The film is set in a suburban nieghborhood and tells about the struggles of a white family that is linked to a neo nazi group. The main character of the story is a man named Derek Vinyard, who used to be a neo nazi that realized there is good nature in every group of people during his times spent in prison. When he returns he see's that his younger brother Danny is on the brink of the same path the lead him into trouble. The story centers around Derek's struggle trying to keep on a good path and along the way his fight to save his brother from the path of hate and prejudice.
This movie I feel has very strong ties to the articles we read on stereotyping and in particular it shows the lessons that Snyder tried to portray. In Snyder's article it was said that a stereotype and prejudice is deeply rooted in human character and that is evident in the characters in the film who participate in this "race war". They dont take account of the person, they just see a color and react in extreme prejudice towards that color. Derek is one of the few that was able to rehabilitate himself from this mind set during his time in prison. In prison he had to interact with a wide variety of races and when his "brothers" turned their backs against him he had the opprotunity to reavaluate his ways of thinking. The turning point of the story is when he meets a black man who helped show him that he is a person not just a color. With this new view in his mind he goes out into the public world in hopes of helping those who are close to him like his brother from commiting the same mistakes he made. However he faces strong opposition from his former "brotherhood". This opposition show Snyder's thought on stereotype and the difficulties in seperating these false assumptions once they have been rooted in the mind.
-Michal Tokarski
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