American History X American History X is clearly a film dealing with the social topic of racism. The interesting thing about this film is the way in which the subject is presented. First of all, it is obvious that, though racism is always a difficult subject to deal with, American History X presents it without any reservations or dummying down. Second, the film's figurehead for racism, Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton), is not an unintelligent redneck racist as films often portray them, but is in fact well-spoken, charismatic and bright, although he clearly holds ideals that are terribly wrong. Finally, the film shows that it is not only the white, neo-nazi racists who are fools for being involved in this, but all those who hold hatred in their hearts. Through these methods, the film instills this idea upon the viewer, in an extremely convincingly way, that hatred and racism will destroy a person and those closest to them. It is immediately revealed to the audience at the onset of this movie that there will be no holds barred and no playing down the realism of this intense racial hatred. When the film flashes back to the reason for Derek's incarceration, we see Danny, awoken by the sound of breaking glass, rush to wake up his brother and alert him that some black guys are trying to steal or wreck his truck. At hearing this, Derek immediately jumps out of bed, grabs a gun, and shoots one of them, wounds another, and fires at the third as he drives away. Then, in one of the most brutal scenes in film history, Derek forces the remaining, wounded man to put his face on the curb and Derek kicks the back of his head, smashing in the man's skull. This scene is a perfect example of cumulative causation, for it depicts the endless circl... ... middle of paper ... ...ferred to comes at the end of the film, when a black student Danny had previously encountered and angered shoots him repeatedly. Derek, making a visit to the school, runs in to find that his worst nightmare had come true. His brother was dead, due to racist actions, and his life and the lives of his family will be changed forever for it. For an explanation unknown to anyone, some people are inclined to hating others. Motives may perhaps be because they are insecure of who they are, feel threatened by someone, or an explanation which no one has. This movie explains that a major reason why people hate is because they want to blame someone else for their misfortunes. It is always nice to put the responsibility on somebody else's shoulders. Hopefully in a near future people can begin to comprehend how foolish it is to hate all the time, and then start to love.
The film starts with an uprising after a white storeowner kills a black teenager. This incident Highlights Prejudices. The teenager was labeled a thief because of the color of his skin and the unjustifiable murder causes racial tensions that exist as a result of the integration of the high schools.
I believe that the purpose of the film was to explain to the viewer that hatred very often originates from anger and fear. Michael Ramsdell is trying to reveal the underlying causes and possible solutions to hate war and violence. He shows us that those emotional and biological mechanisms that make us vulnerable to acts and beliefs of hate can be similarly used to make us proficiently overcome these traits.
This demonstrates to us that no matter how much your legal or moral laws are violated, what matters is how you as an individual react to the situation, justly or unjustly. This movie is centered around the notion that if you are a person of ethnic background, that alone is reason for others to forsake your rights, although in the long run justice will prevail
Derek Vinyard and Danny Vinyard was associated with the Nazi praising group. They were prejudicial to everyone and gain hatred for colored people. Even though Derek and Danny were cleansed of their mistakes by going through redemption and changed, Danny was killed by a colored teenager because that colored person was also prejudicial. As we can observe in this movie, prejudice is an unbreakable chain that transmit through generation to generation. Prejudice will never cease until the human race is completely
The Birth of a Nation (1915) is one of the most controversial movies ever made in Hollywood, some people even consider it the most controversial movie in the long history of Hollywood. Birth of a Nation focuses on the Stoneman family and their friendship with the Cameron’s which is put into question due to the Civil War, and both families being on different sides. The whole dysfunction between the families is carried out through important political events such as: Lincoln’s assassination, and the birth of the Ku Klux Kan. D.W. Griffith is the director of the movie, and him being born into a confederate family in the South, the movie portrays the South as noble and righteous men, who are fighting against the evil Yankees from the North, who have black union soldiers among them, whom overtake the town of Piedmont, which leads the KKK to take action and according to the movie become the savior of white supremacy. During this essay, I would focus on the themes of racial inequality, racism, and the archetypical portrayal of black people in the movie, which are significant especially during the era when the film was released.
American History X is a great film that delivers a very strong message about deviant behavior. The story of Derek Vineyard and Danny inspires a lot in terms of changing the deviant behavior through various social concepts. The film shows good application of these theories and it involves the audience into a gripping tale of the change one hoes through to fight deviance and get through the tough journey of correcting oneself and choosing the right path.
There are two main issues in the movie the “The Color of Fear” that I will discuss. These two issues include grouping people of color on the basis of the way one looks, and the attitudes of different races towards one another. Including also the idea that the white “do-gooder” feels that subconsciously racism is being taken care of, when in all reality it isn’t. The eight men in The Color of Fear candidly discussed racism not only as "whites oppressing blacks," but also the less addressed sides of racial trouble in America. A white man earnestly stating that he had never oppressed anyone in his entire life, and a Hispanic man talking about being afraid of driving in front of pickup trucks with gun racks, shows how there needs to be more progress towards ending these feelings in America. Stereotypes were openly declared, from Asians as "the model minority" to blacks as "lazy, violent, and dangerous."
To begin, Tre learns to display loyalty to his family from his father. Black men are stereotyped as not wanting to work and having an inability to care for their children or their families. However, Furious seeks to prove this as a myth. The film illustrates Furious’s dedication to raising his son to be a respectable young man and provide for him. Not only does he instill self-responsibility in Tre but also, communal responsibility. Tre learns
Thus, at a first glance, some may declare that this movie does not have themes of racism at all. Upon deeper inspection, however, it becomes clear that this is not the case. While the racism depicted is not the crude racism of the past, more modern, subtle racism is abundant. Many people point out that racism must be dead in America, because Barack Obama was president. Exclaiming their support, they say they gladly would have elected him for a third term if they could have. This supports the idea that there may be less racism towards skin color alone, but more towards the culture and
... supremacist gang, to rioting in an Asian owned grocery store, to finally brutally murdering someone. We observe as family ties become increasingly strained in every way, the viewer can easily conclude that Derek’s racism as well as his eventual influence on his younger brother ultimately contributed to their own downfall. As controversial as this movie maybe for the offensive language and brutal violence, it is a movie that deserves to be seen, and even discussed. It really provides insight into some factors within society that cannot be contained by the law or even deterred by even the harshest punishments. Even though American society is becoming more modernized as time goes by in terms of tolerance, racism will unfortunately always be prevalent in society and inevitably it will also lead some individuals to violently express their distorted mentalities.
... that the film opens with. While the story may be slightly dramatic and pieces of the story “coincidentally” seem to fall into exactly the wrong place at the wrong time causing the tragedies in the film to happen, the events in this film are entirely capable of being a reality. Racism and prejudice continue to be prevalent issues in our society, but like Anthony, we can learn to overcome anything that holds us back from putting unity into practice and making our world a better place for everyone.
... is the brutality of hate and racism. The emotions running high in the movie makes it powerful and moving and the death of Derek’s younger brother Danny Vinyard is shocking enough to bring tears to many viewers’ eyes. The movie ends with Danny’s voice reading his paper out loud and he ends his paper with a very important quote by Abraham Lincoln. This quote shows how Danny’s, as well as Derek’s, mindset changed from the beginning of the movie to the end. When hearing this quote it leaves the viewers in awe that Danny finally started to look past his hateful ideologies but ends up dead because of the lifestyle him and his brother decided to lead. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained we must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature”.
Although there were many concepts that were present within the movie, I choose to focus on two that I thought to be most important. The first is the realistic conflict theory. Our textbook defines this as, “the view that prejudice...
If this movie were to be summarized in one sentence, one may say that no matter who you are, everybody holds preconceptions and stereotypes against other people. For example, in this movie, an upper-class white woman sees two black men so she clings to her husband, showing she is scared of them. Even though this woman had no idea who they were, she still jumped to a conclusion that they were going to harm her because of the color of their skin.
“We fight each other for territory; we kill each other over race, pride, and respect. We fight for what is ours. They think they’re winning by jumping me now, but soon they’re all going down, war has been declared.” Abuse, Pain, Violence, Racism and Hate fill the streets of Long Beach, California. Asians, Blacks, Whites and Hispanics filled Wilson High School; these students from different ethnic backgrounds faced gang problems from day to night. This movie contains five messages: people shouldn’t be judgmental because being open-minded allows people to know others, having compassion for a person can help people change their views in life, being a racist can only create hate, having the power of the human will/goodness to benefit humanity will cause a person to succeed at any cost and becoming educated helps bring out the intelligence of people.