Saturday, September 14, 2013

American History X

Film: American History
Director: Tony Kaye
Writer: David McKenna



Racism and ethnic discrimination in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era. Forms of Racism in USA:
ü  Racism against African Americans

ü  Discrimination and racism against Asian Americans

ü  Discrimination against Latin Americans

ü  Racism against Middle Eastern and South Asian Americans

ü  Racism against Iranian Americans

ü  Antisemitism

ü  Anti-European immigrant ethnic discrimination

ü  Racism and discrimination against European Americans

ü  Black – White Racism

America is country of different races, religion and people with different colours. By colour it basically means “Black or white”.’American History X’ is a story of ‘Derek’ who is a white skin American who ruthlessly kills two black gang members. The movie is about the after effects of the killing by Derek and the sequence of events in jail which change the perspective of ‘Derek’ towards black people. Derek’s younger brother is shown to be very much influenced by his elder brother’s brave act of killings and so tries to follow his ideologies.

Time has changed and so has ‘America’. 2008 saw the emergence of a new African American leader in the form of ‘Barack Obama’ who holds the seat of the president even till date. But still ‘ Racism’ has not got completely abolished of the US land.

Critics mostly praised the film and Edward Norton's performance, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

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