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The Story of Blink
This powerful and thought-provoking documentary examines the dramatic story of one-time white supremacist leader Gregory Withrow, and in so doing explores the underlying themes of violence, racism. and domination in American life and culture. At the height of his involvement in the movement in 1988, Withrow fell in love with a woman whose parents had fled Nazi Germany. His own subsequent flight from the militant White Aryan Resistance captured the imagination of the national media when Withrow was found beaten and "crucified," his hands nailed to a board.
Now, more than a decade later, Withrow is married to Maria, a Mexican-American woman, and lives a low-key, semi-isolated rural existence. Unlike simplistic stories about "evil racists turned model-citizens," Blink explores the complex middle ground where Withrow still battles his demons, at times questioning the possibility of fundamental personal change. The painful irony of his predicament is that when he renounced the world of racial hatred he was left with the same enraged, alienated masculine self that once propelled him into the movement. A stereotyped enemy no longer provides an easy target for his gnawing anger. And the mythic power he once enjoyed has been replaced by a silent, uneasy emptiness.
Blink also examines the mass media's role in creating a caricatured persona for Withrow as a "white trash racist." The film illustrates how the media could demonize a racist such as Withrow and avoid confronting the more insidious forms of racism that permeate American life. Through clips of Withrow on the talk-show circuit following his "crucifixion," the film shows how the media abruptly recast him as a "redeemed warrior." As a white supremacist, he was an icon of evil; after the attack, he became an icon of redemption. Both constructions deny Withrow his humanity in its full complexity.
Blink gives voice to Withrow's current attempts at a more meaningful kind of redemption, one in which he faces the extraordinary pain and cruelty of his past within the context of an unremarkable daily life. Through Withrow's struggle to renounce white supremacy and its twisted mythology, the film provides viewers with a multifaceted exploration into the gritty nature of personal transformation. Blink resists the temptation to see Withrow's change as a fait accompli. Rather, it points to a more complex understanding that the path of healing resides in his ability to endure the perpetual tension of opposites -- between self and other, victim and victimizer, good and evil.