Remember the Titans

Remember The Titans The movie Remember the titans is a great Disney movie directed by Boaz Yakin. This film depicts an everlasting sociological issue that has to do with race in America. The film takes place in the early 1970’s where blacks and whites had equal rights but blacks still faced the wrath of many white people who don’t agree with the equal rights. This hurts them in job opportunities and school placement. At T.C Williams high school in Virginia, Herman Boone has just been announced as the schools new football coach. Boone is an African American and the coach he is now replacing (Bill Yoast) is white. This causes an uproar around the school and the town but the government stands firm and permits Boone to be the coach. Although Yoast decides to take up the assistant coaching job at T.C Williams under Boone, The fact that an African American coach was instated meant that a once all white football team now is becoming an interracial squad. The question is, despite the race barrier can the team find a way to set aside differences and find a way to become a true team not one separated by racial barriers. The football team leaves for camp one day where they head to Gettysburg for training. While the team is getting on the bus and on the trip you can feel the tension between the black students and white students building. When they get to camp, in order to ease some of the tension coach Boone makes the room situations so a black and a white player would be rooming together for the duration. He also makes them get to know each other as people and friends. At first this plan backfired, it caused fights and even more tension on the playing field. But as camp went on, the players figured out that the race issue is all just in their heads. Each and every one of them is on the team to accomplish the same goal and by the end of camp, most of the team understood that. As the movie goes on the team gains a very strong bond among each other. Particularly one between captain Gary Bertier and Julius Campbell. What made this bond strong was the fact that Bertier who is a white and Campbell who is a black roomed together for camp and hated each other. But now that they put there differences aside to help the team they have become true friends. Everything seems to be going well for the team as they go through the season undefeated and go to states despite the social frown put on them for their interracial participation. Even though this look was diminished to a great degree once T.C started to win games, there are still people who believe what they have going on is wrong. As the Titans prepare for the state semi-final game, Yoast is told by some members of the school board that if they were to LOSE the game that Yoast would be inducted into the high school football hall of fame and retain the head coaching position the following year. Yoast doesn’t think much of this instead he just prepares for the game. The game starts and the titans are getting shafted with calls all first half. Blatantly terrible calls from the referees got Yoast wondering if this game was fixed to make the African American coach fail. Once this became apparent, Yoast went over to the referee during the game and called him out for what was going on. Despite the referee’s arguing Yoast got his point across. The officials started to call an even game and the titans made the comeback for the win. I thought this was a prime example of what this movie stands for. Yoast new that had he let happen what was fixed to happen, he personally would benefit greatly from it. But his morals told him to do the right thing despite the fact that his superior coach in Boone is an African American and so isn’t half his team. He defended them when before his experiences with these people he certainly wouldn’t have done so. This spoke to me a lot and I thought this exemplified what this movie stands for. The titans end up going on and winning the state championship. All in all I liked this movie because I understood what the meaning of it was. Despite the racial boundaries set from society itself, the Titans were able to set aside these boundaries and achieve the ultimate goal. Not as individuals, but as a team. Obstacles are only obstacles. Don’t let outside sources effect something good that lies within.