Heather Keenan
English 1301
Cassano
Causal Analysis Essay
10/21/14
We Are All Going To Crash and Burn Profiling is the analysis and classification of somebody based on personal information such as ethnicity, shopping habits, or behavioral patterns and is a fact of human nature that is perpetuated and exhibited through the characters throughout the movie (Merriam-Webster). The movie Crash focuses on racial profiling and touches on the harsh realities that most people reflect prejudice and resentment against members of other groups. It brings to light the issues that every race faces on a daily basis. The characters in the movie have built-in assumptions, based on common stereotypes, preventing them from seeing the actual person standing before them. Jean, the white wife of the district attorney, is so frightened of a street encounter demands that locks to her home be changed. She then assumes the Mexican locksmith is a gang member and a crook that will sell her keys and come back to attack her, when in reality he is just a family man. Jean demonstrates the characteristics of racial profiling and stereotyping because of what society has led people to believe the horrible things about different races. In the movie, Jean demonstrates the characteristics of racial profiling and stereotyping. As we look into the depth of the scene Jean racial profiles three characters without even knowing there real story. The scene leads off after Jean and her husband got their car jacked by two black people. Jean proceeds in this film walking past the, Mexican, locksmith and taking a two second glance at him before profiling him and walks down the hallway to her husband. When she finally ask her husband that the locks be changed in the morning and her husband tells her she is just being paranoid. Jeans had an outburst and yelled at her husband telling him to change the lock and saying she would appreciate if “The guy in there with the shaved head, the pant round his ass, the prison tattoos” (Crash) wouldn’t come back seeing as he would sell the keys to one of his gangbanger friends . After the argument is over Jean proceeds to the kitchen and once she does Michael, the locksmith, sets all the keys on the counter proving her wrong. As we look further throughout the seen Jean says “and it was my fault because I knew it was going to happen. But if a white person sees two black men walking towards her and she turns and walks in the other direction, she's a racist, right?”(Crash)
The chain of events that has caused Jean Cabot to racially profile people has to do with the different influential factors such as, heritage, upbringing, society, and etc. Society can put a spin on everything causing people to make decisions based off pieces of information. This indication people to believe the horrible and misleading things about different races. As we analyze the scene we can tell that the world has set a certain label on people. We see this as Ludacris, one of the car hijacker, states “this white woman sees two black guys, who look like UCLA students, strolling down the sidewalk and her reaction is blind fear. I mean, look at us! Are we dressed like gang-bangers? Huh? No. Do we look threatening? No.”(Crash) So in term we expect all black people to be gangbanger, threating people at every corner but in all reality not every single black person is like that. The main event that leads Jean to racially profile car hijackers is that the world has given people this perception that all black people are the same. So when two people prove society right about one stereotype she leads to presume that the locksmith is a “gang member and will sell the locks to one of his gangbanger friends” (Crash).
The outcomes of this scene was very minor but had an impact tor Jean. At the end of the scene when Jean is finally done arguing with her husband she proceeds to the kitchen where Michael leaves the keys on the counter. Jeans reaction when she sees Michael do