Visual Literacy-Crash Movie Reflection

The movie Crash is an intense story told about the tense race relationships in the city of Los Angeles. The message being portrayed is that racism is still heavily out there, and we need to be educated and do something about it. Often times, just as in this movie, people feel their stereotypical beliefs of someone are justified and therefor they are not being racist. When people are in a place of power, such as the police officer in this movie, it does not mean they can treat people differently because of the color of their skin. In fact, I believe that should make it the exact opposite.

Throughout this movie there are plenty of stereotypes of different minorities. I do not think that it does an accurate job of representing the minorities. This movie does a good job at showing both “typical stereotypes” and examples of people that defy the normal stereotypes. I like how we can see the good and the bad parts of a person. This movie shows a very intense dramatic representation of what people may go through just because they are a certain race. Throughout the film you see Caucasians, African America, Asian Americans, Hispanics and Middle Eastern immigrants.

This film was directed by Paul Haggis, who is an award-winning filmmaker. I believe his life impacted the way he views the relationships that are created in our society. He really wanted to portray how prevalent racism and microaggressions are no matter where you look and no matter what the persons skin color is. I also think it was very important to notice that we have the power to change ourselves and help better the way people are treated.

I believe a lot of different people may be offended by this movie, but I also believe that is the point. Not only do we know not everyone fits these stereotypes, but it is almost embarrassing to see how people treat each other and abuse their power. Throughout this movie we see the way society feels about stereotypes, but we are also able to see the stereotypes people have about themselves and their culture.

 This movie added to by visual literacy by showing me how words do not have to be used to send a message. I liked how sometimes we just watched as the story developed. We were actually able to see the transformation of some characters. It was also startling to see how fast he shot the young man just by assuming he was going for a gun in his pocket.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gagilas/10681597536/in/photolist-hgTYNL-MWGQ9-5QPSx-4BDEWk-4BHXvY-4BHXqy-4BHXxY-GpqgA-6bPdqF-5fGhUn-78eQog-n9pZ5-3X39bB-apFuHv-bAQy2x-cJPiS-51Ubf4-4BCNxv-nqHmEt-37ofKA-4BH72d-6GCHw3-4LKDtk-7RpNqd-7yoDnQ-9Sjf9N-dATqzX-8UH65e-8vZhGK-3ZW1Z1-3X39mv-c9rbJY-bsL36b-3X39gr-75PdC-iiidWy-3X7r8y-iiivNt-iiidUu-5eo2hq-a2kcob-6aVBVh-2f4tu6-6YNBPZ-5XY23x-i82p6z-3VrWU2-3ZW2vU-csg3DY-4y7xdg CC Public Domain

My hope is that we can ditch the stereotypes and start treating people as people, no matter their skin color!