The movie is about a young man named Derek (Edward Norton) who was at
one time the spokesperson to a large group of other young adults about
white supremacy. At one point in time he is put in prison for
killing two
African American men. After finding out some harsh reality in
prison,
Derek rejects the other white supremacists in prison and is left to
defend himself. With the help of another African American inmate
and an
old high school English teacher who visits him in prison, Derek realizes
what being a racist has done to him, his family, and their lives.
When
Derek's sentence ends, he goes home to find his brother, Danny (Edward
Furlong) deeply involved with the white supremacist group he was formerly
involved with. Derek wants to get his brother out of the group
and get
his family out of the bad neighbor that they now live in.
I thought that the movie
was excellent in cinematography,
performance, and content. Some scenes are hard to watch, but
they do a
good job in displaying the life of Derek and his family.
Five Questions
1. What was the specific reason for filming the past in black
and white,
and the present in color; just for telling what time period it was
or for
some more dramatic reason?
2. Could the English teacher's character been more developed?
In what
way?
3. All the tattoos on Derrick's body deal with white supremacy,
but what
does each tattoo specifically mean?
4. What happened after the end of the movie, did things get better
or did
they revert?
5. What were other people's feelings after the "harsh" scenes
in the
movie?
Submitted by Erin Perez
I chose to do my annotated bibliography activity on a movie titled American
History X. This movie was about racism in modern times. The story was about
a twenty something year old white male’s journey through dealing with his
beliefs and issues for him about race. The movie tells the story of a man
named Derek and how he was forced to look deep within and examine the validity
as well as the consequences of his views on race and ethnicity. The movie
begins with the climax of Derek’s actions as he murders two black men who
were trying to steal his car. Later the movie takes you back to the seeds
of Derek’s white supremacist beliefs. It shows you how Derek arrived at
the place where he was that led him to murder the two black men. Later
the movie shows how Derek came full circle to realize that his racist beliefs
were not only damaging to the people he discriminated against, but his
hatred and anger were also destroying him.
I actually chose this movie by accident. My brother had watched
it and recommended it as a good movie to watch, so I rented it. I didn’t
really know anything about it when I rented it. After I started watching
it I realized it was relevant to the issues we’ve been dealing with in
this class.
Some questions I would have for the author or others are, if they have
seen the movie, did it make them as uncomfortable to watch it as it did
me? Certain parts of the movie were very hard for me to watch. I’m not
sure if that’s just because I try not to watch a lot of violent t.v; or
if it was the specific actions and not just the general violence that bothered
me. I would also like to know if anyone else thought the scene where Derek
and Danny tear down all the posters off the wall in their bedroom undermined
the integrity of the scene and of the message the movie was trying to send.
I thought it was a little too Hollywood for Danny to entirely change his
racist views just because his brother told him what happened to him in
prison. I thought it took away some of the powerfulness the movie could
have had. Derek’s change of heart was powerful to me
because it seemed more real and came out of personal experience with
confronting the inaccuracy and narrow-mindedness of his views.
I wonder if the man who wrote the script, David McKenna, came up with
some of his ideas out of his personal experiences with issues of race and
discrimination. Some of the actions in the movie seemed too real and personal
to be imagined. It seemed to be that they would have to come from somewhere
inside McKenna’s own experiences. I would also like to continue the movie
where it left off and write a script for how Derek would react after his
brother was murdered. I would like to think that Derek would not become
bitter and return to his racist beliefs, but that he would use the tragedy
to educate others on the consequences of racism for both the racist and
those who he/she discriminates against. Derek would have a very unique
and important perspective since he was both a perpetrator and victim of
racism.
Submitted by Jenna Haarstad