American Denial: The truth is deeper than black and white. Follow the story of foreign researcher and Noble Laureate Gunnar Myrdal whose study, An American Dilemma (1944), provided a provocative inquiry into the dissonance between stated beliefs as a society and what is perpetuated and allowed in the name of those beliefs. His inquiry into the United States' racial psyche become a lens for modern inquiry into how denial, cognitive dissonance, and unrecognized unconscious attitudes continue to dominate racial dynamics in American life. The film's unusual narrative sheds light on the unconscious political and moral world of modern Americans. Archival footage, newsreels and nightly news reports, and rare southern home movies from the 1930s and 1940s thread through the story, as well as psychological testing into racial attitudes from research footage, websites and YouTube videos. The film also includes interviews with historicans and sociologists who reflect and provide insight into the Myrdal question: How to reconcile individual feelings and thoughts with the bedrock values of our democracy?
