The Disadvantage of Cultural Stereotyping - Movie Review Example

Cultural Stereotypes as Reflected in the Movie Crash Humans are accustomed to criticize and categorize objects and all that they can see and perceive. In terms of learning, it can help to criticize and learn from them and also to categorize things to organize. When such behavior is carried to the extreme and especially used on fellow human beings, stereotyping happens. Stereotyping occurs around the globe since people can readily pass judgment onto other people. Since stereotyping is easy-to-do as people just judge a book by its cover instead of familiarizing themselves upon the existence and character of other people. Even the popular culture runs on judgment based on outside appearance. Stereotyping is like making generalization which is labeling a group of people based upon their common characteristic. The disadvantage of stereotyping is that it spawns discrimination among people instead of building their character. It affects the self-esteem of people making them timid and afraid to face the realities of life. The practice of stereotyping may also cause abuse due to the existence of “superior” and “inferior” races in the minds of people. Usually people who believe that they are superior tend to bully the inferior ones. Other than bullying, the people labeled as inferiors have lowly jobs available for them and they do not have much access to the benefits and freedom the regular citizens would enjoy. Poverty and lack of education sprout from such discrimination. Also physical abuse and slavery are common concepts of racism existing around the world. Underground prostitution and human trafficking are the products of racism brought to the extreme. History had proven how people violated their fellow human rights. Modernization may have a big contribution to the reduction of racism and discrimination in the recent years, but despite of the collective efforts of organizations to protect the human rights, discrimination still exists. As a good example is Los Angeles as it is the setting in the movie Crash. The movie entitled “Crash” took place in the city of Los Angeles as several characters with different stories met as the whole film took place in two days. The characters are the police detective with a problematic mother and a thief brother, two young Black Americans who are car thieves, the White American District Attorney and his bitchy wife, an old while cop who was disgusted with his idealistic partner, a Hollywood director and his wife who experienced discrimination from the veteran cop, a Persian father who bought a gun for the protection of his store and the Hispanic locksmith together with his daughter. Racism and stereotyping are both shown in the movie as the characters come from various races and discrimination become rampant as the non-Whites experience some sort of bullying from the Whites. Conflicts among characters occur also due to their cultural differences as their beliefs clash. A more detailed discussion would be pushed further for better understanding of the theme of the movie and its relevance to the society today. The movie opened as Detective Graham is unintentionally caught in a traffic accident. His partner and lover named Ria immediately approaches Kim Lee, a Korean woman riding the other car. Both Kim and Ria exchanged racist words and had a hot argument discriminating one another (Haggis). In the opening scene, the story is quite puzzling and confusing until the exchange of harsh words between the two women began dominating the scene. The clash between the Western people and the Asians occurred in the scene. In reality, it also happened many times in the history as the West assumed some of the Asian countries. The Asians on the other hand considered the Western people to be boastful and proud. The next scene showcased the two young black men of the streets named Anthony and Peter. They were both talking and mumbling about the skin color discrimination they received when they went to Starbucks. At the scene emerges the not-so-wealthy White couple named Rick and Jean. Rick is a district attorney who has a bitchy wife. Jean made some negative gestures upon seeing Anthony and Peter (Haggis). For the upper middle class of Whites, they carry themselves in a professional manner but sometimes while being eaten by pride, they have some racial prejudices like Jean. She does not like the sight of Anthony and Peter who were both Blacks. The next thing that happened was the carjacking by Anthony and Peter as they had stolen the vehicle of the White couple. Arriving home, Jean was unstoppable in blaming other races about what happened to them earlier as she released her anger upon her Hispanic locksmith named Daniel and her Latino housekeeper (Haggis). Jean was so biased that she was not able to control herself as she expressed her hasty generalization upon her helpers at home. Sadly her helpers came from different races and probably deep inside they got hurt. The next scene is about the Persian merchant who attempted to buy a gun but he could not speak straight English, and went berserk when he assumed that the gun-shop owner prevented him from buying guns. His daughter however did not like violence (Haggis). The Persian merchant carried a seemingly repulsive response to Whites since in the history his race had experienced difficulties and prejudices that he wanted to cope up. His method of coping up is through violence and to protect himself from the people whom he does not trust, thus, he needs a gun. The story of the abusive cop named Officer Ryan was on a patrol with Officer Hansen who was young and a very idealistic man. They went investigating a parked car owned by a Hollywood director named Cameron and his wife Christine. The couple was in an intimate moment when the two cops saw them. Officer Ryan was very harsh upon the couple and degraded Christine by physically molesting her while Cameron was not able to do anything to protect his wife (Haggis). The situation showed how people can abuse their power. Possibly they might argue that the Black couple was doing something that should be done in a private place like a room but to physically molest a woman in front of her husband went beyond the fence. It should not be a practice of someone good with power. Racism also stood out as the abusive cop said something harsh to the couple about their race while physically molesting her. Racism existed almost all throughout the film, but despite of it, some characters showed their tender and soft side like Officer Ryan taking care of his sickly father at home and Daniel the locksmith looking after his daughter. The roots of the discrimination and conflict were traced also just like in the life of Detective Graham wherein he had a confusing personal life as he dealt with his problematic mother and a missing brother. In general cultural stereotyping can still be managed to prevent conflicts and unwanted fights. Also the cultures and races are related to one another as they coexist and men are created equally. They all have the same rights as humans and all have the capabilities to be good at something, so discrimination should be extinguished. Reference Haggis, Paul, dir. Crash. 2004. Lions Gate Entertainment. 2004. Read More