Themes and representations in 'crash'

Crash poster

Themes and representations in 'crash'



Crash is a film about citizens of Los Angeles with separate and different lives and how their lives collide with stories of: race, loss and redemption. All of these themes and more are represented through the many characters in the film

Firstly, Racism is the biggest theme in this film and lots of characters experience racism in different ways. Some examples of these racist attacks include:

• When Farhad the Persian shop owner went to purchase the gun at the start the man selling him the gun refers to him as "Osama" assuming that he is an Arab.
• The Hispanic locksmith Daniel Ruiz was assumed to be a "gangbanger" because of the tattoos he had.
• The Black cop couldn't remember where he's partner was from.
• The white cop inappropriately feels a women up after pulling over her and her husband who are both Black.
• The white cop at the end thought the man he was giving a ride was going to shoot him and because of this  the cop ended up shooting him.

Also the film shows that people can change and not always in a good way, we see the white cop who originally pulled over a black couple and inappropriately felt up the wife later on saved the same women from a burning car and made sure that he definitely saved her. But not all of the characters change in a good way for example Farhad the Persian shop owner who seems like an average guy (despite buying a gun at the start) ends up losing his head when his shop gets wrecked because despite being told to he did not buy a new door. He then blames the lock smith and tries to shoot him and nearly shot his daughter but luckily for the characters he was given blanks at the start when he brought the gun.

Lastly one other key theme is just the struggles of life. For starters Antony and Peter are forced to steal and sell cars to make money and the detective is having problems at home looking after his dad. Obviously some characters have it worse than others for example Graham Waters who is the black detective has to look after his sick mother whilst balancing his job and trying to find his younger brother who he finds dead at the end of the film.