Crash Movie Themes Analysis

Sociological Themes Present in the Film Crash
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Sociological Themes Present in the Film Crash
In the film Crash, which was directed by Paul Haggis, the issues of race and gender are apparent. This movie was a major hit in 2005 when it was released, and it stars Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Jennifer Esposito and Sandra Bullock among others. This paper provides a discussion of the sociological themes that are present in Crash. Gender and race are examined from the sociological perspective.
Gender and race are social constructions, not physical characteristics. Crash depicts the District Attorney of Los Angeles as he struggles to salvage his public image amongst African American voters by trying to find a black man whom he could reward in public. He considers one particular black fire-fighter who had carried out his task in a heroic manner just recently, but someone informs him that this man is, in fact, Iraqi, not black. The District Attorney then responds, “He is not Iraqi? Well, he appears black” (Haggis, 2005). This scene of the film is a clear illustration that racial categories are created and used by individuals, though these racial categories usually do not say much regarding a person’s actual national or cultural heritage. In a different scene in the movie, a certain police officer refers to his female girlfriend as Mexican, who then responded that her mother is from El Salvador and her father is from Puerto Rico. Not any of her parents is from Mexico.
In addition, the movie has superbly demonstrated the way that rigid gender roles in the society could impede connection between people. Crash particularly examines the conventionally male roles of protector and provider. In a particular scene, Cameron, who is an African American film director and is with his wife at the scene, is pulled over by John Ryan, a racist law enforcement officer. Soon, the wife of Cameron started to antagonize the police officer and she does not want to comply, even when Cameron repeatedly requests her to do so. The officer checks both of them for weapons. When Cameron did not respond with aggression as his wife is frisked in a manner that is sexually suggestive, his wife perceived him as unable to protect her.
Afterward, she accused him of allowing John Ryan to humiliate her so that his co-workers would not read about him in the papers and realize that he is indeed black. In a different scene shot at Cameron’s film studio, this does not appear to be something that he is concerned with, as he silently accepts to make a movie scene more racially stereotypical. As such, maybe the fear of losing his job never factored into Cameron’s failure in his role as a protector. Even so, if he had become jobless by reason of his public reputation, he woul...