Studying the Themes of the Movie: Remember the Titans

Remember the titans
Remember the titans is a movie based on a true story about the 1960 s’ schools integration plan this film is centered around the football team of the newly integrated school “T.C. Williams high school” and the struggles of racial separation, this movie shows the struggles of the two races desperately trying to become one community, I will be studying the main themes of this film, namely Racism, change, and teamwork.
Racism is very apparent in this film because of the multiple disputes through-out this film, at the beginning of this film, there was a clash between white people and black people, when a black teenager was shot inside a shop, the town turned upside down, and police had to intervene to stop this fight, during this however, the scene cuts to inside the shop with a policeman and the shop owner, the shop owner says to the police: “it’s my shop and I can do what I like.” And the policeman responds with: “we all have to endure this, so please calm down” clearly showing that the policeman also thinks that the shop keeper did the right thing by shooting as black people are a lower class to the white people.
A lot of changes occur during this film, mainly race related, for example: when Julius first meets Gerry, they hated each other, as shown on the bus to camp, the two races normally sit in two different busses, but coach Boone ordered the defensive side in one bus and the offence on the other, mixing the two races, it is very easy to see that the two races didn’t mix well because at one stage of the trip, Julius told Gerry to shut up even though Gerry had the same opinion as Julius, but by the time they returned home, they were best friends, this is apparent when Gerry’s girlfriend threatened to leave Gerry if he doesn’t terminate his friendship with Julius, but Gerry was still friends with Julius.
Team work is the last point covered in this essay, this occurs in and out of the football field, one instance of this is when Gerry, blames Julius for letting a man through the defense, but Julius responds with: “you are the captain right?.... so why don’t you tell you white buddies to block Rev better… I’m supposed to wear myself for the team?” Gerry retorts: “that’s the worst attitude I’ve ever heard.” Then Julius responds with a condescending remark: “attitude reflects leadership…” But later Gerry realizes his mistakes and had a talk with “his white buddies,” soon after that, the whole team performed better as a group, another example of teamwork is when the team returns to the school, blue organized a meeting where he announced: “so what if we won a few games, and y’all fools think that’s something?” this sentence gives the audience the idea that all the achievements on the field was worthless. “so we came together at camp; cool, but right back here, the world tells us that they don’t want us to be together” this part illustrates the fact that the friendships that they think they have made in camp “fell apart like a damn bit of nothin” and lastly when they huddle in as a group, the group symbolizes unity and gives a sense of a strong bond.
In conclusion “remember the titans” is a great film that clearly makes its points effectively and boldly, overall, teamwork, racism and change are just some of the many themes apparent in this film, all of which has strong meanings and morals, this really brings out the beat and the worst of the intergration of schools, the challenges that face every day, the differences they overcome, this film really made the audience feel bad for the other races that they have discriminated, this movie is very powerful and moving