Ethical Analysis of Comments on White Supremacist in the film Crash - Movie Review Example

Ethical Analysis of Comments on White Supremacist in the film Crash (2004) Affiliation The film Crash (2004) tells a story of theinterrelationship between five of the USA racial groups namely the Whites, the Blacks, the Latinos, Koreans and Iranians. While all the five races are playing different roles and depictions in developing the film, the ultimate social comment that comes out of this film is the supremacy of the white race over the other races in the USA. The film ultimately managed to promote the theme of human connectivity, despite the existence of social divisions (Orbe & Kinefuchi, 2008). However, the manner in which this theme was explored and developed in the film did not serve to promote the human interconnectivity more than it exploited the racial prejudices. At the end, the whites emerge as the less scathed throughout the film, despite having been involved in actions that would have also called for being punished like the black race was punished in the film. The paper argues that while the white race is portrayed as racially malevolent, “Crash” is hardly a racist film and nether is the producer/director, Haggis. The paper targets the people who have watched the film and have held a strong belief that the film and the producer are promoting racism, which on contrary is not true.  Implicature, as a social commentary that perceives all human beings as interrelated and interconnected is the major theme of the film, but the racial dimension of the white supremacy is projected more profoundly than the central theme that the film seeks to explore (Orbe & Kinefuchi, 2008). The central theme seem to be based on the perception that all people are prejudiced to a given extent whether they are white, black, Asian, or Latinos among other races. People often assume individuals from other ethnic groups or even races. People from all races carry around racial and ethnic baggage, which involves a lot of stereotypes, grievances, fears, among other related aspects. Sometimes the same people may view their new position or situations as being attributed to the solution of the problem, but it turns out that the complexity in prejudice makes the problem endless (Jensen & Wosnitzer, 2015). While the movie seems to show the interconnectivity aspect, the interconnectivity comes with much prejudice issues, which many people have been completely unable to solve or evade from. The reason for this is because a certain individual could either face the pain or pass it to another person. This happens deliberately or unknowingly, but the end results are typically the same. The film nevertheless portrays this theme on the basis of white supremacy. In this regard, the state of affair happens to be the product of white people’s actions (Jensen & Wosnitzer, 2015). The white people are often perceived by many other races as the most powerful and privileged in the world. This may not be true from a realistic perspective, but the same notion has given the racist stereotypes in the same race such consistency. The white people use this perception to enhance their superiority over other races. Some thus use race and racism aspects for the protection of their power (Jensen & Wosnitzer, 2015). Essentially, people of the white race are portrayed as having accepted privileges that they receive from the whole system as a way of helping them maintain their perceived power. It is also conveyed that the problem hardly emanate from individual stereotypes, but it contrast it comes from the white supremacy. The white supremacy notion is expressed by both the system and the individual people within the system thereby making it even much harder to deal with especially given the impact of the system and institutional participation. This may seem difficult to figure out, but it can be outlined clearly with keenness. It can thus be argued that the film is mostly based the white supremacy and more particularly, it is white supremacist since the context seems to minimize the authenticity of the white supremacy. It portrays forged humanism as well as a simplistic tolerance message, which tries to direct attention away from a system that is typically white supremacist thereby undermining the accountability of the white people for maintaining such a malevolent system. Nevertheless, it is difficult to judge this thematic perspective as having been the writer’s conscious intentions although it comes out as a dominant theme (Jensen & Wosnitzer, 2015). In the film, the principal aspect of the racism concept is the language, which broadly defines the USA society as white or black. In this respect, the whiteness or blackness of the characters in the film is effectively applied as a language of negative differences, seeking to portray the white race as available to save the bad situation, while the black race is available to create the bad situations (Madison, 1999). Detective Graham is a black police officer who has been granted the investigative role in the LA police department, in the film Crash. However, the respect, dignity and power of authority that would be associated with this position have effectively been stripped through his depiction of personal life alongside his professional work. Thus, the film Crash has fetched the personal life of detective Graham, which included his drugs addicted mother and his criminal brother peter (Orbe & Kinefuchi, 2008). The overall outcome is the depiction of the position of the police investigator role of detective Graham as less fulfilling and more socially wanting, compared to his white colleagues in the LA police force, Hansen and Ryan. Further, the depiction of the family life in the film has also set another application of the language of negative differences, where the depiction of the white couple consisting of district attorney Rick and his wife Jean is sharply contrasted with the family life of an African American couple consisting of Cameron and Christine (Kotler, 2005). The white couple is depicted as a classy family that is targeted by the black criminals, (Anthony and Peter), and thus portrayed as being exposed to unjustifiable suffering through being carjacked. On the other hand, despite the fact that the black couple consisting of Cameron and Christine is also a well-off couple that is able to drive an expensive SUV sport car that is depicted as uncharacteristic of the Africans in the film crash, the beauty of their well-off family is tainted by the nature of the demeaning harassment they receive from the police officers Ryan and Hansen. The white police officers do not only harass Christine sexually, but also harasses her husband physically, subjecting him to a more embarrassing experience in front of his wife, who expected that the husband would be able to stand up for her against the harassment of the police.  This non-verbal language of negative differences, involving social comments that are applied in the film crash, to depict the black race as having no option but to come out as dominated (McPhail, 1991). This is irrespective of the domination of the black race occurs whether justifiably through criminality actions of Peter and Anthony, or unjustifiably through the harassment of Christine and Cameron. The contrast of the application of the language of negative differences has been applied in the film to show the white couple as being subjected to suffering by the black criminal courtesy of the criminality associated with the black race. On the other hand, the black couple has been portrayed as subjected to the harassment of the white police officers, courtesy of the supremacy of the white’s authority. In fact, any time the law is applied in the film crash, the black race is punished. On the other hand, where the white race applies the law discriminately to harass the blacks, the law remains dormant. The social commentary presented by the film crash in this respect, is that the law is available for the protection of the white race (Madison, 1999). The non-verbal language of negative differences is also applied to indicate the contrast between the supremacy of the whites and the domination of the blacks, even when the social convention dictates otherwise. Cameron is a successful black television director, who has had to beat numerous odds in order to reach at the level of success that he currently enjoys in Hollywood. On the other hand, Ryan and Hansen are white police officers in the LA police department. The social convention would dictate that a successful television director would be expected to earn more admiration, by the virtue of the position and social status held. However, the film crash, has turned this into a completely paradoxical scenario, where the successful television director has come out as dominated and demeaned, simply by the virtue of his being black (Kotler, 2005).  Thus, while the central theme of the film is to show that all humans in the society are interrelated and interdependent, it has inevitably projected the black race as dominated by the white race. This is a social comment that serves to project the blacks as dependent on the white goodwill for their dignity and respect, even when they have worked hard to earn their positions and the associated material wealth. The same way Cameron was stripped off his dignity by the white police officers, is the manner in which Shaniqua Johnson, another black medical professional, is stripped off her dignity by the same white police officer. Ryan refers to Shaniqua as incompetent medical professional who was hired as a matter of affirmative action, but not qualifications (Orbe & Kinefuchi, 2008). The non-verbal language of negative differences further projects the social comment of the blacks as dependent on the goodwill of the whites for their survival (Allen, 2007). The white police officer Ryan, who emerges as the hero in the film Crash, saves the life of Christine at the end of the film, the same woman he had harassed sexually. Christine had been caught in a car accident crash that could have ultimately ended her life, if she was not saved in good time. Luckily, Ryan managed to save her just before her car wreck caught fire. Thus, as portrayed in the film, the film Crash, the life Christine was purely dependent on the goodwill of the white police officer, Ryan, to risk his life and save her. The contrast created by the film in this incidence is that of projecting the act of saving the life of Christine as a matter of goodwill and sacrifice, as opposed to projecting it as an act of a police officer in the line of duty (Haggis, 2004). The way in which Christine is depicted looking at Ryan after he saved her from the car crash does not only depict gladness, but also some strong emotional and psychological connectedness, arising from admiration. This too is an aspect of the depiction of the white supremacy and subjection of the emotional and psychological strength of the blacks, in the film Crash (Hooks, 1996). Nevertheless, the film provides a good image to the produce and director who is a white American. He portrays his own race as not being uniformly good (Haggis, 2004). This could be considered as a mistake by some people, but Haggis certainly knew the massage he meant to pass across. References Allen, B. J. (2007). Theorizing communication and race. Communication Monographs, 74, 259-264. Hooks, b. (1996). Reel to real: Race, sex, and class in the movies. New York: Routledge. Haggis, P. (Director). (2004). Crash [Motion Picture]. Jensen, R., & Wosnitzer, R. (2015). "Crash" is a White Supremacist Movie! Retrieved from racism.org: http://www.racism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=401:whiteness19a&catid=69&Itemid=165 Kotler, S. (2005, November 16). Crash. Daily Variety, p. 13. Madison, K. (1999). Legitimation crisis and containment: The ―anti-racist-white-hero film. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 16, 399-416. McPhail, M. L. (1991). Complicity: The theory of negative difference. Howard Journal of Communications, 3, 1-13. Orbe, M. P. & Kinefuchi, E. (2008). Crash under investigation: Engaging complications of complicity, coherence, and implicature through critical analysis. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 25(2), 135-156. Read More