Racial Discrimination, Deviance, and Redemption in “Crash” Essay Example

Racial Discrimination, Deviance, and Redemption in â€Å"Crash† Paper Paul Haggis’ (2004) movie â€Å"Crash† is a powerful portrayal on the way in which racial discrimination as a complex social problem affects the lives of people. Set in Los Angeles, the movie shows how different people often â€Å"crash† into each other’s lives and unconsciously create ripples in these interactions. The effectivity of Higgis’ depiction lies on the utter simplicity by which the movie is able to show the nuances of interlocking problems from multiple perspectives. Interestingly, the movie also poses the problem of coping in a multi-cultural society where racism is almost a norm in itself and shows how gender and socio-economic gaps contribute to and reinforce racial stereotypes and biases. The film’s exploration on the barriers erected by racial, gender, and income disparities is perhaps best portrayed by Matt Dillon who plays the character John Ryan, a police officer who has been working for seventeen years with the Los Angeles Police Department. Ryan is a single, white, male who lives with and takes care of his aging father off-duty and who spends most of the time in the movie demanding a better doctor from his father’s healthcare company. Ryan is both a dutiful son to his father and the police force, however, his character harbors the frustration resulting from the conflicts of his status as a male Caucasian in the lower rungs of the economic ladder which prevents him from providing better quality of healthcare to his ailing father. It is from thses conflicting roles that his bitterness and disdain towards privileged people of color arises. We will write a custom essay sample on Racial Discrimination, Deviance, and Redemption in â€Å"Crash† specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Racial Discrimination, Deviance, and Redemption in â€Å"Crash† specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Racial Discrimination, Deviance, and Redemption in â€Å"Crash† specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Most of the poignant scenes which emphasize his bitterness and his attempt to compensate for his disadvantaged position show Ryan attempting to get back at his perceived tormentors either by physically or verbally harassing them using his position as a police officer and his status as a Caucasian. In the early part of the film, for instance, he is the stereotypical white, racist cop who stops an SUV driven for no apparent reason than the fact that it is driven by a black American and proceeds to create false charges against him. Clearly a case of selective perception where people are almost always quick to prejudge other people based on the color of their skin or other stereotypes, Ryan treats the man, a film director, like a common criminal. Unfortunately, the man’s wife, played by Thandie Newton, sees the cop’s real agenda for stopping them and protests arrogantly that â€Å"You thought you saw a white woman performing fellatio on a black man? †¦ †¦? that’s why you stopped us. † (Haggis, 2004) This visibly enrages Ryan who, not wanting to show weakness and lose his power in front of his much younger police partner, retaliates by subjecting the woman to a body search and sexually offending her. The act is both an offense and an insult against the woman and her husband, who are forced to endure the harassment and even apologize to the police officer for a supposed crime. In another scene, Ryan pays Shaniqua a personal visit to discuss his father’s deteriorating health and painful condition which expectedly ends in conflict when he subjects her to racial slurs in an attempt to compel her to do more for his father. He tells her of his father’s effort to provide employment in his business and of the loss he suffered when the Government started adopting a preference for companies owned by racial minorities. She is not moved by Ryan’s tirade of his father’s contribution to the African-American community, however, because of Ryan’s racist remarks and instead tells him that she would have signed the necessary papers if Ryan had been nicer.

5 Cases of Excessive Commas

5 Cases of Excessive Commas 5 Cases of Excessive Commas 5 Cases of Excessive Commas By Mark Nichol The rules about commas can seem so complicated and contradictory that writers can (almost) be forgiven for tossing in an extra one or two. Here are several examples of overly generous deployment of commas. 1. â€Å"If a killer asteroid was, indeed, incoming, a spacecraft could, in theory, be launched to nudge the asteroid out of Earth’s way, changing its speed and the point of intersection.† This thirty-word sentence is littered with six commas one for every five words five of them appearing before the halfway point. By simply bending the rule about bracketing interjections with commas a rule that advocates of open punctuation flout routinely anyway the number is reduced by two, rendering the sentence more free flowing: â€Å"If a killer asteroid was indeed incoming, a spacecraft could, in theory, be launched to nudge the asteroid out of Earth’s way, changing its speed and the point of intersection.† One more comma can be eliminated by relocating the parenthetical phrase â€Å"in theory† to an earlier position in the sentence, so that the comma after incoming does double duty: â€Å"If a killer asteroid was indeed incoming, in theory, a spacecraft could be launched to nudge the asteroid out of Earth’s way, changing its speed and the point of intersection.† 2. â€Å"The metaphor, ‘The world is a machine,’ began to replace the metaphor, ‘The world is a living organism.’† In this sentence, the comma preceding each instance of metaphor implies that that metaphor is the only one not just in the sentence, but anywhere. (But two metaphors are expressed here, and innumerable others exist.) Metaphor, appearing in apposition to the two brief quotations, should not be set off from them: â€Å"The metaphor ‘The world is a machine’ began to replace the metaphor ‘The world is a living organism.’† 3. â€Å"The event is part of a catchy, public health message about the importance of emergency preparedness.† Catchy and â€Å"public health† are not coordinate adjectives. The point is not that the message is catchy and public health; it’s that the public health message is catchy. Therefore, no comma is necessary: â€Å"The event is part of a catchy public health message about the importance of emergency preparedness.† If, by contrast, the sentence read, for example, â€Å"The event is part of a catchy, quirky message about the importance of emergency preparedness,† note that because catchy and quirky are parallel they are coordinate adjectives a comma should separate them. 4. â€Å"The report was completed in December, 2012.† A comma is necessary between a month and a year only if a date is specified (â€Å"The report was completed on December 1, 2012†): â€Å"The report was completed in December 2012.† (The same rule applies when the name of a season appears in place of the name of a month: â€Å"The report was completed in fall 2012.†) 5. â€Å"Jones traveled by boxcar from California to New York with fellow fledgling artist, John Smith, sketching the American landscape along the way.† Commas are necessary with this type of apposition only if the epithet is preceded by an article (â€Å"Jones traveled by boxcar from California to New York with a fellow fledgling artist, John Smith, sketching the American landscape along the way†): â€Å"Jones traveled by boxcar from California to New York with fellow fledgling artist John Smith sketching the American landscape along the way.† Unfortunately, this type of error has gone viral its ubiquity is mistaken for propriety and is seemingly ineradicable. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:"Because Of" and "Due To" 8 Types of Parenthetical Phrases7 Sound Techniques for Effective Writing