Remember The Titans Research Paper

Out of Class Movie Reaction: Remember the Titans

Remember the Titans’ is a movie based out of Virginia, it tells the story of a small town were one black and one white high school are closed and the students sent to T.C. Williams High School under federal mandate to integrate. While merging the schools were a big task, merging the two football teams was even bigger. Denzel Washington was giving the head coaching job at T.C. William high school the job was previously by soon to had been Hall of Fame Coach Bill Yoast. Denzel had to bring a group of white and black young men together doing a time period were racism was at its highest point. Denzel wasn’t welcomed by his community or his players but he was determined to make sure the team experienced
racial harmony and triumph. The team wasn’t expected to do as good as they did with the school board thinking they would have many problems. However the boys came together after rigorous training during summer camp and became the face of what their community really did not want to see.

In one scene in the movie, the team was on their way to football camp and they were experiencing problems. So Denzel had a plan to bring Cohesiveness to the team. He made them all sit and room with a teammate of a different race. By the time camp was over each player needed to be able to tell the other players’ life story.
Cohesiveness- is the goal of social dimension. I believe Denzel brought this out of his team by placing rules in affect that they had to abide by. Denzel was determined to get the boys to get along and he did just that by making them want to be together and by encouraging them to to develop compatible membership within the football team.
In another scene two of the team’s best players went on a rant and begin to yell at each other. This was an example of Horizontal Communication- messages between individuals with equal power, such as office workers in the same department. In this situation it involved to football players a black male and a white male. Both were equal in rank yet they were trying to establish themselves and their races as the dominate race on the team.
Psychological reactance- the more someone tries to control our behavior and restrict our choices , the more we are inclined to resist such efforts. The way this was expressed in the movie was, in the midst of everything that was going on in the movie with all the segregation the high school still had a black coach. While many believed that Denzel shouldn’t have got the coaching job he was determined to show them that they were wrong. Knowing they were waiting on him to make a mistake and take away his coaching job Mr. Washington payed close attention to all he did and every decision he made. If there were and mistakes by him his job would be taking away.

Manipulative Communication- is an attempt by one person to maneuver another towards the manipulator’s goal.
After Mr. Washington got the head coach job the town was in a fury. There were many people who tried to influence Denzel to give the job up to the white coach who had previously coached the team before they were merged. Although they weren’t successful at getting Denzel to give away his job, they did get him to include the white coaches on his staff. This made it easier for both the black and white members of the football team.
The turning point in the movie that brought everyone together was when the team started doing well together, and when there were no problems with ethnocentrism. However I believe the biggest turning point of the movie is when one of the white football players got hurt and his brother came to check on him. His brother just happened to be a black kid, the same black kid he got into a argument with at the beginning of the move, the same black kid who he thought he was better than. When Berteer saw Julius in the hospital room his face lit up immediately. Not only did this show the two of them that they needed each other and that their race shouldn’t hinder that. It showed the community that everyone can get alone. This turning point highlights a significant point in not only the movie, but in history as well. It showed us that we were able to do it. Blacks and Whites would be able to work together without any
problems.
To sum all up I think that there were a number of terms that we learned in class in chapter 8 through 11 that were exemplified in the movie. Also there were types of communication going on in the movie that we talked about in previous chapters such as; Ethnocentrism with most of the guys thinking their race was the better one. Stereotype, with Denzel Washington getting the job as head coach and him being black most of the white kids were intimidated and discouraged thinking they would never see playing time any more. Last but not least I think that Multiculturalism was obtained by both the white and black students, by them growing together as one as oppose to be separated, and hated by each other.