Topic > Racial and Social Issues in the Movie Remember The Titans

Racism plays an incredibly important role in sports and has existed since other races began participating in the sport. In this film essay I will discuss and analyze how critical race theory and various social issues compare to the great film "Remember The Titans". “Remember The Titans” is set in Alexandria, a city in northern Virginia. The name of the school in the film is called TC Williams, and it dates back to the time when the schools were going through a process of integrating blacks and whites around 1971. Bill Yoast was the successful white coach at TC Williams High School, but when the school was integrated on the school board decided that Bill will no longer be the head coach and gave the job to Herman Boone, an African American. Originally, Bill was going to leave the coaching job at TC Williams because he refused to coach under anyone let alone an African-American coach. However, when the white players found out that coach Bill Yoast wanted to leave TC Williams, they decided they would follow him and refused to play for coach Boone. Since Coach Yoast did not want the boys to leave TC Williams by his decision, he decided that he will assist Coach Boone in training. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The team's first event was a training camp at a nearby college where all the players were forced to live together for a week and train. In the beginning, racial tensions among the players were extremely high. There were many fights and arguments simply because of racial differences. During training camp and the season the players and coaches began to accept each other and achieved some success in and out of football. As players began to get along and form bonds with each other, it began to rub off on the city. That's because, as the players won and thrived together all season, the city had no choice but to support them and except a different color. The Titans finished the season with a perfect record and won the state championship and proved that race shouldn't be a factor in sports or anything. Clearly the main sociological issue in this film is racism in sport. There were many examples in the film of how white people showed that they did not approve of and associate with black people. Some examples of this are derogatory terms and isolation from black people. For example, at the beginning of the film, when Coach Boone was first introduced to the coaches at TC Williams, they immediately tried to isolate themselves from Coach Boone. At first glance an assistant coach said "why don't you shout and shout it out with your people". This quote shows that Coach feels that his race is different from Coach Boone's and that he doesn't think that blacks and whites should be one. Another example of how whites showed racism is when team captain Gerry Bertier insisted he would not do so. playing with a group of “black animals”. This shows that at that time Gerry saw black people as animals rather than humans. This was because Gerry thought his race was superior to African Americans rather than equal. These types of opinions may not be expressed as often, but they are still present in sports today. For example, Houston Texans owner Bob Mcnair made headlines by responding to a national anthem protest in a poor manor. When Bob Mcnair was asked about NFL players who protested racial injustice by kneeling for the anthem.