The Best their ever was Essay

Submitted By kblair2015
Words: 1120
Pages: 5

There are two parallel themes within the two movies that stuck out to me the most. Those two thems are "stereotypes" and "the influence of others". Each movie has both of those themes in them but simply respresented in different ways. Ill start with the "stereotypes" theme. This theme is showed in the movie Higher Learning in a number of ways. One example of stereotype in the film is when Kristen is handing out flyers for a meeting for the "Non-Sexist Society" and she wouldn't give a flyer to a guy who wanted one at first because of the simple fact that he was a guy, assuming that all guys are sexist. It was very contradictory how she was trying to promote equality within the campus but wasn't showing it at that moment. Another incident which shows prejudice was at the beginning of the film when Kristen is on the elevator and Malik ( a black guy) gets on, she clutches her purse more closely to her because she thinks he might try to steal it. This is prejudice because she is basing her actions off a stereotype that black men steal, which is unfair. As for the movie American History X, there are also ways that stereotypes are shown.To name a few: the beginning of the film opens up with three black males trying to steal Derek’s vehicle, which feeds into the stereotype that black men are always trying to steal, just like in Higher Learning when Kristen thought that Malik would try and steal her purse just because she was black. Another scene shows three black kids beating up one white kid in the bathroom at school which shows that black kids are always the ones to be fighting ot bullying a white person because black people are supposedly violent thugs. The next theme is "influence of others", this is showed in the movie Higher learning because Remi, the white guy from Idaho is very nerdy, is always reading, and always seems to be saying the wrong things to people. When a group of white supremist befriend him, they begin to fill his brain with all types of racist thoughts and how white power rules everything. Because they influences him with all this bad energy, his life becomes hectic and he pulls out a gun on Malik and his roomate and starts to call them niggas and monkeys. Eventually he gets the courage to try and shoot malik but instead ends up killing two innocent people. His guilt and frustration leads to him killing himself. All because he let others influence his actions. This theme is showed in American History X in two different ways. First Derek is influenced by his dad, who is a police officer because his dad tells him that affirmative action is stupid and black people shouldn't get special attention. His dad called it "nigger bullshit". This causes Derek's views to change a little bit even before he is befriended by a white supremacy group. This is also showed in this movie because Derek influences his little brother Danny with his actions of hatred towards any race but his own. Danny starts to lead the life that his brother leads, and although he tries to supress it, he ends up being killed for it in the end.
Out of the two movies, I think American History X has the greater pedagocical value because pedology is the art of instruction, or teaching. Teaching is shown more in this movie because going to prison taught derek that his actions were leading him in the wrong direction. It also taught him that even "his own people" will turn on him, and the black person actually became his friend. This is the message that needs to be taught to the world.

Comment on some of the distinctions between Black culture and white culture that we discussed in class. What do these cultures have in common
Some distinctions between black culture and white culture are that white women are more submissive than black women. In class, it was said that men tend to like white women more for that reason because they dont talk back when they are asked to do something, and they would rather give in than argue. Whereas, a