Since there were two films that had to be featured in this study (i.e. Salt and Crash) and two sociological concepts had to be discussed, the author of this paper has decided to allocate one sociological concept for each movie. Evidence of the said sociological concepts were obtained by analyzing at least two scenes from each movie, which means that there should at least be four scenes that can be found and analyzed in this paper. The sociological concepts were chosen mainly based on the central themes of each movie. For Salt, for example, its central theme appears to be conflict and so the author of this paper tried to relate it to conflict as described from a sociological perspective—conflict is a sociological and psychological concept in itself.
Salt
The sociological concept that the author of this paper has decided to focus on in Salt (the 2010 film) was conflict, which is one of the central themes of the film as well . The definition of conflict can be self-explanatory. However, in this paper, it can be operationally defined as a state wherein two or more parties exist, behave, and make actions in an effort to deliberately harm and or destroy each other.
Each party involved in a conflict is often motivated by something and this something can greatly vary, depending on the type of conflict there is and the nature of the entities involved. In the case of Salt, the conflict was not only limited to a small group of people but two nations. The story of Evelyn Salt, the protagonist in the film, revolves around her being accused of being a Russian sleeper agent by American authorities when in reality she was not.
The conflict that led to the development of this plot was the long standing conflict and history of distrust between the Russian and American authorities. American authorities were trying to capture the protagonist in the story because of the fact that she was suspected of squealing confidential information related to American national security to Russian authorities.
Perhaps the biggest evidence of the existence of conflict would be the scene where the death of the Russian president as a result of the chaotic turn of events was portrayed. Russian authorities, as a form of retaliation, mobilized their nuclear arsenal. The American authorities, in turn, readied their nuclear weapons as a form of deterrent.
There were of course a lot of other scenes that could be used as evidence of the existence of both small and large scale conflicts. The existence of conflict is something that is innate to humans apparently. Man’s history, as it is plagued with lots of occurrences of wars, serves as another set of well-documented evidences.
The persistent existence of conflicts appears to be well-embedded in man’s history. It appears that in order for the world to have a certain form of equilibrium, there always have to be good and bad guys. A world that is made up of purely the good guys, apparently, is too good to be true.
Crash
Considering how the story of Crash (the 2004 film) unfolded, it would be safe to argue that one of the most applicable sociological concepts to it would be ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism has may faces. It can, for example be related to cultural conflicts and relativism. The story of Crash revolves around the social and racial tensions in the city of Los Angeles, California.
The film’s first scene, the one where there was a Persian shop owner and his daughter trying to buy a revolver from one of the city’s gun stores, portrayed ethnocentrism. The buyer (i.e. Persian shop owner) was having an argument with the gun store owner. The latter eventually became tired and impatient by the pushy buying attitude of the former. This resulted in a commotion where the gun store owner degraded the two Persians and called them Osama, in reference to the infamous terrorist personality Osama Bin Laden. This was a form of stereotyping, a manifestation of ethnocentrism.
Another scene where ethnocentrism was portrayed was when two black men named Anthony and Peter argued about how unfortunate it is that they were often being victimized by the cultural majority (i.e. Whites) in the United States by accusing them of all sorts of things even if they have not committed anything—as if judging them based on their race, culture, and ethnicity alone. This can be evidenced by certain characters’ actions such as when Jean Cabot (portrayed by Sandra Bullock) tried to go towards the opposite direction when she knew she was about to cross paths with the two Black men.
Ethnocentrism pertains to the tendency of an individual or group that is affiliated with a certain ethnic or cultural group to place his own cultural and ethnic patterns (and norms) at the center of things, as if his group is only the one that exists and matters . So far, the two scenes that the author of this paper discussed from the movie Crash clearly show the existence of that sociological concept.
References
Osipova, Y. (2010). Salt and the Story Behind it. Global Chaos, http://lena-globalchaos.blogspot.com/2010/07/salt-and-story-behind-it.html.
Zipzap. (2012). Sociological Analysis of the Movie Crash.
