Racism has been presented in every countries and society throughout history. Even though the world has developed, this issue has still existed today. Why does racism exist? It comes due to human’s selfishness which involves a belief that people judge others due to their skin colour, skin tone, languages, and others. For example, America is having racism issues between white and black skin tone people. This case has become serious because it includes bullying, despising, and mocking. There are many unfair treatments happened too, such as in the past, privileges, and rights were given to white Americans only. Due to this dispute, many black Americans were not satisfied with those unfair treatments, besides, many of racism cases were incited at that time as well. The government in America took a lot of actions to avoid this issue to happen, even now, they are still controlling the situation by the severity. People from other countries might not really understand how racism could bring anxiety. “Throughout my life, something – the kink of my hair or my ‘attitude’ – would mark me as inferior, worthy of ridicule, humiliation or ostracism.” (Brian, 2018). Brian, a black man who currently lives in The United States, stated clearly how was racism happening in his country. Obviously, every move of black Americans are being peeped, all of the good treatments have been depended by their looks. All these cases have also proved that the unknown sides of human which are not only living isolated but also specifically extreme towards this topic.
In the past few years, many articles, movies, and news which talked about racism have been banned to not trapped audiences into aggression. Moreover, even the truth that had happened was not that aggressive, people are still encouraged to uncover it. The way to relieve the tension in this racism is to face it and solve it: “We can make changes to not only the biases people around us possess but also the biases we ourselves possess. When we commit to divulging discrimination that’s intended to be shrouded with euphemism, we will start not just combating covert racists but converting them.” (Molly, 2017). Eventually, people could easily find data about racism in America through books or internet in present. There are also many films which have been directed at a reflection from the history in America that showed how scary and affected people can be if racism would really happen in the human relationship. Due to this issue, Do The Right Thing (1989) and Crash (2004) could be the best choices. Both their films told how racism happened in the United States. Do The Right Thing (1989) has been the top 25 most controversial films and were directed by Spike Lee in 1989 while Crash (2004) was directed by Paul Haggis in 2004. These films would show some racist scenes between black and white Americans.
These two movies have accomplished outstanding achievements from Academy Awards and Golden Globes in the United States. Even though their themes are similar, they had their own way to express their messages. The similarities and differences were portrayed from how they developed the stories, the histories, and humanities. Both movies showed how problematic was the race-related disputes occurred in the USA. Some of the particular races are portrayed, not only the major issues between African and European Americans, but also the other types such as Hispanic, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Persian, Arab, and so forth. Albeit these storylines presented various approaches to tackle the controversial racism, the horde of tensions and frictions was still noticeable within those different ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds. Both Crash (2004) and Do The Right Thing (1989) demonstrated the actions of every group which represented their stereotypes roles of how they usually have done in common. This showed in their daily interactions towards the representatives of the various groups. Every group had those specific mindsets that they were the most straight and appropriate person. For instance, white Americans were always cautious of black Americans without any proper reasons, and vice versa. At the end of these movies, they exposed a pointless violent death of a guiltless black American male.
While both movies essentially shared the same purpose of a story, they showed some distinct differences. The primary contrast could be remarked from the genre of those films. Crash (2004) is a dramatic type of movie which combined with diverse aspects of crime and the activities of detectives. In contrast, Do The Right Thing (1989) is a dramedy genre’s movies which involves some humor in a drama. In the terms of the story length, Crash (2004) displayed the characters’ activities by several days in the city of Los Angeles, while Do The Right Thing (1989) showed a one-day event only. Besides, Crash (2004) presented a storyline which is easy to watch and understand with a common day themes. Viewers could just chill and simply watch the movie to analyse the message about racism as it was directly portrayed from its settings and dialogue. The uncomplicated plot and strong symbol were used to emphasise the outline of the movies. This approach much differs from Do The Right Thing (1989) since it used various subtle symbols to carry out the meaning of the movie. For instance, it utilised the sound volume, camera angles, and even the temperature to present the abundance levels involved in racism. The plot was considered complex with an undirect storyline in it. Therefore, viewers have to really focus on watching this movie to capture the hidden message. This complication not only shows the viewers as a captivating movie but also let them reflect upon themselves on how they have usually treated the other groups of races in their living. Unlike the thought-provoking, Crash (2004) simply just showed the impact of racism in daily life. It does not influence the audiences to introspect themselves to be a better human being in terms of racism issues.
In general, a soundtrack has played an important role in a movie which could affect the emotion and feelings of the audiences, even the ratings as well. Although the films showed many negative subjects and dark reflection of the world, there is still a sense of hope that people have learned from their ordeal, hence, the music helps to reflect perfectly. These soundtracks represent the movie impeccably with a mixed sound that features the assorted variety, the truly dramatic moments that happened on the screen (Minners, n.d). In Crash (2004), instead of one usual soundtrack, it released two which consisted of “Crash-Original Motion Picture” and “Crash-Music Form and Inspired by the Film”. In the movie, the sound utilised a contemporary exchange and propelled each scene from an extra current perspective. The songs which were the elements of the film soundtrack were played at the important scene instantly. On the other hand, the sound effects in Do The Right Thing (1989) played a key factor into how it is gotten to set the mood for a scene at Sal’s pizzeria towards the ending of the film. The jazz and hip-hop style of sound was intensely used as the melodic scenes in this movie, for example, one of the song by Public Enemy which called “Fight the Power” was playing through all the scenes as a type of dissent until the point when it was finally overwhelmed by Sal destroying the radio. Hence, each part of sounds unquestionably hardened the validness of the film (Ebert, 2001).
In conclusion, although Crash (2004) and Do The Right Thing (1989) showed a different plotted trend, these two movies present American cultural fissure problems from various ethnicity at that moment. The daily interaction of those different races in America showed a negative condition and complicated the cultural plurality. The plots of the movies were connected to history and additionally put more concern on the current importance of this issue. Beneath the cultural fissure problems, negative condition on interaction and the cultural plurality, these movies present an opposition: the standard of white populace, which employs most power, versus the other racial and ethnic gatherings. Consequently, it could be noticed that the Italian-American character, Sal, ran the region effectively in the small world of Spike Lee’s film, and despite the incidentally loses of authority as well as his property, it could be easily restored in the future. A similar situation from Crash (2004) where the world of governmental issues and the media were controlled by white expert figures. They figured out how to keep up their impact of race opinions in the electorate of media by handy controls. In general, these two movies could be understood as an activity of voicing an imperative social message of caution about the impasse which any general public could reach if it overlooks the divisions caused by racial reasoning. Notwithstanding these convenient and widespread focus not at all created like Crash (2004), Spike Lee’s film offers amazingly, one more arrangement of indispensable true to life resources: characters with inward rationale, consistency and a fundamentally larger amount of verisimilitude.