American History X - Fictional Discourse on Real Issues

 I hate American History X. This is known. 

I hate American History X so much that I don't think I'll ever be able to fully catalog everything that I hate about it, but I'm going to try by breaking down individual scenes one-by-one.

We're going to start by looking at characters debating something on-screen, and how the filmmakers can indicate to the audience which side they think is correct or not, whether it be in the dialog or in the cinematography and portrayal of the characters.

There's a scene in the 2000 X-Men movie that I think illustrates this pretty well. (Hear me out.) Magneto has the X-Men captured, and he's giving his "big bad" speech. Rogue is somewhere in the distance, ready to be sacrificed for Magneto's plan to turn world leaders into mutants, thereby eliminating bigotry against mutants, according to him.

He gives a speech about how this plan will be best for everyone, moving the world into the future, ushering in a new era, or whatever. Wolverine then says to him something like:

"You're so full of shit, you know that? If you were really so self-righteous, you would be the one sacrificing yourself."

Magneto glares at him. He floats away silently, defeated.

Now, from the language of the film, we can clearly see that Magneto has lost this interaction, and that the film expects for us to be on the side of Wolverine. From just the dialog alone, having Magneto wordlessly escape from the encounter is enough to indicate that he "lost". And the fact that Wolverine gets the final word in is enough to put us on his side.

But can you imagine this going another way, being more sympathetic towards Magneto?

He gives his speech, and at the end, Wolverine says, "You're so full of shit," and all that, but then Magneto says:

"Logan, my friend, do you think that I'm happy about sacrificing this young woman? Do you think this is what I truly wish? I have no ill will for the girl, but think of all of the lives lost due to the hatred and bigotry in this world. How many children orphaned by their own parents? How many lost due to self-harm after years of abuse? How many families torn apart by this small genetic difference? I wish I could have your idealism and naivety, but I live in the real world, and I'm trying to protect as many people as I can."

Wolverine gets angry. He starts thrashing around. "You....you psycho! You asshole! You jerk!" He lunges at Magneto but because of his metal bones, Magneto just holds him in place. Cyclops looks towards Wolverine, "You're out of control, dude. You need to relax. Let him speak."

"Shh, shh, shh...Logan, relax. You're young still. You don't know much about the world and you haven't seen the things that I have. You may be angry now, but in time you will see that this is for the best."

Magneto floats away, leaving Wolverine to pee his pants and cry.

And you're thinking to yourself, "Wow, what a ridiculously over-the-top message. I was just beaten over the head with the fact that Wolverine is wrong and Magneto is right." And that's what watching dialogue scenes in American History X is like.

There's one particular dinner scene where the main racist guy is allowed to go on long, uninterrupted and functionally unchallenged rants like this:

DEREK

That's not what I said, Davina.

     (to the group)

Three different times Rodney King comes at those officers with the intent to hurt them. To hurt them!

Three times! But since we see it on some fucking tampered videotape...the

bleeding heart media makes you believe that he only comes at them once. All

we see is Powell, Koon and Wind hittin' him and--

     (busting up laughing)

Briseno kickin' him in the back of the fuckin' skull with his boot. Still,

the dumbfuck's tryin' to get up and kick their asses! That's how stupid

that motherfucker is. Those cops used textbook-solid tactics and if Dad were

still here he'd say the same damn thing.

          DORIS

That doesn't make it right.

          DEREK

Yes it does. Yes it does. They're cops! They are taught to use that stick and they did.

                 MURRAY

Excessively.

          DEREK

No. Appropriately. Appropriately! Cops have been granted a certain amount of authority by society and

white people, unfortunately, are the only ones who acknowledge it. I acknowledge a cop's authority.

Davina starts to laugh.

          DAVINA

Look who's talking about respecting

the law? Mr. K.K.K. here.

          DEREK

That's two errors in one sentence, Davina, so take a fucking course in semantics. First error--I didn't say

I respect the law. I said I respect a cop's authority. Second error...I'm not a member of the fuckin' low rent, disorganized, redneck Ku Klux Klan.. Pull your head outta your ass and look at who you're dealing with.

Look at this. Look at this. It is just a small segment of this entire scene, which continues on like this forever. The main racist guy gets a chance to monologue at the other characters with these racist ideas in a way that make him seem almost reasonable. He's using real tactics that actual racists use when talking about violence -- self-defense, respecting authority, all of that. And the response from the other characters is weak, at best. Every time another character meekly tries to pipe in with an objectively lame interruption, they get shut down and rebuked every time. There's no real challenge to his ideas.

And that's just the script, can you imagine the visuals?

Here, we have Edward Norton, who is, I guess, mid-20s, ripped and shirtless, aggressive and confident, with his slutty goth girlfriend sitting nearby. He is the "alpha male" ideal.

Around him, a middle-aged man and woman, two mousey teenagers. Look at the body language in that photo, how they cower instead of mocking him or deriding him for being a violent, racist psycho.

The film pretends to operate on the assumption that we all agree that racism is bad, 100% of the time, with no exceptions. And so thusly pretends that this conversation where Derek is the "winner" is still wrong because we hold steadfast to those ideals. (And, if you really do hold that ideals 100%, you, like me, are arguing in your head about what better things could be said to refute Derek.) But the movie doesn't give the morally correct side any time or any visual representation to show that it's correct. Derek gets the majority of the spoken lines. He gets all of the last words. He remains calm while everyone else is getting flustered and scared.

This is the main source of my hatred for this movie. It pretends to be confronting these ideas, but instead just platforms them and pretends like there's no rebuttal to them except for "you're mean! Quit being mean!" It's a pile of racist shit pretending to be tolerant.