Line #23 YMMV/AmericanHistoryX


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2	* AccidentalAesop: The most straightforward aesop is the dangers of racism, though it can also be viewed as the dangers of idolization towards individuals (including family members and their beliefs) without thinking, ranging from Derek's dismissal of his black teacher's lesson from his father's lecture to [[spoiler: Henry's murdering Daniel due to influence of his elder brother]] as example of its message.
3	* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Was Dennis' rant against affirmative action a sincere belief in hard work, or he just a bigot who uses a persecution complex to justify his hatred?
4	* AwardSnub: Creator/EdwardNorton losing the [[MediaNotes/AcademyAwardForBestActorInALeadingRole Academy Award for Best Actor]] to Creator/RobertoBenigni for ''Film/LifeIsBeautiful'' is widely seen as this.
5	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMoments: Derek calling Cameron out on his hypocrisy (namely that for all his talk of racial unity he shamelessly sold out two teenagers to save his own skin) and giving him a beatdown; considering what a reptile Cameron is it's well deserved.
6	* BrokenAesop:
7	** In a clearly unintended but quite tragically ironic way, the ending [[spoiler:(Danny, reformed under Derek's influence and ready to renounce racism, being shot and killed by a black kid)]] can come across as this. While the message of the film is intended to be "Racism is wrong as there are good and bad individuals of every race and racial prejudice only perpetuates violence", those last minutes can almost make it seem as if the message were "Be nice to minorities, otherwise [[spoiler:they'll just kill you for no reason]]", in what jarringly feels like an invalidation of the entire movie's point. There's a bit from the script that was cut from the final film that clears this up -- [[spoiler:the black kid was pressured by his brother into killing Danny.]]
8	** The film shows the brutality of the United States penal system, complete with PrisonRape, in an attempt to condemn that brutality. But prison is what helps Danny reform and put white supremacy behind him, offering the unintended lesson that brutalizing prisoners in the penal system will ScareEmStraight rather than causing them to harden and double down on their dangerous and antisocial qualities and beliefs.
9	* CrossesTheLineTwice: Seth's white supremacist rendition of ''The Battle Hymn of the Republic.'' The song is hateful and racist, but Seth's exuberance while singing, combined with the lyrics being simultaneously unimaginably venal but also childishly bad, makes the scene darkly amusing as is the fact that he's singing this particular song ''out his van window to the general public'', complete with Sieg Heil salutes. Even worse, that's an actual song by Johnny Rebel. Even many black viewers find it so over the top that it becomes ridiculous.
10	* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: The film's message is "racism is bad", but the contrast between the generally charismatic Nazis and the villainous black gangs, along with some general MisaimedFandom tendencies among certain audiences, and the fact that [[spoiler: Danny is ultimately killed by a black guy]], means that the film is actually quite popular in certain white supremacist circles. It might have been even worse if they had kept the original ending, where Derek [[spoiler:[[RedemptionFailure goes back to being a Neo-Nazi]] after his brother's murder.]]
11	* DuelingWorks: This film came out at the same time as ''Film/LifeIsBeautiful'', a movie that was also about Nazis, but from a very different point of view.
12	* HarsherInHindsight:
13	** Cameron's joke to Derek at the party.
14	---> '''Cameron:''' Come on, you don't have to [[PrisonRape watch your ass]] in here.
15	** The ending where [[spoiler: Danny gets shot in the school bathroom]] became this in the wake of UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} happening just six months after the film's release. Adding to it was the allegation that the shooters were Neo-Nazis because they chose to do the shooting on UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's birthday.
16	** Cameron mentioning that the Nazis have stepped up their organizing via the internet; in recent years, online forums on websites such as 4Chan, Reddit, and Website/YouTube have indeed become recruiting grounds for white supremacist groups.
17	** The aforementioned ending where [[spoiler: Danny is shot]] is eerily similar to how [[spoiler: John Connor dies at the beginning of ''Film/TerminatorDarkFate'' when a Terminator suddenly shows up and shoots him in the chest]].
18	* HilariousInHindsight: In this film, Creator/EthanSuplee plays a monstrous, racist FatBastard who hates minorities so much he won't even eat a black jellybean. Two years later, Suplee would star as Louie Lastik in ''Film/RememberTheTitans'', another coming-of-age story about realizing and denouncing racism, except with his character being [[BigFun the complete opposite]] of Seth Ryan in every way.
19	* IronWoobie: In almost every flashback scene, Davina (and to a lesser extent Doris) snarks at everything Derek says, but it's hard not to feel bad for her since she's watching the men of her family descend into racist madness (not to mention that she lost ''her'' father, too). Despite all the family trouble, it's implied that Davina is persevering through it to do well in college.
20	* JerkassWoobie:
21	** Davina Vinyard, though the only people she was ever a Jerkass to were Derek (pre-prison) and his white supremacist friends.
22	** Derek himself. He turned into a vicious thug, but that was only after his father was killed putting out a fire. Even then, Derek's life pretty solidly follows the BeingEvilSucks trope, especially after he ends up in prison. His woobie status is most emphasized when Sweeny asks him "Has anything you've done made your life better?", and Derek has no answer.
23	* LoveToHate: Stacy Keach leaves behind one hell of an impression as a vile white supremacist.
24	* MemeticMutation: A GIF of the infamous "curb stomp" scene became a fad on Website/{{YTMND}}.
25	* MisaimedFandom: It's a movie about two young men descending into the cult of hatred and violence that is the skinhead neo-Nazi movement. Naturally, they don't get to hear too many rebuttals, so neither does the audience. Their arguments are based on lies, but they're usually well thought out and have hidden traps based on InsaneTrollLogic, meaning that, by design, they're quite seductive if you don't think about them too hard.
26	** In spite of the film's anti-racist message, it still has a large number of Neo-Nazi fans due to the fact that Derek is strong, charismatic, and a natural leader. It doesn't help that he's photographed like a badass athlete in a basketball commercial. See DoNotDoThisCoolThing above.
27	** Some viewers agree with Dennis Vinyard's spiel against affirmative action and his insistence that ability, not race, should be the standard for the job market. On the other hand, this is the film itself validating its point through an AdHominem, since it doesn't actually refute Dennis' argument, it just frames him as an asshole.
28	** Some viewers also like Derek because they agree with some of other political views. For example, he wants to stop illegal immigration, hates drug dealers because [[spoiler:his firefighter father was murdered by one]], and thinks Rodney King was hardly a model citizen and that the resulting LA riots were just an excuse to loot. While these are hardly extreme views, these people are still misinterpreting the movie, since part of his CharacterDevelopment is learning to abandon these ideas. It doesn't help that the film gives him a huge platform to express his views, and rather than try to refute them, it just assumes people will disagree because he’s a blatant racist and uses a lot of hate speech, something which the movie has received a lot of criticism for.
29	* MoralEventHorizon:
30	** Derek's fellow members, especially Seth and his girlfriend Stacy, threatened to shoot him when he decided that he was through with the Neo-Nazi life.
31	** Cameron was obviously ''way'' beyond it to start with, what with being behind organized attacks against immigrants, but it's when he says that Danny would take Derek's place that he crosses the event horizon for ''Derek'', who proceeds to beat the hell out of Cameron.
32	** The {{prison rape}} as well though it is hardly surprising from such scumbags.
33	** Henry [[spoiler:shooting Danny to death]] marks his moment of crossing the line of no return as despite the fact that Danny was a Neo-Nazi, the only thing he did to him was defy him while he was gang-beating another student for no good reason. It turns out that the one who armed his hand and made him follow him there was his brother as his initiation into their gang, essentially murdering a student and condemning his younger brother to a life of violence and pain.
34	* {{Narm}}:
35	** Seth — a man so racist he refuses to eat a black jelly bean while nobody's looking — points a gun at Derek at a crooked angle, [[GangstaStyle unintentionally mimicking how stereotypical gangbangers hold guns]].
36	** [[spoiler: The ending has Derek cradle his [[DiedInYourArmsTonight brother’s dead body in his arms]] but the moment is ruined by Derek’s sobbing and facial expressions making him look like he’s laughing and smiling.]]
37	* SignatureScene: The curb scene. If the name of the movie doesn't ring any bells to someone, it will after you remind them of this scene.
38	* {{Squick}}:
39	** Derek curb-stomping the black guy to death.
40	** Derek's PrisonRape, which ending in him needing stitches in his anus.
41	* StrawmanHasAPoint: Whether this applies at all is itself something viewers may differ on, depending on their own political leanings.
42	** Some of Derek's arguments about crime in the African American community and his defense of violent police responses, as well as his dad's criticisms of affirmative action, get nods of approval from conservative viewers, though most of them would reject the accompanying conclusion that the problem is inherently racial as opposed to social or cultural. The movie doesn't really attempt to take sides on the liberal vs. conservative debate, at least not in an obvious or explicit way (though Lamont's story about how he ended up in prison arguably hints at the reality of systemic racism in the justice system, something Derek had previously pooh-poohed as just an excuse minorities and liberals make), instead pushing the theme that hate is not the answer and that by resorting to gang violence, Derek has become a mirror of what he claims to despise. Sweeney's big speech that begins to turn Derek around doesn't address any of Derek's political arguments, instead focusing on whether Derek has helped ''himself'', and relating his own struggle with anger when he was younger. This may be TruthInTelevision, as most real-life cases of people who were persuaded out of white-supremacist groups have involved an appeal to empathy and common understanding, rather than to systematically refuting their arguments. Many of those who have been sucked in were drawn in by the same logic, with just enough truth to make them go along with the rest, even if said truths are selective and ignore vital context. Still, the overall lack of scenes in which Derek's white-supremacist arguments are directly addressed by another character has bothered many viewers, who see the film as either implicitly endorsing at least some of those arguments or having a weak response to them.
43	** While Seth Ryan is an idiotic racist, many viewers agreed with his refusal to eat black licorice-flavored jellybeans as the flavor is [[StockYuck very unpopular with the general public]].
44	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: Given how bleak and mean-spirited the film is, this is why the original ending where [[spoiler:Derek undergoes RedemptionRejection in response to his little brother's death]] was changed.
45	* ValuesResonance: With stories of police brutality coming out everyday, this movie is even more relevant in the dialogue on racism. It even references the Rodney King incident. It's also relevant due to the surge of Neo-Nazism through the Alt Right, which preys on young men like Derek and Danny in particular and is led by younger men like Derek and older mentor types like Cameron who use the same arguments and manipulation tactics seen here.

Context YMMV / AmericanHistoryX