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American History X Film Analysis

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Introduction American History X is typical of the social drama genre of cinema, a filmic genre that moves and inspires people to change policy, practice and individual behavior. It is "a dramatic, sensitive but authentic treatment of social issues which powerfully connects the audience to the real emotions and real people that lie behind our assumptions, stereotypes and prejudices." (Welcome To Social Film Drama) The film is mainly concerned with the history of racism in America. American History X focuses on the evolving racial and socio-cultural attitudes of two brothers, Derek and Danny, who belong to a middle-class American family. Derek is an extremely clever and charismatic student, but he has been influenced by his father 's racism. After an African-American drug dealer kills his father, Derek is drawn into a white supremacist neo-Nazi group. He was lured and used by Cameron, the actual controller, and Cameron makes Derek a symbol and hero of the group. There he commits several criminal acts and eventually serves three years for killing two black men for carjacking. Derek goes through some incidents in prison including being victimized by a white-supremacist group and befriending a black coworker. He leaves the …show more content…

All colored people in AHX are men, except a Latino female cashier in the supermarket (00:38:00 to 00:40:00), a black office assistant at Venice Beach High (00:07:47 to 00:07:48), and a little black girl in the public park (00:06:18 to 00:06:20). Among these three colored women, two of them only appear for two seconds, and the Latino cashier is tortured by several neo-Nazis for a minute. It is hard to believe that in such a popular anti-racist movie, which was liked by 96% of audience on Rotten Tomatoes and rated 8.6/10 on the Internet Movie Database, colored women are relative under this serious topic of racial

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