Stereotypes in the Movie Crash

1、when the lives of an l.a. cop, a half black couple, two black thugs, a rich couple, a black man whose mom favors his son, a middle easter shopkeeper, a mexican mechanic and his daughter, and a rookie cop collide, there is no stopping the skid marks from appearing. this film was made in the style of

2、one of my favorite films. magnolia. the different characters and they way they interact with each other just give off that fresh cinematic feel. the film works very well.the whole racist theme seems at first to be what holds the characters lives together, but these characters are very human and ever

3、yone does know people who behave these ways. the acting is, overall, top-notch. the storyline is generally well crafted, and everything else, from the music score to the filming style and cinematography, is perfect. and yet, i do not like this movie.it is simply not my kind of movie. i dont really l

4、ike movies that try to give you meaning and not knowing how to do it. dont get me wrong, this film has a good message, but the way it is delivered feels too overdone. this film will make you think, and this film does need to be talked about after it is finished, but i just wish the film gave the aud

5、ience a chance.not everyone likes a movie that teaches you or forces you to think. but by giving the film too much of a grim tone set aside by spectacular and inspiring and breathtaking scenes, it just doesnt feel right. and thats where magnolia gets it right. and thats why this film irritates me. t

6、here is a particular scene near the end that i will not ruin suffix to say that the scene throws a completely unfair blow to the audience. it is especially irritating that the circumstances surrounding the scene are completely unlikely.in the film circles of 2006, the movie crash as a knockout hit i

7、s thrilling and provocative. it seems that the all-encompassing theme of the film is racism. this paper is, however, aimed at exploring another issue stereotype in the movie crash. the author hereby makes every effort to show some perceptive insights about this issue which really deserves our suffic

8、ient attention and study under the background of globalization and intercultural communication. by adopting examples which are selected from the film, certain concepts connected with stereotype will be discussed respectively such as its orgin, definition, phenomena, causes, harmfulness and the value

9、 of stereotype step by step in order to present a full understanding with analyses of the film crash.stereotypes in the movie crashintroductionin the 78th acadamy awards crash garanered six nominations. in the end crash became the biggest winner with three oscars including best picture, best origina

10、l screenplay, best film editing. its destined to be the topic of this year. some critics even praised it as the best thing since sliced bread. an in-depth exploration on the themes of racism and prejudice, cause and effect, chance and coincidence, and tragedy. “crash”is a metaphor for the collisions

11、 between strangers in the course of day-to-day existence. set over a 36-hour period in contemporary los angeles (l. a. ), involving at least 8 main characters from all walks of life and races whose lives intersect at some point , it is a social commentary on the interconnectedness of life in the big

12、 city especially in a post-9/11 america.the movie crash raised many issues that deserve our sufficient attentions. this paper is aimed at discussing about one of aspects that reflect from that film. just as the director haggis said, “the movie isnt really about race or class its about fear of strang

13、ers. its about intolerance and compassion; about how we all hate to be judged but see no contradiction in judging others.” “i wanted to play with stereotypes, with the assumptions we make about strangers.” we hereby discuss the phenomena of stereotype in our modern world, the causes and the harmfuln

14、ess of stereotype and the value of it, the author will hold the lines of crash script and scenes in the movie as examples to explain more about stereotype.1.1 what is stereotype?the word stereotype comes from a printers term, referring to a metal printing plate made by casting metal in a mold. now w

15、e adopt its figurative meaning, within the range of intercultural communication. journlist walter lippmann introduced the term stereotype in 1922 to refer to a selection process that is used to organize and simplify perceptions of others. stereotypes are a form of generalization about some group of

16、people. when people stereotype others, they make assertions about the characteristics of all people who belong to a given category. the consequence of stereotyping is that the vast degree of differences that exist among the members of any group may not be taken into account in the interpretation of

17、messages.in the dictionary of webster, stereotype(n.): something repeated or reproduced without variation:something confroming to a fixed or general pattern and lacking individual distinguishing marks or qualities;esp:a standardized mental picture held in common by members of a group and representin

18、g an oversimplified opinion, affective attitude, or uncritical judgment(as of a person, a race, an issue, or an event). term in the intercultural communication-cultural stereotypes:stereotypes are the perceptions or beliefs we hold about groups or individuals based on previously formed opinions and

19、attitudes (samovar and porter, communication between cultures 1991, p.280). when stereotyping, we assign a number of characteristics to a group to formulate its standardarized image. stereotype refers to a shared conception of characters of a group. when categorized as a group, people are thought to

20、 process relatively same beliefs and exhibit similar behaviors. stereotypes describe the behavior norm for a particular group, rather than individal behavior (adler, looking out/looking in:interpersonal communication,1996, p.75).stereotyping is a natural process. we all stereotype becase of an insti

21、nctive inclination and cannot avoid being viewed by others according to their stereotypes of our culture.1.2 the phenomena of stereotype there are many examples of stereotype in our daily life. for instance, in the 1970s movies, a man showing up with long hair and beard, wearing a big sunglasses is

22、definitely thought as a scoundrel. nowdays we usually have a fixed image in mind about people, such as, we usually consider that if a man writes with his left hand, he is wise and smart. there are some sayings about girls from different provinces, girls from chongqing are fierce and tough, girls fro

23、m changsha are crafty and treacherous, girls from dongbei are excessive crazy about dressing and makeups,etc. when it comes to intercultural communication, people also have some stereotypes about different nations, such as, americans are brash, materialistic. american culture is a cowboy culture whe

24、re individuals are obsessed with time and deadlines. a society plagued by crime and violence. chinese are like the japanese, they always seem to travel in groups. they are quiet, reserved and never lose their temper. but at times they can seem chaotic and unfocused.in the movie crash, there are also

25、 many examples of stereotype, such as, black people dont tip. black people dont like country music. black people dont play hockey. white people dont understand the essence of hip-hop culture, etc. the author will provide some detailed explanations later. 1.3 causes of stereotypethe famous scholar mc

26、luhan once describes this world as “global village” in his book understanding media, 1964. globalization really makes the time and space aspects of this world much smaller, people from different societies, cultures, and places have strong desire to communicate. however, does globalization really bri

27、dge the gap between different nations or races? its a controversial issue. we realize that the reduction of the time and space limitation doesnt mean that the psychological distance among different groups may vanish automatically. even if people share the same language the gap still exists, because

28、language is just one of the codes that language used in peoples daily life. the differences of world value, cultural orientation, social custom, and thinking pattern. may result in a situation that people from different cultures may stand close but their assumptions about each other go far apart. co

29、nsciously or unconsciously, we often turn to the familiar and comfortable behaviors of ethnocentrism, stereotyping and prejudice, which, unfortunately, can become cultural biases and prevent us from interacting successfully in intercultural communication.according to the theory of jameson, daphne a.

30、 categories that are used to form stereotypes about groups of people can vary widely,and might include that following:1. regions of the world(asians,arabs,south americans,africans)2. countries(kenya,japan,china,france,great britain)3. regions within countries (northern china, southern china, u.s. mi

31、dweaterners, u.s. southerners)4. cities(new yorkers,parisians,londoners)5. cultures(english,french,latinorussian,serbian,thai,chinese)6. race(african,caucasian)7. religion(buddhist,jewish,christian)8. age(young,old,middle-aged,children)9. occupations(teacher,farmer,doctor,housekeeeper,mechanic,archi

32、tect)10. relational roles(mother,friend,father,sister,brother)11. physical characteristics(short,tall,fat,skinny)12. social class(wealthy,poor,middle class)this list is by no means exhaustive.people form their stereotypes in many ways.we may create some by our direct experience with only two or thre

33、e people from a particular group.people may also accept some second-hand information and opinions, some views from the mass media,or they just think out by their general habits without any direct experience with individals from the group.we bank on our assumption that our stereotype is an accurate r

34、epresentation of all members of a specific group.1.4 the harmfulness of stereotypefirst, stereotype can not match up with the time in a sense. sometimes it means to be conservative and stiff. if the american still accept the fixed image from the movie where they knew about china, they would assume t

35、hat all chinese are introverted, rigid and reserved. this kind of frozen evaluation would cause some prejudice or racial discrimination in the end.second, as we know , stereotype are assumed to apply to all or most of the members of a particular group. in the end we tend to ignore differences among

36、the individual members of the group. “this stereotyping error is called the out-group homogeneity effect and results in a tendency to regard all members of a particular group as much more similar to one another than they actually are.” when we adhere to the stereotype rigidly about a large group,we

37、get confused with the description of a particular individual.third, the group average as the stereotype suggests may be totally wrong or inappropriately exaggerted. for example, germans are stereotypically regarded as being very efficient, or perhaps very rigid. when they may actually be less effici

38、ent or less rigid than the exaggerated perception of them, the inaccuracy of stereotype would warrant. americans who are usually individualistic are collectivist in some situations, such as school fundraising events, donating money for charity.fourth, the stereotype we make for others is based on in

39、sufficient evidence, and some generalizations do not stem from facts, but rather from personal experience. when we are sincere in our belief, we can not avoid misunderstanding in intercultural communication.1.5 the value of stereotypeon balance, stereotype can help to simplify the complex task of id

40、entification and guide our behavior toward the group.stereotyping of a national cultural traits works when applied to large groups. it allows people to understand and act appropriately in a new situation,thus making reality easier to deal with. stereotyping our national cultural traits by others cou

41、ld be taken advantage of, which may help increase our cultural awareness, so that we can accent the more favorable traits in communiction across cultures and leave the culturally unacceptale ones at home. 2. the analyses of stereotypes in crash 1.)in the past we thought the discrimination or prejudi

42、ce usually happen between the majority and minority. but it turns out that we are wrong, diffent groups marked with “minority” still could hold some stereotypes or discriminations toward others.in the first scene of crash, the korean woman shouted to the detective ria that mexicans dont know how to

43、drive. the abundance of korean garners the right to stereotype mexican. meanwhile, its known to us korean people have some physical difficulties to prounce some consonant correctly, so the korean woman pronounce “brake” into “blake”, ria mocked her in a satirical tone, “im sorry you no see my blakel

44、ights.”2.)the whole american society have some kinds of hatred towards arab after the 9.11 event. they formed some stereotypes about arab. it seems to them that every arab has some potential ability to become a terrorist, who are fiercely tough and exceedingly extreme.in effect american know a littl

45、e about arab and even the world outside usa. so in their mind persian are arab. thai and cambodian are so-called chinamen. in the second scene, in the ammunition store, when the persian father talking with his daughter dorri in their mother tongue, the ammunition store owner shouted to them, “yo, os

46、ama! plan a jihad on your own time.”, “youre liberating my country. and im flying into your mud huts and incinerating your friends?” his insulting words enraged the customers. such anti-arab atmosphere really make many arab-american feel uncomfortable. albert mokhiber laments: “if theres problem in

47、libya were all libyans. if the problem is in lebanon were all lebanese. if it happens to be iran, which is not an arab country, we are all iranians.conversely, iranians were picked on during the gulf war as being arabs. this includes one fellow who called in who was a polynesian jew. but he looked l

48、ike what an arab should look like, and he felt the wrath of anti-arab discrimination. nobodys really free from this. the old civil rights adage says that as long as the rights of one are in danger, we are all in danger. i think we need to break out of our ethnic ghetto mentality, all of us, from var

49、ious background, and realize that were in this stew together. ” all the words above reveal one kind of truth that stereotypes also affect the way we pocess information. in this case, americans remember more favorable information about their ingroups and more unfavorable information about outgroups.

50、they dislike arab in a sense but they pretend that they know all about arab by unconscious stereotying that most members of arab fit their one single stereotype. they overestimate the degree of association of attributes between arab group members and the extremist or terrorists. as a matter of fact,

51、 they know a little about the arab nation, this is also same to chinese assumption about japanese. 3.)in the nowdays american have some kind of subtle psychology towards the issue “racial discrimination”, they pretend to ignore the existence of this issue, it seems that discrimination has been wiped

52、 out from american society, but in the third scene, we can see some truth. the two black guys walked out of a cafeteria, anthony cant stop to complain, “did you see any white people waiting an hour and minutes for a plate of spaghetti? and how many cups of coffee did we get? man, that woman poured c

53、up after cup to every single white person around us. but did she even ask you if you wanted any?” stereotype works here. black people dont tip. the waitress sized them up in two seconds. she didnt want to waste her time, although she herself is balck. some stereotype is true to both two sides. there

54、 is something interesting happened afterwards. when peter asked anthony how much did he leave, anthony answered, “you expect me to pay for that kind of service?”some stereotype really brings out some intolerance and anger. anthony is too sensitive and rebellious against white people. they often car-

55、jack white people, but he has some sense of righteousness, as he said, he never steals from black people. he thought, only one reason black people steal from their own is because they are terrified of white people. he has more stereotypes about white people, such as white people dont relly understan

56、d hip-hop. white people put great windows on the sides of buses in order to humiliate the people of color who are reduced to riding on themmeanwhile black people have some agreements with white people on some stereotypes, for example, black people dont like country music. black people dont like ice-

57、skating. black people dont play hockey, etc. so its weird to anthony that peter as a black person like country music, ice-skating, and hockey.4.)there are some stereotypes even stirring up in our mind about black people. although white people dont want to commit that they regard black people as the

58、criminal source of society, they still think black in stereotype. you can not deny that their stereotype is reasonable in a sense. but the white people should take the blame for that. the l.a.p.d official tells us some truth: “i know all the sociological reasons why per capita eight times more black

59、men are incarcerated than white men.schools are a disgrace. lack of opportunity. bias in the judicial system. all that stuff. but still, its gonna get to you, on a gut level as a black man, they just can not keep their hands out of the cookie jar. of course, you and i know thats not the truth. but thats