What the 'X' stands for

Rating: Null/10 (3 December 2000)

This film made me freeze from the opening to the end. American History X is a great film about racism, family and power. I have seen lots of movies about racism. But Those movies tend to be focused only on matters which are influenced racial discrimination. Otherwise this film is unlike any other film. What I felt good about this film is that this movie gives much weight to the family as well as to the racism. This film try to access the main issue(racism) from inside(family) not from outside(society). This film gives more chances to the viewer to think about racism by handling the home circle not indifferently. The older generations like Derek's father and Neo-Nazi's lerder Cameron had the wrong ideas about racism, and these made pure young Derek turn into the extreme racialist.
We can see the things what the older generations should do with their young people by comparing between Cameron/Derek's father with Derek's English teacher/Derek's mother. Those two kinds of characters show definite contrasts of the older generations in our society. In the scene when Derek's father was counseling about the black's culture over the table, we can realize how the prejudice can easily turn into the hatred for the people of a different color. I think that this movie shows us kind of an awareness about how much the prejudice of those people who have a power in society can bring about terrible effect on relationships between people.