Lucia Kruseman
English 2
Professor Waggoner
April 21/14
Remembering
the Titans
The movie Remembering the Titans by Boaz Yakin is
based on a true story about an African American high school football coach in
Virginia on 1971, where in the United States was still difficult times for
African Americans because of segregation. Most of the places where still
segregated and African Americans were not even consider part of the society or
either Americans. There was still violence against each other race, and even
schools were completely segregated by the government. The movie has an A
grading on the representation project test because of its cultural diversity.
The
film Remembering the Titans by Boaz
Yakin, is about an African American coach at T.C Williams High School in 1971.
In those T.C Williams High School was an all white public high school until it
was federal mandate to become an integrated public high school. Coach Herman
Boone, an African American coach, was ordered to become the new head coach of
the High School football team. Every player, parent and student were against it
first of all because he was African American and second of all because he took
the place of Coach Bill Yoast, who was the head coach for years. Coach Boone
decided to take all new African American players and the old White players to a
camp outside of the city to train them and so they can relate to each other and
stop the discrimination. At the beginning they completely hate each other but
at the end of the camp they actually all became friends. This helped them first
to make the whole Virginia society and the whole country realize that
segregation should be stopped and that African Americans are consider part of
everyone’s community. Likewise helped them to become state champions.
The
representation project test is a test that grades the cultural diversity and measures
how well does the film challenges the status quo. The movie Remembering the Titans has eleven points
so that means that have a grade of an A. This means that the movie portraits
lots of diversity and also does not limit stereotypes.
One
of the things that the representation project test looks for on a film is how
women are portrait. In the Remembering
the Titans film there are more than one women of color in speaking roles.
One of them is Coach Boone’s wife and the second one is his daughter. Also
another characteristic of the film is that it does represent women as more than
“objects for the male gaze”. As Giannetti mentions most movies put “women’s picture – emphasizing a female star
and focusing on typical female concerns such as getting or holding on to a man”
(Giannetti 430). But on this film women do not only focus on getting a man or
holding into a man. For example Coach Yoast ‘s wife left him because he
was too focus on his job, and his daughter, Sheryl, was basically a tomboy
young girl who loves football and was always his helper coaching and she even
shout to the player what they were doing wrong. Sheryl also represent a
different body time since she loved to coach football instead of playing with
dolls. In the movie even Coach Boone tell Coach Yoast that Sheryl should be
playing with dolls instead of watching how to coach a football team, but Coach
Yoast told Coach Boone that he already trying and she does not like it. In the
movie they accept Sheryl as she is and they are okay with it. Also other requirement is to have pass the
Bechdel Test and women in the movie when the two little girls talk to each
other they do not talk about men instead they talk about either football or
dolls.
In
the other hand, for the men characters there were different requirements. One of them was that the film does not glorify
violent men. Every time the players were violent either in school or on the field
they were always punished. Another is if the film perpetuate an unhealthy men
as ideal, and in deed the movie does not since it is a sport movie every one of
the players even the coaches exercise every time and Coach Boone even mentions
that they will start eating healthy for know on since the training is just
starting. A third requirement was if there are more than one men of color in a
speaking role. In this film since it is based on a true story in times of
segregation there are lots of men of color in speaking roles, since most of the
important football players are African American. The last requirement is about
if there are men portrayed as non-stereotypical roles and there are. One of
them is Gerry Bertier since he is one of the main Whites that started first
carrying and actually carrying for the African Americans and actually trying to
make his mother and girlfriend realize that discrimination is not good and has
to stop.
Additional,
there is a requirement if the film avoids celebrating offensive racial
discrimination, ethnic and stereotype. The film incorporates several types of
culture and even incorporated and makes it seem like normal. First it does not
celebrate offensive racial discrimination. Another example is that one of the
football players was overweight and he actually believe that he had cero
possibility to go to college since everyone in his family were dropouts and at
the end he ended going to college. Also there is gay character, Ronnie
“Sunshine” Bass, and at the beginning obviously everyone was in shock when
Sunshine kiss Gerry but no one ever discriminated him for that, not even his
roommate. Moreover the test has some bonus points, Remembering the Titans has one bonus point that the writer of the
movie is an African American, Gregory Allen Howard. Also another aspect of the
movie is that unfortunately Gerry has a tragically car accident and ends up
being paraplegic. Here the director as Lunsford mentions “You may sometimes
want to use emotions to connect with readers to assure them that you understand
their experiences” (Lunsford, 51) use several emotions about the accident and
he even at the end showed the scene when the whole team was on Gerry’s funeral since
after ten years unfortunately he died. All these points sum up and give the
film a grade of an A.
First
of all I was not surprised by the results since the beginning you can see that
this movie has lots of diversity since it is based on a true story on times of
segregation. Second of all I do not believe this is a fair score system, even
though I know that the test was made to challenge Hollywood movies to
incorporate more diversity since the society now a days is not just only White
and strait people anymore. But I think that not every movie should have like
for example lesbians and women with important roles or several African
Americans and so, I think that it depends on what the movie is about. For
example in this film I think it was super random that there was a gay. I think
it was just incorporate to past first all type of society approval and test
like this one.
In
conclusion, the film Remembering the
Titans is a great movie based on a true story about segregation between
African American and Whites in the United States and describes perfectly how
sports also helped to join two different cultures together. Furthermore, the
representation project test is made to make Hollywood movies more conscious
about the different kinds of societies and to incorporate diversity on their
movies.
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