ryan because Lieutenant Dixon didn’t want anyone to know that he had kept a racist cop on the force. for so long because Lieutenant Dixon felt he could jeopardize his own job. The character of Lieutenant Dixon fit perfectly into the stereotype of “an Uncle Tom”, who loves the will and the joy to keep his master happy. Lieutenant Dixon’s character was never further developed after viewers were shown that his snippet of Officer Ryan was successful. Therefore, in my opinion, Lieutenant Dixon’s interpretation of the film was a stereotype that was perpetuated rather than broken.

Unfortunately, Crash wasn’t as great of a movie as I once thought. Nonetheless, it serves as a great tool for analysts to uncover subtle biases in movies that can ultimately serve to perpetuate stereotypes and unfair beliefs about race and gender in a movie about race.