Racial Issues In Crash By Paul Haggis

The 2004 movie “Crash”, produced by Paul Haggis, is about the different lives of a few people around the same community that are dealing with social and racial issues. In this movie we see some of the different stories of each character connect to each other. For example, one of the character’s story revolves around Peter Water, and another story focused on revolves around Detective Graham Waters. Both characters are brothers, and through the film we see how the actions of Peter water, who is stealing throughout the movie, effects his brother’s job in the legal system as well as the relationship of their mother. All of the main characters in this movie was either on the receiving or giving end of racial prejudice, but the character that will …show more content…
Ryan’s racist comments to an African American women at a clinic caused the women to deny Ryan any change in his father’s medicine because she felt extremely disrespected by his comments pertaining to the color of her skin, which made him very upset. Officer Ryan’s partner, Tom, also requests a partner change because he did not want to be a part of the racial profiling Ryan was doing, causing Ryan to receive a new partner. Officer Ryan’s personality and racist comments seem to drive people away from him, but this doesn’t seem to really effect him at …show more content…
In a car that is upside down with a woman stuck inside, he is very persistent in trying to help the women get out of the car. Both the women and Officer Ryan notices that they have met before. The women was the lady he inappropriately touched during his encounter with pulling over the African American couple in the car for no apparent reason. Upon noticing that the officer trying to help the women escape is the crooked cop, she pushed him away screaming telling him to not touch her, and yells for someone else to help her, which is also an example of how Officer Ryan’s racist ways causes people to repel from him. Although Officer Ryan sees that this is the African American women he mistreated, he is still very persistent in trying to help the women. As the car is leaking gas and fire spews near by, Ryan has a look of sorrow in his eyes for the women and risks his life for to save her. Once the car goes into flames, Ryan is pull out of the car by his new partner, but he crawls back in to save this women. This was a key part that showed the instant change in Officer Ryan’s attitude towards African Americans, especially the same women he just mistreated the other day. After this event it is not clear f Officer Ryan will continue to not mistreat African Americans, but in this instance he did show a change from his initial