Brian Andreen Article Review 2
Your Worst Nightmare: The Siege, American History X, and Our Views of Enemies, Foreign and Domestic by Beck Bernard
This paper states something that is very conceptually interesting: “Dramatic entertainment must have villains” “drama must have conflict at its core”. This is fundamentally descriptive of human nature. A movie that does not have a villain, or at the very least conflict, it is not in human nature to find entertaining. Sadly many films are simply marketing different forms of conflict in order to get its audience’s attention.
As the paper states the conflicts that catch our attention are things we care about such as struggle for survival, danger to loved ones, attacks on our values, or injustice. In movies it is the threat to these things that invokes anxiety and excitement to its viewers. The article shows how minority groups are a perfect example of a group of people who can be made into the villains of films. As many of the characteristics of these groups are not well understood they can be twisted to conflict with our values and beliefs thus providing for a perfect setting in which to have conflict. These themes are extremely effective when they portray what is going on in the real world and instruct the viewer about the actuality of the situation such as in American History X. The minority is set up as the villain but at the same time we learn to understand the villain throughout the movie.
With the state of America as it is now with so much political correctness being enforced it is difficult to depict minorities in anything but a positive light, for if you do it will be heavily contested. Instead, it has become a common movie selling technique to instead glorify minorities, or use the film to lessen stereotypes against minorities thus gaining praise for the film. This current setting makes it difficult to cast any group as the villains.
As is shown in the article it is the need for conflict in the film that brings about the argument to whether or not American History X is a anti-racist film. Out of necessity for a villain the minority is cast in this role, and during film problems with this casting is reversed. Despite this, all of the anti-racist messages are in a way overwhelmed by the initial success of the portrayal of the minority as the villain even though by the end they are no longer portrayed as one.
If it were not for the need of conflict in a film it would be much easier to portray minorities and those being maltreated in a positive light. However due to human nature this is not really a possibility as very few, if any people watching the film would have any interest.