There are a lot of derogatory terms out there. Look on Wikipedia and you’ll see one for all sorts of races and nationalities. Few can conjure as much emotion as the one The N Word documents. I’m white and hearing the word makes me uneasy. You’re probably wondering how and why someone would make a film about this one word. The subject would have to be handled pretty well.

I can’t speak as to the why, but the producers did it partly by interviewing people and partly by trying to show the history of the word. No one’s quite certain exactly where it came from, but there are several good candidates. From there, the movie shows how the word can be used and who is more likely to use it. The movie even has Samuel L. Jackson going over different variations of the word. At one point, there’s mention of a phonetically similar word which caused a mayor’s aide to resign. (Unfortunately, Epinions won't allow me to use it.)

As you might expect, there are interviews with celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg and George Carlin. There are also excerpts read from authors like Mark Twain. There’s even one of Lyndon B. Johnson’s phone calls thrown in there. The documentary even covers the use of the word (and variations thereof) within the black community. Yes, there’s a double standard. Why is it that one black guy can say it to another black guy, but the instant that a white guy says it, there’s a problem? The documentary covers that. There’s even stuff on Richard Pryor’s use of the word.

The movie seemed a long at 90 minutes. I have to wonder how the producers were able to stretch it out that far. Some of the material seemed redundant. In fact, in the beginning of the movie, I felt like they were hitting me over the head with the word, repeating it constantly. It also seemed to rely heavily on music and television. It did go in to the history, but not that much.

There was discussion in the movie of trying to eliminate the word, due mostly to its history. You can’t really do that. Ignoring it may change attitudes a little, but some racist idiot will always find a way to insult and demean people. As was brought up in the movie, it’s mainly been lower-class whites that use it as a derogatory term. Those that are in the public eye, such as politicians, generally don’t use it. Instead, we need to change people’s views.

Overall, the movie gets four stars. It’s one of those movies that you have to stick with. I can see a lot of people being turned off the first few minutes due to the way it starts out. There were even a few points in the middle where I felt that it was rehashing some of the same stuff. If you stay all the way to the end, you might just get something out of it.