American Guidance
byDecember 5th, 2007 at 10:55 AM
Filed under: Philosophy & Religion
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The movie that stands to teach is no ordinary one, it's a fairly controversial movie; it contains sex, violence, profanity, and prejudice to say the least. While this particular movie contains all these things; it also contains life lessons, politics, and the effect that a simple friendship can have on a person's life. The characters and actions in this film are raw and emotional which makes human; human characters, human actions, and human reactions. The dramatic flick I speak of is American History X. This movie follows the events leading up, during, and after a local skinhead leader's incarceration. A skinhead is an American Nazi, a Nazi wannabe. The leader, Derrick, was sentenced for manslaughter after he killed two black men who were trying to steal his truck, but this was no ordinary carjack because only a day or so earlier Derrick had a very controversial whites vs. blacks basketball game and won. The viciousness of the killings were a spectacle to up hold; Derrick shot the first man multiple times in the torso and the second man he shot and wounded in the leg. Although mortally wounded, the second man did not die from the bullet for after he was wounded Derrick took him to the curb of the road and proceeded to crush the front of the man's face into the curb with one stomp of his foot, instantly killing him. With Derrick in prison and his beliefs fortified in his mind, the real test began. Derrick quickly joined up with fellow skinhead colleagues and everything was fine until he learned that one of his fellow cohorts was running favors for the Spanish and dealing minority contraband to his white friends. None of the skinheads in prison had any of the beliefs Derrick had, so he excommunicated. After dumping his fellow skinheads in public, Derrick had no friends left except one, a black man he worked laundry with. Although he didn't know it, this unimaginable friend wound become Derrick's savoir, in body and mind. After actually interacting with a person to whom he swore to hate as long as he drew breath Derrick realized that everything he had believed was now in jeopardy. Derrick soon learned that anger and hate doesn�t only origin from skin color, for the skinheads he had embarrassed earlier came for their revenge and they weren't gentle. With lost ties with the skinheads Derrick had no one to get his back and was sure that the blacks or even the Spanish would come for him, but they never did. His head was in knots, he didn't know what to believe anymore from his own hate induced mind or the bull spit Cameron, Cam, feed him. The last six months in the pen were enlightening ones, he kept his head down and read some eye opening books. Derrick had survived his prison ordeal and rebuilt himself into a better man and it started in the laundry room. The last friend in the world Derrick would ever think to have was the one that saved his neck. Now out of prison Derrick must stop his little brother from going down the same hate stricken road he went down and separate his family from the skinheads. For so you see there was a puppet master behind the scenes the entire time by the name of Cameron, he infused hate into misguided teen's anger and by doing this he formed rebels. While Cameron sat in the background channeling his rebel's anger there were no consequences only benefits for Cam, he was the perfect spineless puppet master. The last night Derrick saw his old gang, he met with the woman he loved and gave her an offer of a life of love and happiness with him or a life of prejudice and hate with the skinheads; she choose the skinheads. Derrick abandoned his hopeless love and preceded to meet with Cameron to tell him he's out. There was a struggle and while Derrick attempted to escape, the woman he loved exposed him. The life that Derrick had lived, the people that worshiped him, the woman he loved all turned on him, a gun in his face and a crowd looking for a show. Well there was a reason Derrick was the former leader of the skinheads and he escaped unharmed. Derrick and his family escaped, never to return to that life of hate and violence. The irony occurs at the end of the movie when after turning over a new leaf, Derrick's brother was murdered in cold blood by a black peer. Hate will make people do some strange things, but not without the help of others. Channeled correctly hate and prejudice could become separate entities instead of one in the same. To say to stop hating is just plain ignorance at it's best because there will always be rage and rage breeds hate. People need guidance, teenagers need guidance especially because they're in the part of their life that's on the brink of adulthood and they have to cross the threshold; sometimes it's frustrating. The main character, Derrick, had to cross this threshold fairly early in his life when his father was accidentally killed in a minority's neighborhood. Cameron then channeled Derrick's frustration toward the minorities and this gave Derrick a release, a place to expel his frustration on. The master scheme behind these pissed off teens is the secret hidden from everyone. The tactic of survival over beliefs and strings attached. The skinhead in prison had to run favors for minority groups in order to keep himself and his little group of miscreants together. They looked out for Derrick and when decided to leave- they decided to teach him a lesson. When Derrick tried to split from Cameron and the gang, they decided to put a bullet in his head. When people tear themselves down emotional or physically it makes them more vulnerable to misdirection and manipulation. Human beings on the whole need to be more emotionally strong, but not to say not to have a heart. We need to remember that not always is association causation. |
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