The Male Crash Test - A Film Analysis

Director Paul Haggis Confronts the Audience with in His Urban Drama Crash

"You think you know who you are? You have no idea," says Matt Dillion's character to his former partner of LAPD with an uncomfortably harsh handshake. That is what Director Paul Haggis confronts the audience with in his urban drama Crash. The film is a collage of characters of different race and class who inadvertently cross paths with each other and how these collisions affect the other. The results of these interactions force the different ethnicities to look at themselves as they realize that they have defined themselves and others through the face value of race, instead of the depths of individual character. Masculinity in particular, is one of the dominant factors of identity portrayed in the film that the male characters are forced to question when their racial conflicts have shaken their own images. The men are then left to pick up the pieces and find out not just what makes a black man, white man, Latino, middle -eastern etc., but what makes a man in general.

Modern day masculinity takes a general form in each individual through their position in society. This form of masculinity is then further defined through the race of that individual through stereotypes. Generally, upper class individuals maintain their masculinity through their wealth and position. Lower Class individuals, or the working class, rely more on their physical abilities to provide for themselves or their families. Further down the social ladder are the poor and the desperate, who procure their needs as well as their masculinity through force (Katz 472). Each of these classes are represented in the film by one or more ethnicities who at one point find their masculinity challenged when they come in contact with another race.