The film Remember the Titans is a film written by Gregory Allen Howard, directed by Boaz Yakin, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. The film was set in Alexandria, Virginia in 1971 after the Civil Rights movement to end segregation. The film is about a high school football team that struggled when their town was being forced to integrate blacks and whites into one school. The team was faced with losing their white coach along with the integration and they all wanted to quit the team. Remember the Titans is an effective social commentary because it meets the following criteria: racism, societal preconception, and social acceptance.
First issue that is seen in the movie is racism. In the beginning of the movie it is apparent that the integration
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You see Bertier and Campbell in a conversation over the assignment that Boone has given each player. During their conversion you can tell right away that they both have their own preconceived ideas of the other. Boone tries to help his team get over all the societal preconceptions by forcing the players to spend time with the opposite race. “The idea is that the reason we don’t like other groups is because we simply don’t spend a lot of time with people who are different. So, all we need to do is hang out with those people more, and poof! Our prejudices will go away” (Goodfriend). Throughout their stay at camp they players learned to accept each other for who they are inside not what they appear to be on the outside. Which is evident when Bertier says to Campbell “I was afraid of you, Julius. I only saw what I was afraid of, and now I know I was only hating my brother.” (Remember the Titans). This helps us see that if you try hard enough you can overcome societal preconceptions, all you have to do is open your heart and mind to new …show more content…
It can be argued where the biggest turning point of the movie is. For some, “The first, and strongest, part of the movie takes place at a preseason camp, where, under Boone’s relentless drill sergeant discipline (“This is not a democracy,” he bellows. “This is a dictatorship. I am the law.”), they meld into a cohesive fighting unit” (Scott). I feel the biggest turning point in the movie is when Boone wakes the team up while at camp and makes them jog to where the battle of Gettysburg took place. When they get there Boone states “This is where they fought the battle of Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fighting the same fight that we are still fighting among ourselves today. This green field right here, painted red, bubblin’ with the blood of young boys. Smoke and hot lead pouring right through their bodies. Listen to their souls, men. I killed my brother with malice in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family. You listen, and you take a lesson from the dead. If we don’t come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed, just like they were. I don’t care if you like each other or not, but you will respect each other. And maybe… I don’t know, maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men.” (Remember the Titans). You then see the team come together while at camp but as soon as they get back to reality the bonds that were formed are slowing being broken, which is seen when
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
The film starts with an uprising after a white storeowner kills a black teenager. This incident Highlights Prejudices. The teenager was labeled a thief because of the color of his skin and the unjustifiable murder causes racial tensions that exist as a result of the integration of the high schools.
The term “contact hypothesis” embodies the idea that groups of people do not like each other simply because they do not spend time together. Upon analyzing this term, racism floated around the idea that distinctive practices, beliefs and hereditary factors determine the social structure of one’s race. Furthermore, racism can be broken down to discursive racism, which is expressed in racialized meanings. “People say that it can 't work, black and white. Here, we make it work every day. We still have our disagreements, of course, but before we reach for hate, always, always, we remember the Titans.” (Yakin)The team captains in the film Gerry Bertier and arguably Julius Campbell consistently come into conflict regarding prejudice views of each other. Superiority is the basis of racism; it determines the systemic forms that
The midnight setting at the cemetery for the Battle of Gettysburg gave Boone’s words an extraordinary power; he gave them a patriotic and an innate sense of responsibility to make sure that those soldiers that died died in order to unite people and bring them together. By informing the team of the historical background and the importance of the events that took place there he has power behind his words, and his slow and deliberate tone allots them adequate time for total comprehension. But like all teachers do, he started with a question giving them an opportunity to become engaged as well as making it real for them. Without even saying anything, team unity is promoted by having them run together, as well as listen to the speech together. During his speech he emphasizes that exact point “I don’t care if you like each other or not. But you will respect each other. And maybe, I don’t know, maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men”. He was in the position to say these things to them at this point because of the authority he had developed up to this point, if he had tried to do this in the beginning it would not have gone how it did at this point. In his speech he borrowed credibility from Gettysburg, towards the end of the speech he told the boys to “take a lesson
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
The entire film is based on significantly different racial opinions, opinions of different writing styles and stereotyping of different people in general. Race is a huge issue in the film and many stereotypes are made.
History helps us understand and learn about the turning points during the Civil war that made an impact in our country. One of this turning points was the battle of Antietam and Gettysburg. It was the bloodiest single day of fighting in American history with the death of 2,100 soldiers and 2,700 Confederates. In addition to that about 18,500 soldiers and Confederates were tragedy wounded. Even though it was not a military victory, it was surely a strategic defeat for the Confederacy.
The battle at Gettysburg was a defining moment in the Civil War not only because of the battle itself, but what prevailed with civilian opposition, and the events that changed the trajectory of the battle. The Turning Point of the War on July 1, 1863, the Union Army of the Potomac engaged the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia which had advanced into the north.
One of the biggest issues depicted in the film is the struggle of minority groups and their experience concerning racial prejudice and stereotyping in America. Examples of racism and prejudice are present from the very beginning of the movie when Officer Ryan pulls over black couple, Cameron and Christine for no apparent reason other than the color of their skin. Officer Ryan forces the couple to get out of the car
At the start of Remember the Titans directed by Boaz Yakin, all schools are segregated and there are no integrated teams in Virginia, until the school board for the new T.C Willams High School forced integration, with black and white players being put together and forced to work together. The main changing relationships are between Gerry and Julius, Coach Boone and Coach Yoast and Gerry and Ray. I think these relationships are mainly developing because they are learning about each other and bonding as teammates.
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 ...
... that the film opens with. While the story may be slightly dramatic and pieces of the story “coincidentally” seem to fall into exactly the wrong place at the wrong time causing the tragedies in the film to happen, the events in this film are entirely capable of being a reality. Racism and prejudice continue to be prevalent issues in our society, but like Anthony, we can learn to overcome anything that holds us back from putting unity into practice and making our world a better place for everyone.
This movie does provoke a dialogue on race that, according to author and journalist Jeff Chang, "has been anathema to Hollywood after 9/11." During the first viewing of
Although there were many concepts that were present within the movie, I choose to focus on two that I thought to be most important. The first is the realistic conflict theory. Our textbook defines this as, “the view that prejudice...