The God of Small Things

The movie “Crash” is unlike any other movie that deals with race relations, throughout time there have been many movies that focus on racism but most just deal with the tensions between whites and African-Americans. “Crash” is quite different, it takes many different facets of racism and shows how it is cut both ways. With its multi ethnic cast, Crash walks viewers through the lives of whites, blacks, Latinos, Koreans, Iranians, criminals, Police Officers, the rich the poor, a the powerful and the powerless. All of whom are defined by racism. One character in particular stood out to me throughout the movie and that was Police Officer John Ryan. The actions of this character exposes another example of bigotry in law enforcement which in the end is replaced with a sense of heroism in his acts towards others.

One scene in particular that stands out to us when we think of the movie “Crash” is towards the beginning when Officer Ryan pulls over a black upper class couple after catching them participating in some sort of sexual act while driving. We immediately see the police officers bigotry toward the couple as he treats them as some form of criminals, forcing them to step out of the car and searching them. He gets to the black women and completely violates her by touching her inappropriately right in front of his partner and the womans husband. Ironically neither husband or wife utter a single complaint because of the power this white police officer holds over them. By the end of this scene we can not stand this guy, and just in case we have any doubt remaining about his bigotry after this scene his upcoming actions clearly force us to think otherwise.

We then witness a telephone interaction between Officer Ryan and a heath care clinic representative. Although Ryan is frustrated, with having to deal with getting another appointment for his father, but only bigotry accounts for his outburst of “Big Fucking surprise that is!” when he learns that the representative's name is Shaniqua. Later, Ryan visits the clinic in person only to sabotage his own effort to help his father by telling Shaniqua, “I look at you and I'm thinking about the five or six white guys who didn't get your job. Ryan is very much characterized by consistently bigoted, even when it is in his best interest to be otherwise; he simply cannot control himself.