CRASH

Sociology MWF 1:30

Due: November 20th Courtney Bellah

Before the movie is even started you hear a man talking about Los Angeles and how they people of the city need to crash together. The beginning of the film starts with a Latino woman (whom is a detective) talking about how she was hit from the rear of her car and how the car spun around. After the wreck, she got out of her car and went to have a word with the police office, who was talking to the driver of the other vehicle. The two women threw jabs at each other and blamed the other for what has happened. Women arent typically detectives, which would allow this situation to fit occupational sex segregation (10), because this type of segregation concentrates on men and women in different careers that are typically stereotyped by societal norms. A stereotype (10) is a set of ideals based on distortion, exaggeration and oversimplification that is applied to all members of a social category. The societal norms would be men becoming detectives and women being secretaries. Norms (3) are guides, or rules, for social behavior. Afterward, we see Detective Waters (which happens to be the voice we hear at the very beginning) walk toward a complete different crime scene which involves a dead body. This scene ends with Detective Waters looking deeply at something, and we are left wondering what is happening. As the scene changes and shows yesterday being an important part of our time line, we are taken to a gun shop where a man, Farhad, and his daughter, Dorri, are looking to purchase a hand gun. The owner doesnt understand the language the father and daughter are speaking and grows mad, allowing his words and role performance to shift. The role performance (5) is the actual behavior of the person who occupies a status, in this case the shop keepers status is a sales person. As a sales person, he should be calm, collected and patient but, because he could not understand the different language he got angry easily. The daughter buys the hand gun, and takes the red box of free bullets she is promised. We are then introduced to two young black men named Anthony and Peter. They are leaving a restaurant when Anthony says they were victims of racism and poor service. Racism (9) involves the ideas that attempt to connect biological characteristics with innate racial superiority or inferiority. Peter thinks nothing of it and calmly laughs it off while his friend keeps on with the idea of being discriminated. Discrimination (5) is being given unequal treatment. While the two young men are walking down the sidewalk, a white couple is walking down the same sidewalk. Anthony noticed when

the woman saw the two men, she latched onto her husband. He took this as prejudice from the lady. Prejudice (9) is widely held preconceptions of a group and its individual members. In my eyes, Anthony and Peter kind of had power over the white individuals. Power (1) is controlling others with or without their consent. I say this because before the lady even knew their personalities or who they were, she latched onto her husband which means she would more than likely be submissive to the men if they tried to rob her. As a sanction (3), which would be a consequence for social behavior, the two young men hold the couple at gun point and steal their car, which is breaking the law. A law (3) is a rule enforced by higher ground than an average civilian. Because Anthony and Peter go around stealing cars and robbing individuals, this reflects negative deviance. Negative Deviance (7) is the behavior of individuals that falls short of society related norms. As I mentioned before they are stereotyped and I believe this helps them fall under the labeling theory (7), which sociologically allows an individual to believe that being labeled a bad person turns you into a bad person. Meanwhile, locks are being changed at the Cabots house and Jean doesnt feel safe still. She complains that the locksmith will sell their keys and they will be robbed yet again. This is because the locksmith doesnt seem to be from the same social class, which is a group of individuals with similar levels of wealth, influence and status. When Daniel is done changing their locks he drops two keys on the kitchen counter next to her as he leaves. As Rick is running for district attorney he debates how he could use being robbed to his advantage. The Cabot couple is a dual employed marriage (11) because both of the spouses work and bring home an income. Ryan leaves the police station when his parter and him notice a black navigator. Ryan follows the navigator even after his partner says it isnt the same plate number. When the light is shown in the vehicle, a woman reaches her head up and she looks back. The truck is then pulled over and the passengers are asked to step outside the vehicle. Ryan takes matters into his own hands, when the wife is a little tipsy and starts mouthing off to the officers. The lady is put through sexual harassment (6), which is the use of ones superior power in making unwelcome sexual advances, by Ryan, and her husband doesnt do anything about it. When the couple is let go and gets home, she threatens her

husband with their marriage because he didnt stand up for her. Marriage (11) is the legal union based on mutual rights and obligations. Daniel, the locksmith, has a five year old daughter. He returns to his house and finds her hiding under her bed, scared. They lived in a neighborhood that gunshots were normal. Daniel gives his daughter an invisible clock which is supposed to protect her from bullets. He is put on a call at the gun shop, the shop owner continues to tell Daniel he needs to fix the door because it doesnt shut right. He tells the shop owner that he needs a new door and that he doesnt do that business, just the locks. The owner finds his house and has Daniel at gun point. Daniels little girl runs out to be next to her daddy and jumps in his arms. Right at that time, the gunman shoots, but thankfully the daughter had picked the box of blank bullets. As Anthony and Peter are driving in the SUV, they pass a white van when they feel a thump and notice they hit something. They look under the SUV and realize it was a person. They pull the Asian out and drop him off in front of the emergency room. Dropping the guy off in front of the emergency room shows through their personality (4), an individuals characteristic patterns including the way they think, feel and behave, because they know that it is decent of them to drop him off near the emergency room but because of their stereotype they cant do more than that. When they try to sell the car, he wont buy it because of the blood stains which is a symbol (1), an item that is used to represent something else, because the blood on the bottom of the car means that something has been ran over and the car could be investigated if the blood was seen. Hansen, Ryans partner, doesnt like the way things were handled the other night and he asked his boss about changing partners. He tells him that claiming Ryan is a racist will make him look like a bad manager and that if he wants to change he will need to claim he has a problem himself and needs to ride alone. Hansen is then seen driving back into town at the end of the movie in his own patrol car when he offers Peter a ride into town. Peter starts chuckling and reaches for his pocket to get out the statue he has the same as Hansen. Hansen assumes he is grabbing for a gun and shoots Peter. He then shoves Peter out of the car and sets his car on fire and walks away.

In the meantime, Ryan arrives at a car accident where a car is upside down with someone inside. The woman inside is the woman he sexually harassed when pulled over. She wont let him get her out of the car until the car is soon going to catch on fire. Right after Ryan pulls her out of the car, it catches on fire and turns into a fireball. She then sees Ryan with prestige (8) which is recognition, respect and admiration attached to social positions. Not only was Ryan a police officer there to help out, but he was her hero. Later, Cameron is driving his car when Peter and Anthony draw him to gunpoint. The two young men thought Cameron was a white guy and planned to rob him. Blacks are the minority in the society in this movie. Minorities (9) are people who possess some distinctive physical or cultural characteristics, are dominated by the majority and are denied equal treatment. Cameron and Anthony end up fighting while Peter runs away. Cameron ends up with the gun and back in the drivers seat, being chased by police officers. After being stopped, Cameron gets out of the car and starts yelling at the cops. He has too many life chances (8) to give up then to get in trouble with the cops again. Life chances would be the good things in life like education, housing, good health and food. Cameron tells Anthony he is an embarrassment. With that, the next time we see Anthony he is dropping off the hostages that were in the back of the white van. Anthony changed his lifestyle (8) and with that it internally made him feel like a better person. A lifestyle is the way people live their life. He went from being a thug to a caring black man. I would say he used the looking-glass self (4) to observe the way others perceived him to be on the outside to change how he truly was on the inside. The looking glass self involves the way we mold ourselves to be because of the way people on the outside see us. At the end of the movie, we see the different scenes come together to make a group (6), which are individuals who share common thought processes, goals and care about how others feel. All of their lives tied together somehow even after all of the different conflicts (6) they had with each other. Conflicts are issues people are working against each other on but are looking for the same ending goal. I would classify this as the functionalism theoretical perspective because the different cultures and individuals allow the society to function as a whole. Functionalism occurs when there are many different

parts working together as a whole, like a machine. The city allows the different cultures to come together at the end and work together. The detectives, police officers, thugs, thieves, and normal civialians are all needed in order for the city to be considered a functioning society.