Evilyn Andres
Ron Riggs
Introduction to Sociology 02A
November 23, 2014
When watching the movie trailer to the movie Crash, I was fascinated to see such a movie. Crash is a 2004 crime drama film, co-written, produced, and directed by Paul Higgins. The film is about racial and social tensions in Los Angeles, California. I chose this movie because it shows a reality of racial problems that still happen today. I found this movie relevant to me because I am Hispanic and I have had racial issues with others. In class we learned about discrimination and racism, which are both demonstrated in the movie. Watching this movie made me understand this specific chapter better because it gave clear examples of how it happens in everyday life. The film Crash is also full of sociological concepts, examining issues of race, social class, and gender, as well as many others. Crash is one of those movies that makes us rethink even what we think we know about the world we live in.
One of the sociological concepts that Crash demonstrates is ethnocentrism. This means that we judge other cultures by the standards of our own. Not only that, but we also believe that our own culture is superior to everyone else’s. One example is shown at the very beginning of the movie when Asian Americans speech patterns are made fun of, in this situation the term “blaking” for braking. Another example found in the movie is when Officer Ryan makes fun of the name Shaniqua, which is a more common name for African American culture. These characters in the movie show that some cultures don’t accept the characteristics of other cultures. On the other hand, they only mock them assuming the superiority of their own culture.
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