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The movie Crash (2004) depicts interracial relations and discrimination against the white and black population. Regarding the USA, it should be pointed out that it is a pluralistic society with numerous coexisting subcultures, whose interaction creates American culture. The main characters, Rick Cabot and his wife are carjacked by black Americans. Rick tries to win elections and decides to blackmail Detective Graham Waters in order to gain an electorate. Other characters, Anthony and Peter Waters try to prove that racial differences diminish the self-image of people and create tension between people from different classes. To accomplish this task, it is necessary to work out an appropriate cultural policy that demonstrates an understanding of cultural diversity and is aimed to develop a society of autonomous and cooperative people, so that in this society there is participation and activity in all subcultures.
The movie depicts that cultural policy is a part of public policy-making that is responsible for activities that refer to the arts and culture. In general, this includes cultivating processes and legal institutions promoting cultural diversity and accessibility along with increasing the artistic, ethnic, literary expressions of each individual. The cultural policy includes a wide range of activities, starting from arranging community tennis clubs to hosting corporate-sponsored exhibitions of art, adopting legal codes, and establishing political institutions. A cultural policy supports such areas as preservation of historic sites, zoos, botanic parks, libraries, museums, visual arts, classical and modern music, theatre, circus performances, humanities programs, etc. Thus, the area of interest of the policy is wide, for it concerns all social spheres, namely education, leisure activities, aesthetic values, etc (Konrad et al 2008).
The scene selected for analysis takes place at the end of the film. Jean Cabot realizes that all her friends are stubborn and selfish in spite of the fact that that they belong to the same social class. In contrast to them, Maria, her maid, is a kind and calm person who brings real happiness to Jean’s life. Beebe et al (2008) state: “Such a socialization process influences the nature and quality of the interpersonal relationships we have with others. Class differences influence whom we talk with, whether we are likely to invite our neighbors over for coffee, and whom we choose as our friends and lovers” (Beebe et al 2008, p. 95). This scene describes the reason why the cultural policy is important, especially in the USA, is obvious. First of all, taking into consideration the multicultural population of the country, it is understandable that a representative of any culture tries to maintain his or her identity and understand other cultures. Although the history of the USA is rich in examples of suppressing minority cultures, nowadays, due to cultural policy it must be possible to promote diversity, to support minority cultural enterprises to attain economic parity in the dominant culture, to provide equal opportunities for everybody to take part in the social and professional life of the country. For Jean, cultural barriers are ethnocentrism and prejudices against other cultures.
Ethnocentrism separates Jean from other cultures and limits her worldviews and communication. For Jean, much of leisure is dedicated to the consumption of considerably centralized media and entertainment industries, while this time could be usefully spent in participation in the cultural activities of the community. Prejudices influence Jean’s self-image and lead to a negative attitude towards Maria and her nationality. As the cultural policy is responsible for providing various choices for the organization of leisure by involvement in different activities that are aimed to increase the identity of all subcultures and their prolific interactions, it is necessary to change the situation for the better. It is supposed to increase the dignity of each individual.
The other scene depicts that Anthony helps Asian illegal immigrants to avoid deportation and lets them go out from the van in one of the Asian districts. As for the contents through which these goals could be accomplished, it should be mentioned that there are two main contents of public culture, mainly elitist and populist. According to the elitist position, cultural policy is supposed to concern aesthetic quality to be the essential criterion for public subvention. For Anthony, the main cultural barriers are language differences and, for Asian people, culture shock. Langauge differences prevent Anthony from effective communication and interaction with illegal immigrants. Major cultural organizations, cultural critics, creative artists, the sophisticated audience of the fine arts support this idea. On the contrary, the populist position is in favor of making culture broadly available. It tries to create a cultural diversity policy, for it stresses a more pluralistic idea of artistic merit, which is less conventional. The populist approach is centered on the development of the personality and wipes out frontiers between amateur and professional art activities, which enables all people to try to participate and get involved in the cultural sphere. For Asian immigrants, the USA culture creates a cultural shock so they cannot behave correctly and understand the events and the world around them. The scenes portray that these two positions can’t be regarded as complementary, by contrast, they are mutually exclusive, for advocates of the elitist approach are defined as “high brow snobs” that support an esoteric culture, whereas populists are regarded as “pandering philistines” that try to spread trite and commercialized culture. This model of the syntax of two approaches should be incorporated in public policy while accomplishing its tasks. This idea should be regarded not only in the context of art but also in other social and public spheres. The main idea is to combine the highest standards of excellence with wide access to all sections of the population. The main task of public policy should concern such areas as international education policy, citizen- and community-based exchange programs, encouragement of cultural participation, decentralization of authority, etc (Mor Berak, 2005).
The two strategies which would help Jean and Anthony to eliminate barriers are information seeking and effective listening (Beebe et al 2008). Regarding cultural participation, the movie characters of all subcultures should be encouraged to take part in the social life of the country. The state should enable the cooperation of all public and private agencies to diminish such obstacles to cultural participation as language barriers, lack of cultural facilities, discrimination, etc. To conclude, cultural policy is supposed to preserve the cultural identity of representatives of all subcultures, provide interaction between these subcultures, and encourage cultural participation within each community. It is responsible to govern different spheres of cultural life, namely the educational system, professional and leisure sectors, etc. The main concept of policy is nurturing cultural diversity. However, even now I think that cultural oppression is present in American society. Though the word has a negative connotation, it still is being frequently used by the modern-day policy. The major objective of the policy is to avoid the possible stereotypes and prejudices that might be a part of the national policy. There are many cases when diversity leads to antagonism. The concept is concerned with the presence of many regressive forms. The major danger of ethnocentrism is that it puts its major focus on retraditionalisation rather than on the presence of plural identities. Ethnocentrism threatens the traditional model of identity, thus offering people a low-security level. The rise of the national identity is concerned with national identification.
References
Beebe, S. A. (2008). Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others, Fifth Edition, Pearson Education, Inc.
Konrad, A. W., Prasad, P., Pringle, J. K. (2006). Handbook of Workplace Diversity. Sage Publications Ltd.
Mor Berak, M. H. (2005). Managing Diversity: Toward a Globally Inclusive Workplace. Sage Publications, Inc.
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