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  • Essay / The theme of racial inequality in "Shawshank Redemption" and "Crash"

    The first movie I decided to watch was Crash. I picked this movie up first because the title intrigued me, then I did more research on the movie and couldn't wait to watch it for myself. Right off the bat, the film begins with a flashback of two detectives involved in a car accident with an elderly Asian woman. The female detective, Ria, begins throwing racist insults at the other women. This sets the tone for the entire film and foreshadows what is to come. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The film then shifts to a Persian store owner, Ferhad, and his daughter attempting to purchase a gun. Persian man tries to buy a handgun from a white man. The white male begins to get frustrated with Ferhad and begins to insult his race. The white man calls him Osama, which angers Ferhad and angers him. The white owner calls security to escort him out of the store. His daughter is then left in the store and decides to continue purchasing the gun for her father. The film Crash was filmed shortly after the September 11 attacks in the United States. Many Americans made assumptions about other people who were not the same race as themselves. The Americans were hostile and rude to these people of a different race, as shown in the film. The film then shows the point of view of two African-American men. These two men discuss the stereotypes associated with being a black man. A rich man and his wife come across them in the streets of Los Angeles. When the woman overtakes the men, she clings to her husband and becomes inapparently uncomfortable. The two men notice the way she begins to behave when she passes them in the street. Once the couple gets into their car, both men open their doors and point a gun to their heads. The couple gets out of the car and the two African-American men steal their car. This scene demonstrates the extreme stereotypes that are held not only against African Americans but also against African American men. Throughout the film there are many different scenes showing how society treats all different races. Some people in society feel superior to others and the film demonstrates this thought perfectly. The film does not offer a solution to this problem, but it does suggest that people of all races reflect on their lives and their own experiences. Every character in the film has been affected by racial discrimination, some as a victim and others as a perpetrator. The movie Shawshank Redemption demonstrates the inequality and crime committed in prison. The film is narrated by a man named Red, this man was sentenced to life in prison for trying to kill his wife. However, he accidentally killed a neighbor and a child. Years later, a man named Andy Dufresne was also sent to Shawshank for a life sentence. Red was known to all the prisoners as "the guy who knows how to get things." Andy approaches Red after only a month of incarceration to ask for a rock hammer, so he can return to his old hobby of collecting and shaping rocks. Shawshank is a terribly harsh environment, with violent guards, fights, and frequent situations that include sexual assault. Early in the film, Andy becomes the target of sexual assault by men in prison known as "The Sisters." In order to stop the sexual abuse, one of the guards tells him about a week's work on the roof. While he is working, he hears one of theguards talk about his taxes and Andy sees an opportunity. Andy, who is a former banker, offers to help the guard and gains some protection from the inmates and other guards. A new man arrives in his prison, Tommy Williams, who becomes a friend of Red and Andy. Andy sees something in Tommy and helps him learn to read and even graduate, and it eventually emerges that Tommy knows the person who actually killed Andy's wife. Andy informs the director of the evidence, hoping that he will be proven innocent. However, the guard must protect his investment with Andy and has Tommy killed. Andy is then placed in solitary confinement for 2 months. After his release from confinement, Andy does not show up for the call. Instead, he was already on his way to freedom. Andy had used the hammer to tunnel through the prison walls. Forty years after Andy's escape, Red finally gets parole and reunites with Andy. Race and gender are social constructs. In a scene from the film Crash, a detective calls his lover a Mexican. She answers: “My father is from Puerto Rico, my mother from El Salvador. Neither is Mexico.” Traditional male roles of "provider" and "protector" are also demonstrated throughout the film. In one scene, a black director named Cameron is arrested by a white police officer named John Ryan. Cameron's wife is with him and soon begins questioning the officer. The police then decided to check for the presence of weapons. He responds calmly when the white police officer touches his wife in a sexual manner, she perceives him as not protecting her. She later claims he allowed them to humiliate them so the business world wouldn't "read about him in the papers and realize he's actually black." Crash shows that we should reanalyze distinctions between “masculine” traits, such as protectiveness and aggression. , and “feminine” traits, such as submission, calm and intuition. The film also features a Persian American one-stop shop owner who purchases a handgun to protect his wife and daughter. His daughter has a bad feeling about buying the gun. The family store is then vandalized and destroyed, threatening his means of providing for his family. Immediately after the incident, he sued a locksmith whom he held responsible for the situation. He holds the locksmith at gunpoint, demanding money to pay for the vandalism. The locksmith's young daughter, who was looking through the front door, fled when her father was shot, so she threw herself in front of the gun. The gun goes off, pointed at the young girl, but she is unharmed. The tragedy did not occur because Dorri, the merchant's daughter, circumvented her father's wishes by obtaining blank cartridges for ammunition. Her behavior throughout the scene represents traits of confidence and determination, rather than "feminine" traits. However, his behavior also shows traits of intuition and calmness. This shows that people use character traits that are appropriate for the situation they face, negating the idea of ​​gender appropriateness. In the movie Shawshank Redemption, many prisoners are held for many years. One of the prisoners in the film, Brooks, has spent more than fifty years in prison and has forgotten the outside world. Once released from prison, Brooks failed to resocialize and this led him to commit suicide. Entering a prison, for every person, you are desocialized. When you leave prison, you are plunged into a world that is unfamiliar to you. In society, one of the main forms of punishment for deviance is sending someone to a correctional facility. The shock..