Source Of Danny's Rage Towards Jews example essay topic

"I Love and I Hate. Who Can Tell me Why?" The 2001 movie The Believer is a true-to-life portrayal of a young neo-Nazi whose anti-Semitic views are continually challenged by his Jewish background. The film opens with the quote, "I love and I hate. Who can tell me why?" which sets the stage for the movie's depiction of Danny Balin t, a boy torn between love and hate in almost every aspect of his life. Throughout the film Danny tries to calm this internal (and at times external) quarrel, which causes a great deal of friction for the main character. His life and his choices greatly reflect this struggle.

Director Henry Bean uses imagery and narrative to show this tension. The article "Joseph and His Brothers: Quarreling After the Holocaust" can be used to parallel Danny's struggle with the biblical story of Joseph in Egypt. The source of Danny's rage towards Jews seems to stem from his lack of respect for their passivity in regard to their worship of God and their lifestyle choices. From the opening scene, where Abraham's submission to God is voiced by Danny as an extremely embarrassing base for Judaism, to the sensitivity meetings where the seeming indifference of the Jewish father over the death of his 3 year old son at the hands of the Nazis enrages Danny, he perceives Jews to suffer with no attempt to oppose their persecution. As a child Danny even says, "all that Jews are good at is being afraid, at being sacrificed!" It is this anger that drives Danny away from Judaism and into his life as a neo-Nazi. Never quite forgetting his former life, though, he is constantly presented with situations that challenge his seeming innate beliefs.

The irony of this is that while Danny tries to run from submission to a higher power, he inadvertently runs right into it again. Near the end of the movie, Danny says that "the Nazis followed Hitler; Jews follow the Torah". This blind compliance with the Torah is what makes Danny hate his fellow Jews even as a child, and yet in his life as a Nazi he becomes the submissive follower that he longed to leave behind. The article by Koos ed (1999) states that, "Joseph carries within him the pull toward the dominant culture as well as the reminder of his heritage, and it is these two tendencies held in tension that leads to the redemption of his family". As with Joseph, Danny is constantly reminded of his Jewish past amidst his attempt to live a life opposed to it. Also, it is Danny's own redemption that results from their clash.

Bean uses striking visual images in the film to contrast Danny's beliefs and lifestyle. In one scene Danny dons a Jewish cloth (tall it kat an), stands in his room stomping his feet and pounding his chest in a "Hie Hitler" manner, but instead holds out just his pinky, and yells a Jewish hail to the Torah. In a second scene, he places a yarmulke on his shaved head as he walks into a Synagogue. His old friend draws attention to this contrast by calling Danny a "skinhead". Joseph and His Brothers" talks about Joseph's struggle in Genesis a second time by describing "two tendencies in the narrative: one that constantly emphasizes Joseph's ethnic identity... (and) the other a drive toward Egyptian ization". Like Danny, it says, "Joseph is caught in this tension - his desire to forget his origins... and his inability to do so".

This can be seen clearly in the narrative of The Believer on many occasions. When Danny and his friends go into the synagogue, Danny walks to the front and mutters, "shut up, fuck you" to the pulpit. When his friends mistreat the Torah, he is extremely offended and takes the sacred text home to repair. While Danny begins to show respect for Judaism again, it would make sense that his putting an end to being an anti-Semitic advocate would follow, but it does not. Danny continuously talks about needing to "kill a Jew", carries on his speeches for the Fascist movement he is a part of, and plots bombings with his friends. In one scene Danny tenderly cleans the Torah, in the next, he fires a gun at a Jewish man's head.

Danny's lifestyle is leading him in one direction, while his upbringing is pulling him in the other. The climax of Danny's confusion comes at the final meeting for the Fascist group where he asks the group of anti-Semites to love the Jews to destroy them. I hate and I love. These two feelings play off each other until it drives Danny to commit suicide and finally "kill a Jew".

It can be seen then, that his love for the Jews, and the pity he felt for them, was the driving force behind his hate. To Danny, being Jewish meant submitting to God and to the Torah. He felt that this defined him as a human, and he hated this so passionately that it drove him to submit blindly to the other extreme. In his whole life, Danny never stops being Jewish.