The Choices of a Skinhead: American History X

Eric Cirangle
Character and Choice
Movie Blog
April 25, 2010


American History X is a movie by Tony Kaye depicting the racial struggles of a predominately white community turning black. The setting is Venice Beach, CA. Derek Vinyard has had his firefighter father taken away by a shooting while he was on duty. The shooter was a black male. Derek is an intellectual, focused on school and his future, and once his dad dies he becomes part of the Aryan brotherhood seeking vengeance. His reason is he does not want to feel threatened or subdued in his own community, he wants to give the white kids a chance for freedom once again. As time goes on, Derek becomes an icon to the brotherhood. He and his skinhead friends challenge a team of black kids to a basketball game for court rights. Stereotypically, the blacks would win and accept the challenge with open arms. However, Derek and his friends are great athletes and win the game, earning bragging and court rights. Derek has a younger brother Daniel who is suffering the changes of the community. He has to defend himself against small gangs of black teenagers on a daily basis in school. He is following in his brother’s skinhead footsteps, although his brother does not completely approve of it. The skinhead cult grows larger day-by-day, intercepting kids who are sick of being bullied and threatened by the minorities overtaking the community. The skinheads gather one night in a parking lot and raid a large grocery store with all minority workers. They rape, beat, and embarrass the workers and make it away safely. Nights later a group of black gang members try to break into Derek’s car in his driveway. Daniel sees and rushes to his brother’s room to warn him. Derek grabs his gun and shoots two of the gang members. One immediately dies, while the other is wounded. The wounded man happens to be a rival from the basketball game days before. Derek says “you should have learned your place on the basketball court” and curb stomps his head, killing the black man. The police arrive and arrest Derek. He spends three years in jail for voluntary manslaughter. At the beginning of his sentence, Derek makes many fellow skinhead friends and starts a mini gang for protection in the slammer. As his sentence winds down, he realizes he wants no part in gang life anymore. He starts separating himself from his skinhead friends and dissing them by sitting alone at lunch. The skinhead members rape him in the shower, which makes him never want to witness the atrocities of gang life again. When Derek gets out he realizes his brother is deep into the Aryan brotherhood way of life. Derek beats up the headmaster of the clan, once a former father figure to him, in order to keep him away from his young, impressionable brother. Daniel finally realizes the skinhead way of life is not the path he truly desires, so he changes his ways. However, that day in school a black student he has had several petty confrontations with shoots Daniel while he’s in the bathroom, killing him on the spot.
Existentialism is prevalent throughout the film. The first instance is when Derek’s dad dies and he takes a stance against the growing black influence on his community. He is a pioneer of the Aryan society in his community. He chose to pave the way for an uprising in what he believed in. In turn Daniel latched on to the example his brother set. Daniel became a young rising member of the Aryan society after respecting and looking up to the things his brother did. This is existentialist because Derek blatantly decided the path he wanted to take in feeling as if he had control over his community again.
Another existentialist moment is when the Aryan gang led by Derek wreaks havoc on the grocery store. They did it strictly to send a message to the community. They were not after money; they decided to send a message. Obviously this is an extreme course of action, come about by this groups radical decisions and beliefs. The gruesome things they did to the minorities working there made their motives clear, the public saw exactly what they were after. Their hatred for the minority uprising was clear through their decisions.
Perhaps the most existential of the events is the robbery that takes place in Derek’s driveway. Of course Derek has the right to defend himself and his property while these thugs are trying to steal his belongings. However, after the situation had ceased and the thieves were successfully put out of commission, Derek took it a step further and decided to send a message. By curb stomping the black man, he not only guranteed himself unnecessary jail time, but made it clear to the black and Aryan community what his stance was. He wanted the blacks to get the message that he was serious with his hatred for them, and he wanted the Aryans to recognize his actions and support him wholly for them. With his decisions delivers a cause and effect situation. The blacks resented him and his family for what he had done, but he had secured the protection of the skinheads. His actions were influenced by his personal motives. He felt so strongly about getting his community back from the overwhelming hold of the blacks that he forgot the difference between right and wrong and acted on impulse and desire.
Derek becomes involved with fellow skinheads early in his jail sentence. He does this because he realizes he will need their protection in such a harsh environment. This is an existentialist act because he is associating himself with these ruthless killers whom he doesn’t trust just for their services. Eventually, he starts seeing through their motives and realizes it is no way to live. As his jail sentence winds down, he realizes he does not need them or what they’re good for. He completely disses their system and clan, exiling himself from the jail community. His peers thought he was crazy, but this is a bold existentialist decision because he is simply weighing his values and deciding what is right for him. This in turn leads him to lead his brother away from gang life when he gets out. It is a complete 360-degree revelation of his former beliefs. He makes this bold decision to grant himself access to a more care free and less violent life. Derek’s existentialist values of choosing what is best for him and his future eventually wear off on Daniel. However, the main twist of the movie is that Daniel is already too deep into his affair with hatred for minorities that it still comes back to haunt him. It is not enough time to fix the damage he has done with the other races. The black teenagers still target him and murder him in cold blood.