White Dog is not a racist film. Samuel Fuller's (the director) intention was not to make a racist film. So why was this movie deemed racist? It was banned in the US and only recently released on DVD. Fuller, accustomed to making B-movies with not much of a "good reputation" thought he could get away with his "radical" messages because he had more freedom to do so. I think the people who thought of this movie as racist only thought so because it's about a white dog attacking black people. However, that's just a tag line; really it's about a racist trainer who brainwashes a dog to attack black people and how a black trainer tries to re-teach the dog not to. In the end the trainer is victorious. Some, who still think the film is racist, might interpret the ending as confirming racism. For a dog, race is just black and white, but the movie said a lot about racism in human society, and the possibilities of re-conditioning. Fuller's movie might not be the greatest film about racism but it very cleverly portrays racism through the medium of a dog—neutral in thought.
Review of White Dog
