American History X – Film Review

The first scene of the film started by a TV news show, which grieved Derek was pointing finger to the far-right targets for the death of his father. Later in the film the audience will realizes that the bitterness exhibited by Derek was not just as a result of his fathers’ death, but is was due to motivation given by his father over the dinner table conversation. It is clear that his father had instilled him with racism and throughout the film, the director did not attempted to tackle the aspect of race hatred (Kaye, 1998). One of the convincing scene that was represented in the movie and indicated that roles of leadership in shaping ethical behavior of the community is when Derek made a brilliant speech driven by availability of heavy metal, tattoos, beer, drugs and the need for all the people in the community that feel insecure to belong to the entire movement. The purpose of this speech was to make all races to stick together and protect all their playground and beaches of the Venice area by declaring war with all others.

            The film uses White and Black to demonstrate the recent past and color discrimination within a 24-hour period after Derek was released from prison. While in prison, Derek was seen to have gone through a transition from being hater of whites to a lonely person which was accelerated by brutal rape (Kaye, 1998). In the other hand Danny who schooled together with Derek was a good students and both were taught by black history teacher named Sweeney, who provided the students with moral films.

            One important aspect that the film attempted to present is the development of Derek’s prison experience. The swastika tattoos that was drawn on his chest fitted with him at first as white power faction. However, later it was seen that Derek disillusion made him find out that all other major groups in the prison such as the white, Hispanic and black have developed a working formula. For him that was too much and only basketball game was the one that put him in troubled. Additionally, the film’s right-wing was clearly demonstrated by Derek forceful rhetoric, however, these questions were only answered by Jewish teacher by the name Elliot Gould (Kaye, 1998). Also, the black laundry worker gave a speech about the feelings and the ideas, but stressed how they have missed sex. Generally, this film presented the historical problems about racial difference in the American society. These problems was perpetrated in the prisons, schools and other public place. Most important aspect that the film highlighted was that parents tutor their children about racism.

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