Overcoming Adversity

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2005)

Overcoming Adversity Crash displays characters that are able to overcome society's stereotypes because all of the characters in the movie are affected by their race and because some of them are able to overcome what society has labeled them as. In addition to this, some of the characters prove that we can't all overcome society and continue to follow their societies stereotypes.
My previous experience with the film was watching the film on 11/15/05 in the upstairs of my house.
Race is the overwhelming issue on the table throughout Crash. Several characters stories are shown in the film, some of which correlate with each other. For example, at one point in the film, a bigot cop pulls over a black couple. After asking the couple to step out of the car, the wife begins to talk back to the officer and the officer then puts them both against the car and pats the wife down in a completely inappropriate way. Later in the film the woman gets into an accident and the same bigot cop goes to help her. She at first refuses to allow him to help her get out of the car, as gas begins to engulf the car though she accepts it, and both barely get out alive. The point remains, that characters in the film overcome what society has stereotyped them as (in this case, the officer breaks his bigot label by saving the black woman).
Some of the characters are labeled by others in the movie Crash. Fro example, the character that Sandra Bullock played in the film was walking on the sidewalk with her husband and upon seeing two black men walking down the street (one of whom was acted by Ludicrous) tensed up. She had always been cautious of black and was somewhat of a bigot. After the two men car jacked her just minutes later, this only supported the feelings she already had of black people in general. Later in the movie though, Ludicrous freed illegal aliens that he found in the back of a truck. He had the chance to sell these aliens but instead freed them and this seems to be a start for his conquering the labels that other put on him without even knowing him.
Not all of the characters of the film Crash are able to overcome what others think of them. For example the young cop in the film is told by his partner that he will soon also be a corrupt officer after their explicit traffic stop. The young cop denies this, but it turns out later in the film that his once strong morals do give way, and he commits murder and ditches the body. Not everyone can be a hero, some are able to conquer, while other fall, and this once head strong cop proves it by sinking down to a murder.
Crash is a film in which many characters are able to conquer societies hurdles of stereotypes and find who they really are.