Cultural Differences
Cultural Differences
COM/360
November 12, 2012
The movie Crash (2004) is about a handful of disparate people’s lives intertwined as they deal with the tense race relations that belie life in the city of Los Angelos over a thirty-six hour period. All the players involved in the movie are: a Caucasian district attorney, his Caucasian wife who believes her stereotypical views are justified, therefore they’re not racist; two black carjackers that use their race to their advantage; two Caucasian police officers, one who is racist and abuses his authority to non-whites, and the other who hates his partner for his racist views; a black film director and his black wife, who feels her husband does not support their own culture enough especially with the wife being violated by the racist cop; the two detectives and sometimes lovers, one Hispanic female and a black male; an East Asian man who gets hit by a car, but is hiding valuable cargo in his van; a Persian store owner who feels he is not getting enough satisfaction or respect from American society when his store is continuously robbed; and a Hispanic locksmith who is just trying to keep his family safe out of harm’s way (Imbd, 2012). Each person’s story interlocks in some way as they all crash into one another through a series of racist endeavors and stereotypical judgments. Hall argues that every human being is faced with so many perceptual stimuli—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and bodily sensations—that it is impossible to pay attention to them all. Therefore, one of the functions of culture is to provide a screen between the person and all of those stimuli to indicate what perceptions to notice and how to interpret them (Lustig & Koester, pg. 109, 2012). Hall splits cultures into high/low context and describes how high context cultures use high-context messages where the meaning is implied by physical setting or presumed to be part of the individual’s beliefs, values, norms, and social practices; very
COM/360
November 12, 2012
The movie Crash (2004) is about a handful of disparate people’s lives intertwined as they deal with the tense race relations that belie life in the city of Los Angelos over a thirty-six hour period. All the players involved in the movie are: a Caucasian district attorney, his Caucasian wife who believes her stereotypical views are justified, therefore they’re not racist; two black carjackers that use their race to their advantage; two Caucasian police officers, one who is racist and abuses his authority to non-whites, and the other who hates his partner for his racist views; a black film director and his black wife, who feels her husband does not support their own culture enough especially with the wife being violated by the racist cop; the two detectives and sometimes lovers, one Hispanic female and a black male; an East Asian man who gets hit by a car, but is hiding valuable cargo in his van; a Persian store owner who feels he is not getting enough satisfaction or respect from American society when his store is continuously robbed; and a Hispanic locksmith who is just trying to keep his family safe out of harm’s way (Imbd, 2012). Each person’s story interlocks in some way as they all crash into one another through a series of racist endeavors and stereotypical judgments. Hall argues that every human being is faced with so many perceptual stimuli—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and bodily sensations—that it is impossible to pay attention to them all. Therefore, one of the functions of culture is to provide a screen between the person and all of those stimuli to indicate what perceptions to notice and how to interpret them (Lustig & Koester, pg. 109, 2012). Hall splits cultures into high/low context and describes how high context cultures use high-context messages where the meaning is implied by physical setting or presumed to be part of the individual’s beliefs, values, norms, and social practices; very
References: Imbd. (2012). Crash. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375679/plotsummary Lustig, M. and Koester, J. (2010). Intercultural competence: Interpersonal communication across cultures (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon Wolfe, J. (2010). Cramberry. Intercultural communication Indentifies in Movie- “Crash.” https://cramberry.net/sets/28641-intercultural-communication-indentifies-in-movie-crash-by-j-wolfe