Remember the Titans: Reaffirming Gender Expectations
Disney's Remember the Titans (2000) depicts the first season Herman Boone serves as head football coach of the T.C. Williams Titans in Alexandra, Virginia. The beginning of the movie shows how Bill Yoast, a Hall of Fame caliber coach, becomes the assistant coach to Herman Boone when Virginia public schools integrate in the early 1970's. Upon the temporary resolution to those coaching conflicts, the racially divided players and coaches go to football camp and learn how to become a team. In those scenes, Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell emerge as leaders for the white and black team members respectively. Despite fighting each other and appearing to become enemies at first, they are able to put their differences aside and come to realize a common ground on which to build a close friendship. For the most part, the team itself is able to follow their example.
Though the film primarily deals with race relations, the history of desegregation, and how the Titans football team helped in taking positive steps toward racial inclusion and equality, the movie also carries a dialogue in regard to notions of gender expectations, exclusion, and deviance. The characters of Sheryl Yoast (Coach Yoast's daughter), Ronnie Bass, Gerry Bertier, Julius Campbell, and Herman Boone, in their various influences to the plot, help highlight what is and is not expected when it comes to gender norms. Through an explication of scenes involving moments of either gender deviance or the policing of gender norms, this paper will explore how Remember the Titans reinforces societal ideas of masculinity and femininity while also giving the audience instances of socially acceptable deviance from those rules. In ...
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...arning from a movie. However, this kind of gender socialization is everywhere in society and can go unchecked, as seen, in movies. The importance of educating children to catch these kinds of ideological messages is important in developing a generation less concerned with gender and race and one more devoted to equality. The players in the film may have learned to negotiate the space of masculinity and race, but they are not taught to include those outside of their team's objectives of perfection. The women who stand in the periphery of the film are a metaphor for those who are in the periphery of social importance and concern. Remember the Titans does little to inform its viewer of the issues of gender that also surrounded the early seventies. Women do not, as then, have adequate representation. It seems unlikely this treatment was done to reflect that inequality.
The movie "Remember the Titans" is a character education filled film for all ages. To summarize, this movie takes place in the year nineteen seventy-one and follows the issue of racism. Two high schools in the town of Alexandria, Virginia are being integrated into an African American and Caucasian school, and that mix includes the football team. The movie follows the story of their development. At first, the two races sit, talk, and practice separate. After one practice camp, and one passionate coach, the boys learn to respect and become friendly with each other. However, after the two week practice camp is up and they go back to school, the rest of the high school does not understand why the football players have changed. However, the football
Although the film did not examine in detail the knowledge coach Herman Boone possessed before he began his position with the Titans, it shows glimpses into his experience and wisdom. Boone clearly knew and loved football, as evidenced by his hours of dedication and labor. In the scene where he is first introduced to coach Yoast, he describes his past experience as a coach in North Carolina, and his previous winning seasons. Coach
He was later appointed head Coach over a winning white coach; he is reluctant to accept the position because a similar situation happened to him when a white Coach had been appointed over him in South Carolina. He finally accepts the head coach position with Support from the black residents who see him as a symbol of pride and admiration that is absent in their community.
The color of someone's skin doesn't tell who they are; everyone is human. Remember the Titans is directed by Boaz Yakin, and stars Denzel Washington as coach Boone, Ryan Hurst as Gerry Bertier, Will Patton as Bill Yoast, and Wood Harris as Julius Campbell. The movie takes place in Alexandria, Virginia 1971, right as the school was starting to integrate to form T.C. Williams High School was one of the few schools in the south to integrate this early. Racism was a big issue for African Americans. The movie had a good way of showing the main social issue of racism in Alexandria.
In the 90s sitcom Coach, Hayden Fox is the epitome of manhood. This 40-something is a head football coach at a university, a divorcee whose role as a father has only just begun and he lives alone in a cabin. This man is as much of a guy as you can get. His life is football and he has a strict set of rules in which to live by. He has a very set view and definition of masculinity. Hayden Fox is Generation X’s Archie Bunker, only not quite as much of a bigot, just a traditional manly man set in his ways. Much like All in the Family, Coach didn’t do very well at first and attracted negative reviews of critics. In a Los Angeles Times review of the first two episodes, Howard Rosenberg writes about “the wit-less story burdened by hackneyed, brain-versus-brawn characters”. This is quite harsh after only two episodes but it seems the brain-versus-brawn mentality rings true especially between Hayden and his daughter and wife. Despite the similarities between All in the Family and Coach, the main point of Coach is not that of relevance TV in the 1970s but is more of a way to attract male viewers in a TV genre watched mostly by women. Coach Hayden Fox is an ideal man and a character that men can relate to or aspire to be just like women with all of the female TV role models of the past. Coach’s main character Hayden Fox simultaneously plays two main roles: a model of masculinity for male viewers and an old fashioned man to both love and hate similar to Archie Bunker.
The Titans were flawless, in the sense that they were greater than the gods. They could not be killed, and thus they were invincible. Their universe was ruled with absolute power. The football team of T.C. Williams High School were the Titans of Alexandra, Virginia. Their football field was their universe and with such power, they controlled the field with merciless victory. This did not mean that the players were perfect, rather that together, unified perfection was achieved. In the film Remember the Titans, many social issues became points of focus, with racism predominantly being mentioned above all else.
Walter Winchell once said, “Never above you. Never below you. Always beside you.” The movie Remember The Titans gives truth to this quote. Produced in 2000, this movie stars actors such as Denzel Washington, Will Patton and Wood Harris. One may think that this movie is just about football but its depth is so much more. Taking place in Alexandria, Virginia, race mixing is unheard of until 1971 when T.C. Williams High School is established. When the schools are integrated a new football coach is brought in and the community and students are not happy about it, as the new coach is an African American. This movie shows how people overcome adversity and unite as one to achieve a common goal.
A couple of films that I watched personally that I feel really speaks to the culture and tensions of the time the film was to take place is Remember the Titans a movie about racial tension as town begins to desegregating schools and the other film is Men of Honor which was a film inspired by the true story of Master Chief Petty Officer Carl Brashear the first african american navy diver. Both of these films deal heavily with racism in the United States. The first film Remember the Titans was set in the 1970’s during a point in time where in the United States was going through a cultural change of the civil rights movements of equality for African Americans. The film is centered around a town that is desegregating its school and allowing black students
Smith, Jeff, and Chloe Beighley. "Normalizing Male Dominance: Gender Representation in 2012 Films." Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy. N.p., 12 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
The film “A League of Their Own,” depicts a fictionalized tale of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. This league was started during World War II when many of the Major Leagues Biggest stars were drafted to the war. MLB owners decided to start this league with hopes of making money while the men were overseas fighting. Traditional stereotypes of women in sports were already in force before the league even begins. One of the scouts letts Dottie, one of the films main characters she is the perfect combination of looks as well as talent. The scout even rejects one potential player because she is not as pretty as the league is looking for even though she is a great baseball player. The player, Marla’s father said if she was a boy she would be playing for the Yankee’s. Eventually Mara’s father is able to convince the scout to take Marla to try outs because he raised her on his own after her mother died. Her father says it is his fault his daughter is a tomboy. In this case the film reinforces the traditional stereotype that mothers are in charge of raising their daughters and teaching them to be a lady, where fathers are incapable of raising girls to be anything other than a tomboy. The focus on beauty also reinforces the traditional stereotype that men will only be interested in women’s sports when the females participating in
Discrimination has been present in many forms throughout history. The hate filled acts have been performed many times throughout the years, but was seen as socially unacceptable during and after the Civil Rights Movement. Remember the Titans takes place during the Civil Rights Movement, and showed how equality between races was still being fought for in the community. Remember the Titans showed how football created unity between the white and black community, but also showed the issues the black community faced. Remember the Titans depicts many forms of hate filled discrimination because it showed physical violence, social outcasting, and protesting on the belief one race was superior to another.
Remember the Titans is a film based on the true story of Coach Herman Boone, who tries to integrate a racially divided team. Throughout training camp and the season, Boone and Yoast 's black and white players learn to accept each other, to work together, and that football knows no race. As they learn from each other, Boone and Yoast also learn from them and in turn, the whole town learns from the team, the Titans. Thus, they are prepared to pursue the State Championship and to deal with and some adversity that threatens to effect their season.
In 1966 a series called "Star Trek" was created. It's creator, Gene Roddenberry, did not create the show to be a science fiction series. The series was much deeper than that. It wasn't just about discovering new planets and civilizations. It was about controversial issues. Even though the series' take place in the 23rd and 24th century the issues struck with the times and related current issues. Through each series, The Original, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, there has been progression with the times and the issues. The issues that surround the episodes of Star Trek include race, religion, sexuality, the depiction of science and gender roles. The central focus being talked about in this paper will be gender roles. Gender roles in Star Trek deal with leadership and sexuality.
The movie I decided to analyze was Remember the Titans. I examined the dilemmas and ethical choices that were displayed throughout the story. In the early 1970s, two schools in Alexandria Virginia integrate forming T.C. Williams High School. The Caucasian head coach of the Titans is replaced by an African American coach (Denzel Washington) from North Carolina, which causes a fury among white parents and students. Tensions arise quickly among the players and throughout the community when players of different races are forced together on the same football team. Coach Boone is a great example of a leader. He knows he faces a tough year of teaching his hated team. But, instead of listening to the hating town or administrators, Boone pushes his team to their limits and forces good relationships between players, regardless of race. His vision for the team involves getting the players concerned in what the team needs to become, and not what it is supposed to be; a waste. Boone is a convincing leader with a brutal, boot camp approach to coaching. He believes in making the players re-build themselves as a team. When Boone says, You will wear a jacket, shirt, and tie. If you don't have one buy one, can't afford one then borrow one from your old man, if you don't have an old man, then find a drunk, trade him for his. It showed that he was a handy Craftsman and wanted done what he wanted done no matter what it took.During training camp, Boone pairs black players with white players and instructs them to learn about each other. This idea is met with a lot of fighting, but black linebacker Julius Campbell and stubborn white All-American Gerry Bertier. It was difficult for the players to cope with the fact they had to play with and compete with ...
Remember the Titans is a film from 2000 displaying a true story of a racially divided football team from the 1970s. The movie highlights the relationships of the black and white people, and how they learned to interact with each other in a time when this was not the way of life. It brings up a number of questions throughout, of what is right and what is wrong, and really challenges the characters, making it a very interesting movie to watch. I have seen this movie many times, and each time I feel like I get something new out of it. It is a movie that can be used as a teaching tool, it does a great job of interpreting not only what was happening in the United States of America at that time, but social psychology concepts through real life situations.