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When they are playing the basketball game and Seth bets that he can beat the black gang, he has sweat all over the collar area of his t-shirt. But in the next shot and for the rest of the game, the sweat is gone. See more...

Trivia

At the end, when Danny is heard quoting from the paper he wrote for Dr. Sweeney, the quote which begins "We are not enemies, but friends..." is the closing paragraph from President Abraham Lincoln's first Inaugural Address on the 4th of March 1861. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

American History X (1998) - 5 questions

Directed by Tony Kaye, starring Avery Brooks, Beverly D'Angelo, Edward Furlong, Edward Norton, Elliott Gould, Ethan Suplee, Fairuza Balk, Jennifer Lien (add more)

Genres: Crime, Drama

The "questions" section is for any random questions that occurred to you while watching this film, or anything you didn't entirely understand, and which Google or the IMDb can't help with. Submit them as a question, and hopefully someone will answer (the bold comments in brackets) - check back regularly. If the answer is wrong, or missing information, please use the "clarify answer" option. Don't feel limited - want to know what music played in a certain scene? Whether this was the first film to use a certain effect? Here's the place to ask!

Questions

Question: What does D.O.C stand for?

Answer: D.O.C. stands for Department of Corrections.

Edit Answered by papajim

Change answer Duplicate X

Question: How much time did Derek do? Also, Derek killed a couple guys, and his black friend stole a TV, so how could he have gotten out sooner than his friend?

Answer: The difference in their punishment is one of the major points of the film. It's about racial injustice, and that black offenders get harsher punishments than white offenders. For the friend, it isn't stealing the TV that gets him the long sentence. It's that he dropped it on the cop's foot which the prosecutor twisted into in attempted murder charge. Derek did a few years for killing the one guy, but as he was white, the dead guy black, and Derek was, at least at the beginning of the events, defending his home, property, and arguably the lives of his family and himself, his sentence wasn't nearly as harsh.

Edit Answered by John W Rosa

Change answer Duplicate X

Question: We see something going on between the corrupt skinhead and the Hispanic criminal inside the prison, and it makes Vinyard leave that gang. What exactly was the arrangement by the skinheads to 'protect' Vinyard?

Answer: It's quite simple: He was one of them, a fellow skinhead. In prison different groups stick together for mutual protection and comradeship, and as neo-nazis/skinheads would be fairly unpopular with the colored inmates, all the more reason for them to protect each other.

Edit Answered by Twotall

Change answer Duplicate X

Question: When Derek's dad says at dinner something to the effect of, "And then after eating we'll go watch the big guy play." who is he talking about that they will watch later on?

Answer: He is talking about Derek. "(The) Big Guy" is just an affectionate term he uses for his son.

Edit Answered by Twotall

Change answer Duplicate X

Question: During the basketball game near the start of the film, what does Danny say to Seth after Seth gets into the bet with the black guy that makes him say, "Danny, when I want your opinion I'll ask for it"?

Answer: Danny says "It's 8-6, Seth" meaning that the black guys only need to score 2 more hoops, whilst Seth's team needs 4. Danny doesn't believe Seth can win, so he is reminding him what the score actually is.

Edit Answered by Migster

Change answer Duplicate X