Steretotypes and Social discrimination within the "Crash" Microcosm

Robert "Alex" Bennett
J. Fernando Palacios
FYS-111-019
November 16, 2007
See No Evil
Society is the designation of numerous individuals into a social system that can be examined as a composite entity that acts and reacts to its components. The components are the individual people who form a complicated taxonomy of generalizations. Each person is unique in the singular sense, but defined by his ability to conform to the societal generalizations that apply to him. This definition develops from the experiences of the individual and is translated into overarching views of society. Paul Haggis's Crash can be interpreted as a social system representative of American society's development of discrimination actuated by the translation of individual stereotypes to societal perspective.
Crash portrays a portion of the Los Angeles citizenry and delves into their interactions with each other as a social system. The film develops from the perspectives of individuals from distinctive social groups that exist in most cities, the modern standard of social assemblage. Haggis appears to have chosen these disparate perspectives in an attempt to create a microcosm of American society based around a representative sample of the population. The prototypical nature of the system models the development of individual generalization behavior into social discrimination. The evolution of the script from episodic to intergradational explores this progression from its conception within the individual mind as a reaction to its final state as a social hierarchy. The individual mind is then the root of social perspective.
The term stereotype is by definition indefinable due to its nature as manifestation of "personal bias, experience, judgment, and assumption" (Hicks 500). The conception of the stereotype is then conceived from the interpretation of perceptual experiences. The stereotype is formed from the generalities that can be rationalized by these experiences. The basis of interpreted experience is what Hick's describes as "the kernel of truth," that allows people to rationalize their generalization regardless of their typical erroneousness (500). Officer Hansen in Crash is portrayed as a clean slate free of generalizations. However, Hansen experiences one event, a black director acting out of anger, and then draws from that experience that all black men are dangerous. One black man reaches into his pocket during a heated conversation and Hansen, because of his past experience, rationalizes that he must be drawing a weapon and murders the innocent black man. Hansen is the paradigm of stereotype development. He misinterprets an experience that he draws generalizations causing him to react according to his inaccurate perception of the black man as a stereotype.
The importance is in the fact that Hansen reacted to the situation according to the stereotype. Neely's research explains that stereotypes are an individual's default action. Devine explains that given time a person will act on his beliefs and "conscious expectancies" (Devine 245). Furthermore, without time to consider a situation the mind defaults to acting on generalizations regardless of the situation (Devine 245-246). The result of this is that personal beliefs do not factor into the short term reactions of an individual. Prejudice is then irrelevant to discrimination. People discriminate based on stereotypes automatically regardless of their beliefs, and prejudice is the belief that stereotypes are legitimate archetypes for social groupings. Thus, people who are not prejudiced still discriminate (Devine 245). Officer Hansen continued to preach against prejudice even after he formulated his stereotype of black men, hence he was actually anti-prejudice. However, when he had to react to a black man he discriminated against him because his mind defaulted to his stereotype before he could take into account his actual beliefs.
Hicks explains that discrimination becomes prejudice out of "habitual" use (500). Research into social psychology has proven that over time as individuals continue to react based on a generalization "it becomes an ingrained belief system" (Hicks 500). Hicks believes that "we perpetuate prejudice through our actions" in a process that escalates over time (500). Devine expounded on the escalation concept by proving that prejudice can develop out of a small primer (Graziano 568). Hicks scales the progression of prejudice on what she calls "the pyramid of hate" which runs between slander and genocide (501). Anthony, a black car thief, follows this same progression. The initial primer is cultural tension between whites and blacks, and results in social harassment of whites, following his own doctrine that he would never antagonize a black person. This harassment by the end of the movie has developed into a murder threat against a black man for living a white lifestyle. This marks the movement up the ladder from civil prejudice to criminal prejudice enforcing that discrimination inevitably increases in severity given enough time (Devine 501). The link between this discrimination on an individual and social level is rooted in the cultural nature of Anthony's initial primer.
Discrimination is by definition a generalized form of racial determination, where certain traits are agreed to exist more predominately within particular social groupings (Zack 16). Harris believes that this inevitably leads to the creation of a hierarchy of traits, where more positive traits are allotted to certain groups, and thus a hierarchy of social groupings, for example racism (74). Zack explains that the distribution of traits is established by cultural upbringing (16). Individuals experience an event and interpret it according to their social expectations determined by cultural background (Devine 245). The result is conformity of stereotypes within a culture. Cameron Thayer, a black movie director in Crash, forms a stereotype that white police officers are corrupt through the interpretation of an event. The cultural precedent that is established within the black culture is voiced literally by his wife, and shapes the formation of his stereotype. The example emphasizes that culture is a dominant factor in the formation of stereotypes and precipitates the translation of individual stereotypes to social generalizations. The answer to overcoming the social standard of discrimination must bypass the cultural, social, and personal background that one gathers throughout their lifetime (Devine 247).
The problem with overcoming discrimination is that they occur automatically unless the antagonizer consciously remains vigilant to react without regard for stereotype. Devine believes this requires considerable energy and makes this sort of direct approach seem impractical (Devine 247). Hicks agrees that it would require instead an indirect approach that attempt to destroy the social foundations of discrimination by promoting interculturalism to invalidate stereotypes (505). He draws this conclusion from a Peruvian model that eliminates generalization by promoting "harmonious equilibrium" that minimizes the compositional nature of the modern social unit (Hicks 505). Proponents of this movement agree that it currently seems the soundest in eliminating social discrimination, but would be impeded by western individualism. Crash and its strongly individualized characters reach interconnectedness by the end of the movie, but fall short of anything that could be call harmonious. The possibility is still there, but, Hicks agrees, would take substantial work (505).
Crash as an American social microcosm emphasizes and upholds modern social psychological research. The films characters individually develop generalizations that inevitably equate to discrimination and together offer a complete scheme of the progressive nature of stereotypes. Their interactions model the social and individual interactions that mold discrimination. This theatrical model for society captures the true nature of generalizations within America and offers insight into the complicated nature of overcoming these socially inherent stereotypes. Haggis's movie offers a strong image on how society views its members.

Hey thanks for reading it, any help would be appreciated. Later

Greetings!

You've written an excellent essay! I'll just give you some of my thoughts and a few editing tips.

The term stereotype is by definition indefinable due to its nature as manifestation of "personal bias, experience, judgment, and assumption" (Hicks 500). - I'm not sure I agree that the term "stereotype" is indefinable. The term does have a definition: a conception held by members of a group which is recognized as having a special meaning.

The basis of interpreted experience is what Hicks describes

He misinterprets an experience that he draws from generalizations, causing him to react according to his inaccurate perception of the black man as a stereotype.

The answer to overcoming the social standard of discrimination must bypass the cultural, social, and personal background that one gathers throughout his [or "his or her"] lifetime

Hicks agrees that it would require instead an indirect approach that attempts to destroy the social foundations of discrimination by promoting interculturalism to invalidate stereotypes

but fall short of anything that could be called harmonious.

The film's characters individually develop generalizations that inevitably equate to discrimination

Excellent work!

Thanks,

Sarah, EssayForum.com

Thank you! I really appreciate you help, time, and confidence.

Yours truly,
Robert "Alex" Bennett

You're welcome, Alex!

Sarah, EssayForum.com