The surface story is about aging metalheads who blame the influence of rap on the mainstream for them no longer being cool, but these characters would never have been considered anything but out of place, no matter which fad was/is in place.
Some people who find themselves alienated tend to give up and to blame others. They don't devote any energy to actually solving problems, or to carve out their own niche in order to be comfortable. Some people figure out what the rules are, calculate their own strength and weakness, and figure out how to adapt. There are also rare individuals who find adversity to be thrilling, and they are motivated to rise far above expectations. (these tend to be characters in "inspiring:" movies).
Bill Zebub focused on people who like to complain - people who don't actually do anything to make a situation better (or to at least change an attitude so as to make a condition more endurable). These characters pack a lot of punch, entertainment-wise.
During the beginning stages of the script-writing, Bill Zebub decided to incorporate racial humor, and to make it as over-the-top as possible. This is an indie movie, so it should go into areas that Hollywood fears to tread. In fact, Hollywood is actually a target of insults by one of the characters. Ancient Greeks used plays to influence public opinion. Bill Zebub's character in the movie accused Hollywood of doing the same thing. He detects a social agenda. Euripides was an iconoclast who found himself in trouble many times for "causing waves" - maybe Bill Zebub is the modernm Euripides.
Bill's character (named Bill) has two extremely racist friends who influence him. Their names are synonyms - Ruby and Rubie. Both of these racist characters defend their beliefs with science, but much like any person who has an agenda, they pick the facts that they like and they ignore the facts that contradict what they want to believe.
Bill's character had gone through life passively.. He assumed that the racist characters were kindred spirits because they hated a lot of the things that he hated, particularly the shallowness of the mainstream, and the superficiality of current "art".
Fatefullly, he meets Melissa (Ida Barklund). She has mature ideas about things. She despises rap, but not because of racist feelings. She is an intellectual - she is not afraid to speak the truth, but she is also an artistic spirit, so she can speak the truth in a beautiful way.
This begins a new phase of life, with new conflicts and new opportunities.
Bill Zebub personally believes that intelligent people cannot be offended, but sometimes an otherwise bright person suffers from mental blocks, or indocrination, that can warp an interpretation. Bill Zebub has adjusted his statement to "Intelligent people who don't have issues don't get offended." So if you are a well-adjusted person, without an agenda, and you can shed any indocrination, then your blood pressure should not be affected by anything that you see or hear. The movie has sublime qualities to every visceral shot. You just have to think. Or you can give up and have a tantrum.
The racist characters have scenes alongside "hate-haters" - but this was not done because Bill Zebub wanted to sugarcoat the humor. He wanted to show that hate-haters are immoral and just as blind. They might be more dangerous because they feel morally superior for their hatred of rednecks, racists, etc. Truly enlightened people teach gently, with compassion and patience - enlightened people do not punish, degrade, or judge.
The verbal exhanges between the racists and the hate-haters offer many opportunities for comedy as well as for deeper messages. Both types of people have wasted energy on things that don't matter. As with all characters, there is always an opportunity for change, and the hidden tragedy of a lot of situations is that characters don't see the right path.
An important stipulation of the racial humor was that Bill Zebub had to be insulted as mercilessly as possible. If any viewer should be angry, it should be him, for getting ripped apart and depicted so unflatteringly. This is him showing that he can take a joke, and so should you.
There are many theories about humor. Some people have proposed that it is a socially acceptable way of releasing negative energy. That seems to be right. After all, the things we laugh at in comedies, or even in life, seem to make us cruel. We laigh when people fall down, when people suffer embarrassment, or when people argue. But we don't seem to laugh when people REALLY get hurt. The victims of the joke have to be ok. (Some evolutionary psychologists propose that laugher evolved as a signal to others that "everything is ok - there is no danger" - but that is a whole other subject). There is a notion in entertainment that comedy is a social mirror. Bill Zebub combined all three notions in the humor style of this movie.
SPOILERS (please do not read until after you have seen the movie)
Thee surface level of the story should be satisfying enough, but the meta-story is about despair. One reincarnation theory suggests that a soul knows what kind of earthly life it will have before it incarnates. It understands the challenges of that particular life. It knows the lessons that must be learned in order to get to the next level of existence. Souls thus incarnate over and over.
Souls sometimes band in circles - each soul being on the same development level. They sometimes make compacts with each other, chosing roles that help out the soul that needs a particular lesson. These souls can sometimes be enemies on earth - causing challenges, or "tests" that lead the learning soul toward development.
The Ruby characters are one soul, and the role of the racists is to steer Bill's soul away from his course. He must break their hold and find the correct path.
Melissa incarnated as his guide. She was not to forcefully break the hold of the racists. Rather, she was to gently nudge.
But she had a more important role. She was to be his love. He had to develop intense desires and loves, and he was to have those taken from him. He had to endure loss on every level. He loved music and saw it destroyed. He loved language and saw it bastardized. (His many loves were personal in nature - he developed unique fondness for many things and was to have it all taken away).
As commonly happens, there was a problem in the plan. He died prematurely, before Melissa was taken from him. In reincarnation theory, the lesson just gets set up again, and the soul has new scenarios to live out, and the soul must keep repeating these lessons until development is attained.
The soul undegoes a period of reflection - of digesting the earthly events. It was during this time that Bill's soul began to doubt the scheme of things.
Why grow? Why live? Why must pain be a requirement of growth?
And so, that old soul, took itself off the wheel of life.
This should help you tie more things together when you re-watch the movie.
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