For those of you who don't know the plot of the movie, Edward Norton plays a neo-Nazi gang leader in California who goes to prison for curb stomping a black guy who tried to rob his family's house. In prison he figures out the Aryan Brotherhood is just in it for the money, flips them off, and gets raped by said AB guys. Then a black guy saves his life.
Upon release, he stops his adoring kid brother from following in his footsteps, then his brother gets shot in cold blood by a black kid he was beefing with. The end.
The message is "hate makes people do bad things." The implication is that anything that inspires radical feelings in people, whether black or white, is imaginary. The moral exemplars of the movie are people like Norton's sister and mother, whose only lines are versions of "stop your nasty rhetoric and enjoy life with us." In that respect, the movie is oddly familiar of the New Atheist billboards proclaiming "God probably isn't real. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
After Edward Norton figures out the lead neo-Nazis are grifters, he and his brother simply tear down all their Hitler decorations and prepare to live life blissfully unconcerned with race. No attempt is made to grapple with their dad getting murdered by a black guy he was helping, or DEI firefighters at their dad's job, or black crime, etc. All that stuff is now irrelevant.
Whether the people who made the movie actually believed this message is an interesting question. In the late 90s, white Americans were in a much, much better position than they are now. One imagines that questions of black violence were mostly just stories in the paper not only to the crew, but most Americans themselves. (But also, the director is obviously Jewish.)
In the movie there's a white nationalist scene of at least 50-60 skinheads who throw scream metal parties where they make out with their girlfriends. The idea of this in California today is so ridiculous it's basically an insane thought. For one thing, girls actually seem to like boys in this movie.
Because this is the 90s, the plot tries to be relatively evenhanded. The black teacher rebukes the Jewish teacher's knee-jerk reaction to the rebellious kid brother and exhibits genuine empathy to white people. Incredibly, he's also the guy that says his life got better when he learned to let the past be the past.
In the infamous dinner argument scene, Edward Norton spits about 20 arguments at the Jewish teacher, who simply responds with moral indignation instead of deigning to argue the point. One could say this is a trenchant social critique.
To summarize, if white people were still a relatively prosperous, homogenous 90% of the country, and if men and women still liked each other, people might be able to bury their heads deep enough in the sand that this movie might be considered an important masterpiece.
This seems to be a very Leftist kind of thinking I see repeated over and over. "Once we beat 'The Boss,' you'll give up and come back to 'normal.'" It's treated like killing the lead Vampire that will cause all the other Vampires to die, like destroying the singular broadcast signal that will dissipate and everyone will stop being "brainwashed."
They seem incapable of understanding that things like their dreaded White Nationalists are not the source of a problem, they are the result of a problem. They would have no reason to exist if there was not pressure for them to exist. If I didn't see the signs at Home Depot change to have Spanish on them in my lifetime, if I didn't see the constant influx of ESL foreigners at my high school after 9 years of 99% White kids, if I didn't see Democrats leaning more and more heavily into supporting and catering to outsiders than citizens, it would never have crossed my mind that I should consider only trusting people with my skin color, and keep everyone else at arm's length at least.
The messaging of old movies like this rankles me terribly. In my case, every time I hear people praise Children of Men (not frequently, to be fair), I remind them that it's a movie that shows England overrun by violent Islamic militants, where the hero White man sacrifices himself for a non-White illegal alien who doesn't even know who the father of her miracle child is. I am supposed to take this person as the foundation of the future. Disgusting.
This is kind of where I'm at. I don't feel like I'm part of some vastly superior race. Rather, I feel like I just got thrown in prison on a bogus charge by a corrupt court. Now that I'm in this metaphorical prison, I'm forced to join a gang if I don't want to get assraped or stabbed, and the only gang that will accept me unconditionally for the most part is the Aryan Brotherhood, because they are the only ones who won't kill me over my skin color.
In this metaphor, none of this is a choice that I make because I have a desire to join a gang, or because I have some pathological hatred of blacks. It is a choice that I have to make in order to survive in the new world I am in.
In real life, I hope I don't have to make that decision. However, the closer whites get to becoming a minority, the more it seems like that choice won't be mine to make. At the rate it is currently going, it is all but certain to happen within my lifetime.
I honestly hope we won't get to that.
Part of it is that I really want to survive, thanks, and I'd rather not deal with the hassle of living in a metaphorical warzone. Another part of it is the simple desire to not have to deal with the wonders that comes with race-riots, lynching, and blatant racism of the kind that liberals think exists but really don't.
But another part? Another part is that I really, really don't want to have to deal with leftists getting face-fucked by reality when they run head-first into what being a white-minority in a brown country is really like and having to listen to their caterwauling about how they didn't think it would be like this.
We warned you, we pointed out all the warning signs and actions of what these people would do when they were given a sliver of power and privilege, and now you want to climb into my lifeboat? No. GTFO.
I suppose we'll see.
What you think is the problem (black violence) is not a real problem to them, but rather yet more proof that blacks got a raw deal. So of course they tilt at windmills and fight the symptoms. Which, to be honest, there isn't that much of. I've seen very few genuine racists. Even people here who pose as hating blacks, wish them well and not ill if you dig just a little, and they don't hate blacks who excel.
That is where the ending comes in. The brothers were trying to stick their heads back in the sand while singing kumbaya and had reality knocked right back into them by niggers being niggers.
The movie ending the way it did "subverted expectations" and proved that the dead father and pre-reformed Norton were right all along. The writers (probably inadvertently) admitted that the "love conquers all" message that the movie spent the entire time building up is just suicidal naivety. I thought it was pretty based even back then.
I believe the writer noted that in the original screenplay, before the credits rolled, you would see Edward Norton's character in front of the mirror, and the screen was to fade to black and all you would hear was the buzzing of the clippers, indicating he was going back to being a skinhead.
I could be misremembering that though? (this was years ago) But I if it wasn't the writer maybe it was one of the editors who talked about that ending in an interview?
Anyway, that whole alternate ending was cut out because the reasoning was that it felt too bleak and that the reality of the situation would leave people feeling like people could never change due to the harsh circumstances of reality.
An important point to remember is that the whole story with the kid who shoots edward nortons had a subplot with his older brother running allegorical to the main characters got clipped out, the director seemed to be aiming at least for a broader message than what ended up on screen.
The original ending was Norton's character returning to the group after his brother is killed. But, I can't remember, if the studio or director thought that would destroy the movie's theme.
Don't forget the shooting scene would have been legally justified untill the kerb stomp. He had a weapon and was turning to shoot.
The original ending was far better too.
I doubt standing in a residential street and filling the getaway car's rear window with lead as it tries to flee was 100% defensible before the stomp.
The second shoot of the black guy (unarmed?) who similarly was trying to flee before the stomping was probably also questionable. Though easier to defend because he was still on the property.
Sorry it's been a while since I saw the movie, the first shot was definitely legal though.
Same.
I enjoyed watching clips of the scene when OP was posted, lol.
I've long wondered what the point there was. Because it went from completely sensible arguments to pretty spicy stuff on a dime. My impression was that the message was that you should not think those sensible things either, because it's either associated with, or leads to the spicy things.
Why is that so absurd? I'm pretty sure the same thing is going on right now in California, though I'm guessing that people with a swastika tattooed on themselves aren't quite as popular.
90%? I'm not sure this was the case in the 90s.
That is generally not said for any artistic merits but because it supports the message that "racism is baaaad mkaaay". Of course, it is better than most modern views that espouse the message, but that ain't saying much.
Lol the neo nazi leaders in real life are also grifters