America History X – Hate is Baggage

Saturday, 10 November 2012

Hey everyone, I don’t know if you rebember but a few classes ago we talked about how history can repeat itself, it happens that my father told me about this great movie, called American History X, it is one of his favorite movies and now it’s definitly one of mine.

American History X tells us the story of a normal american family, the city they live in has received a big amount of immigrants and transfomed itself from a calm neighbourhood to a dangerous place to live in. This becames obvious when the father of the family, who was a cop, gets killed in duty, leaving behind four kids.

One of them is Derek, a convicted neo-nazi who sees his beliefs confirmed with the death of his father. Consumed by rage Derek starts to influence other young boys and girls of the community to raise against the immigrants who in his opinion are stealing their jobs and peace.

The scary factor on this movie is how the nazi propaganda is easy to expect and how it can make sense to people who feel angry and need to blame someone. Derek’s ideas became a motto for many young people, including his brother Danny who sees him like a  role model.  The nazi ideals are difficult to fight once they are ingrained in peoples minds and souls and soon there’s a gang of skinheads who run about the little town scaring away what they called “niggers”.

However, this peace was a lie, in the middle of the night Derek finds some black guys trying to steal his father’s van, he kills them, believing in his good action. This leads him to prison, where he is going to question his ideals, confronted by the hard prison truth. Meanwhile, his brother follows his steps in the free world and when Derek gets out as a new man, its hard for him to understand that what they were after was wrong. Danny has to deliver a paper about Derek in that same week, “American History X”, as a punishement for delivering another based in Main Kempf. With his brother's help he finishes it, knowing how easy it is to follow the wrong path, consumed by anger, he also knows how hard it is to admit that the man you look up was wrong. The lesson, I believe, is that we should analize the ideas that rule our lives, questioning if they are right, and don’t trust them only because someone we look up to told us to do so. And of course "Hate is baggage".

This is a really amazing movie, it shows racism in every prespective and I highly recommend it. Not only is the story great, as the actors and the filming are also breathtaking. Edward Norton plays Derek and my dad was right when he told me he was an amazing actor. You can see Norton’s acting in the scene I leave you with, and confirm his talent, this is one of the best scenes I’ve ever seen in the history of cinema. (The expression on Derek's face is priceless and it resumes the entire movie!) After that I hope you watch the movie and find it as awesome as I did, in my opinion this is one of those movies who can change the way you see the world.

Have a nice weekend,

Inês Ribas