Interpretation Of Cultural Conflicts In The Movie Crash From The Perspective Of Intercultural Communication

With the trend of globalization, the distance among people and countries isgetting increasingly closer and closer, which will lead to a more frequentcommunication among people of different cultures, which means a more frequentintercultural communication. Los Angles, as one of the most symbolic cities inUnited States, is a mixture of various cultures. With its about1.6million population,the city includes such races as Jews, Latinos, and Chinese. What is more, it is alsoone of the cities in the world that has the most religious groups. In such a dynamiccity that consists of various cultural groups and people holding different beliefs, thereal case of cultural conflicts happens any time in a day. As the director of theAmerican movie Crash, Paul Huggies mentioned in an interview that the idea of thismovie is from his real life experience. One of the accidents he himself experiencedinspired him that how meaningful the conflict between peoples of different culturescould be for a fast developed city, country or society. Thus, in his movie Crash, thecultural conflicts among people from various cultural backgrounds are heavilydepicted. But current studies at home concerning this movie are mainly about theracial discrimination factors in it. In order to have a broader view about the movieand to have thorough understanding about cultural conflict, the writer researched inthis thesis the elements of cultural conflicts, the coming apart and coming together ofthe process of cultural conflicts with the support of intercultural communicationtheories. Some suggestions are provided on how to resolve cultural conflicts in thefourth part. The significance of the study of this movie lies not only in that it helps tounderstand the mixed cultures of America, but also in the contribution it does to ourbuilding of a globalized and harmonious society.