Remember the Titans

Essay 2

Describe a challenge faced by a character.

Explain the importance of this challenge.

In the movie “Remember the Titans” by “Boaz Yakin” the character Herman Boone, played by “Denzel Washington”, is faced by a difficult challenge that is significantly important to the movie. Boone in a sense faces a challenge of acceptance in which, by the end of the movie, he has experienced in two noticeable ways. Boone faces the challenge of being accepted by the community, revealing to us that he wants the community working together rather than judging and persecuting one another. Additionally Boone fights for the acceptance and respect of his team, The Titans, proving to them that they can indeed “make this race thing work”.

Boone faces the challenge of being accepted by the community, encouraging them to work together rather than judging and persecuting one another. At that time in Alexandria, Virginia there was an active atmosphere of racial tension within the community between both the African American and Caucasian population. Boone, a black coach, faces the challenge of taking on a new position as head coach of the T.C Williams High School football team. This is fraught with conflict and peril however due to the opposition of those that do not and will not accept the integration of black and white students into mixed race schools. In a move by the school board coach Boone is now unknowingly threatened by the loss of his job if The Titans loose a match. If The Titans are to loose a match Coach Boone will not only loose his job, both himself and the community will loose the hope of ever having this system of integration work. Boone in an effort to be accepted by the community uses his work with the football team to support the system of integration by emphasizing that he is in fact a valued member in the community despite his color, and additionally that he can “get these boys to work together”. There are avid examples of the work he does with the football team to illustrate these principal ideas. When the members of the football team all prepared to leave for camp, they boarded the two busses according to their color and clearly did not want have anything to do with each other. Coach Boone outraged by a comment from Gerry Bertier calls all the players to the front of the busses. He orders them to pair up according to their positions on the football field, accomplishing team unity and overcoming the first obstacle in getting the boys to work together. Also of interest are the responses of the player’s parents when they return from camp. They are surprised to see how Coach Boone has changed them. The parents are still prejudiced however their children have changed once again illustrating that Coach Boone, although