Remember the Titans

Summary

"Remember the Titans," directed by Boaz Yakin, is an American drama film which focused on the major social problem of racism. Every scene in the movie displayed racism and showed how it affects everyone. Based on a true story, "Remember the Titans" is a movie about events which occurred in 1971 and focuses on the racial attitudes and tensions of the football team at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia. During 1971, federal laws were passed that required schools to desegregate within the South. These federal laws forced T.C. Williams High School, a white only school, to allow African Americans to attend school there.

Racism

At the beginning of the movie, we see the community of Alexandria in an uproar due to a young African American being killed by a white person. African Americans and whites surrounded the shop where the young teenager was killed to protest his death. They are all screaming, shouting, and throwing stuff at one another while the cops try to keep the two ethnic groups separated. The owner of the shop was outraged and began loading his gun to deal with the problem, until he was stopped by a cop. The white football players heard about the uproar and gathered up crowbars and chains to go down to the shop, until Coach Yoast (their white coach) stopped them. He took them back to the school, were Gerry (the white captain of the football team) stated he wanted all the blacks kicked off the team because he did not want to play with those "black animals." I personally found this very degrading to refer to Africans Americans as being no better than animals. This statement shows the audience how African Americans were inferior to whites during this period.

All the other teams within the system where composed of all white players and headed by white coaches. The school board offered Coach Boone the head coaching position at T.C. Williams High School due to the black color of his skin. He felt uncomfortable about this situation because he had a head coaching job stolen from him at his old school by a white American who was less qualified. After African Americans gathered around his house and showed their appreciation, he decided to take the head coaching position. This would be the first time the African American citizens of Alexandria would have someone to represent them. These African American citizens believed Coach Boone was their answer to ending discrimination, because they assumed that he would fill all the starting positions with people of color. This would only lead to reverse discrimination and more violence. Coach Boone was the right man for the job, because he strongly believed in treating everyone fairly no matter what color of their skin. He demanded perfection and respect from everyone all the time. You can see this in the movie when he had everyone refer to him as "sir" and wear business suits with ties to football camp.

Before the team boarded the buses to go to camp at Gettysburg College, Gerry and Ray (white football players) confronted Coach Boone and stated that no white players would play football for him unless he saved most of the starting positions for them. Coach Boone made a joke about the two of them to show he was not going to tolerate racism. He believed taking his team to Gettysburg College would be a good way to get them away from the chaos of the town in hopes of getting them to come together. Coach Boone forced whites and African Americans to sit by each other on the bus and to be roommates at camp. Even with these attempts to unite the players, they still only reacted with people of their own race. Coach Boone was so outraged with the segregation occurring in his team, that he increased the number of practices each day until everyone on the team knew all of his teammates. This forced the players to get to know teammates of the other race. After spending a short time together, the players started to realize that they had a lot more in common with each other than they expected.

The most inspiring scene was when Coach Boone woke the team up at 3:00 in the morning to go on a long run. They continued running until they reached a cemetery at the break of dawn. Coach Boone told the team about the battle between whites and blacks, known as the Battle of Gettysburg, which was fought on that ground. He made the team realize the long history of racism that existed, and stated that 50,000 men were killed fighting the same fight they were still fighting today. After this eye opening event, the team starts to come together as one.

After football camp is over, the team goes home to Alexandria where they face the reality of the real world and are immediately reminded that it is wrong to befriend people of color. The team starts to drift back apart due to their mothers, girlfriends,