Social Issues and Personal Problems in Film - Research Paper Example

Social Issues and Personal Problems in Film Definitions Sociology is a term used to refer to the study of human society and this study is scientific in nature, this study pays emphasis to the beginning, creation, institutes of the society of human beings. Sociology utilizes critical analysis methods to create knowledge and information regarding an individual’s societal activities, their roles and hierarchies. The term social imagination was created by C.Wright Mills who is a sociologist of the American society and he used this term to refer to information and knowledge that is obtained from the field of sociology (Bingham 120). Sociological imagination is a technique that offers various theories of the world and these theories assist in critiquing and generating new and old perspectives of society. Social Issues and Personal Problems Any issue can be recognized as a social as well as a personal issue. An issue is recognized as a personal issue as long as the issue is negatively impacting one individual and he/she has to deal with that issue on their own. An issue obtains the status of being a social issue when the issue challenges a huge portion of the society and can negatively impact the lives of the individuals living in that society (Thio 4). The perception of whether an issue is social or personal varies from individual to individual. An individual having an internal locus of control and an individual who is high in self-efficacy may perceive that the problems he/she is facing are his own and will try to deal with them on his own. On the other hand, an individual who has an external locus of control and who has lower level of self-efficacy holds the perception that the issues he/she is facing are due to external factors and the society has to solve his/her issues. In this case the problem attains the status of being social problems. Example of personal problem: An individual is fired from work because he shows up late at work as he was partying all night. This is a personal problem because an individual had full control over the outcome of his actions of staying up late at night. If the individual would have opted to sleep early, he/she would not have showed up late for work. Film Information The movie selected for this assignment is movie “Crash” which was directed by Paul Haggis and the leading characters of the movie were Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock and Thandie Newton and it hit the big screen on 6th May 2005 (Howard 162). This movie has been selected as it focuses on the issue of racism which is a huge social issue experienced by United States of America for several years. Social Issue The social issue that will be tackled in this assignment is racism and this issue is clearly evident throughout the movie Crash. Racism is considered as an issue on the social level because the entire US society is currently experiencing the issue and it is impacting the entire society in a negative manner. For example: The whites hold a racist perception against the black Americans and similarly the black Americans have a racist attitude towards the white and every group of US such as the Hispanics and the Latinos and the Asians all hold racist attitudes towards each other. Secondly, this issue is even considered as a social issue because the issue needs to be controlled by the entire society and cannot be tackled at an individual level. For example: an individual can change his racist attitudes, but if others keep holding on their racist attitudes, the problem can never be solved. Prevalence Several years have passed since slavery was banned in US; still the whites and blacks continue to have racist attitudes towards each other. According to research conducted by Gorvin, during 2003, individuals who were arrested in the region of US for convictions related to drugs constituted 53% of black Americans and the probability of a black American being arrested for drug related crime was 11.8 times higher as compared to white Americans (Gorvin 38). Biographical Information Paul Haggis was born during the year of 1953, in the month of March and was born in the region of Ontario, Canada. The director of the movie Crash is Paul Haggis who won various awards during the session of 2006 and was recognized as the first ever film writer who had won two consecutive Oscars for best film for his movies Crash and Million Dollar Baby (Thompson 231). His movie Crash even secured him two Academy Awards including Best picture as well as Best Original Screenplay. The movie crash was even nominated for four other awards and the movie continued to reserve several awards from associations such as IFP Spirit Awards and BAFTA. During the period of 2006 he was a part of two major movies including Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers and one of these films was even nominated for the award for best screenplay in the Oscars. During the period of 2007, he directed the movie called In the Valley of Elah, this movie fell in the category of Suspense Drama in which a father is trying to locate his lost son and the leading actor of the movie won the award of best actor. Theory This movie can be understood from the sociological theory of conflict perspective which states that a society comprises of several groups that are in a conflict with each other in order to attain higher status and power and to attain the resources of the society that are considered as scarce (Stacy 159). The movie clearly represents the conflict perspective as there are several groups in the movie including blacks and whites who are fighting against each other and holding racist attitudes against each other to secure power. Due to their struggle for power they have started conducting racist activities against each other. Learning After completing this assignment I have learned that there are several issues that are experienced by the society and the individual living in these society and these issues are clearly reflected and talked about different media such as the movie crash that focused on the subject of racism in the American society. Works Cited Bingham, Shawn Chandler. Thoreau and the sociological imagination: the wilds of society. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008. Print. Gorvin, Ian. Targeting Blacks: drug law enforcement and race in the United States. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2008. Print. Howard, Philip S. S., and George J. Sefa Dei. Crash politics and antiracism: interrogations of liberal race discourse. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Print. Stacy, James. Reading Brokeback Mountain: essays on the story and the film. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2007. Print. Thio, Alex, and Jimmy D. Taylor. Social problems. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2012. Print. Thompson, Clifford. Current biography yearbook, 2006. 67th annual cumulation. ed. New York: H. W. Wilson, 2006. Print. Read More