The film Remember the Titans gives an unrealistic impression of two different race groups bonding over football. In the film two schools, an all Caucasian and African American, have to come together with a merging football team and put their differences aside and see eye to eye for the love of football. Racial tensions rise high when the all white football team gets an African American coach, along with African American teammates. Throughout the movie these two groups being to form a bond through football, with the help of their coach. Many of the whites throughout the movie experience racial redemption, with the help of their new African American coach and teammates. However, with the help of football, many African American teammates experience
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Black angels purpose is to serve the function of making normative white characters appear virtuous (Montez de Oca, 2013, p. 324) Coach Boone, the African American coach, is seen as a “black angel” when tells the team “each one of you will spend time everyday with a teammate of a different race”. Players begin to learn more about their teammates, which makes them become more aware of how they act towards one another. For example when Julius calls Gerry out about not wanting to truly get to know him and tells him that racism is keeping him from acting as a true leader, and then later Gerry openly supports Julius against his Caucasian teammates when running a play. Gerry was experiencing racial redemption by noticing that he was judging people for the wrong reasons. They soon become best friends, and individuals on the team begin to get along with almost everyone, regardless of race. However, this type of mechanism helps to only show individual racism, it ignores the structural process in which racism happens in society …show more content…
This film takes place in the early 1970’s, when segregation was still prevalent making racism more of an issue than it is today. With the time frame, African Americans were not allowed to have much social mobility. However, with sports African Americans can move up in society. This is seen when Julius goes to visit Ray. Julius is a young black man in an all white neighborhood when a police officer pulls up. Julius seems scared and hesitant, maybe assuming the officer was going to ask him what he was doing in this neighborhood, instead he congratulates him saying “Heck of a game you boys played last night” and to tell his coach to keep up the good work. This is an example of how African Americans are experiencing social mobility in this time frame because of football. In the film football is seen as the vehicle of social mobility for those who try and make scarifies (Montez de Oca, 2013, p.323) Social mobility in the film is see again when Coach Boone wins state and all his white neighbors suddenly love him. His status is changed from someone who was looked at as a degenerate, who is now revered. This type of mobility is not realistic, and is problematic because not everyone can succeed in
Black angels purpose is to serve the function of making normative white characters appear virtuous (Montez de Oca, 2013, p. 324) Coach Boone, the African American coach, is seen as a “black angel” when tells the team “each one of you will spend time everyday with a teammate of a different race”. Players begin to learn more about their teammates, which makes them become more aware of how they act towards one another. For example when Julius calls Gerry out about not wanting to truly get to know him and tells him that racism is keeping him from acting as a true leader, and then later Gerry openly supports Julius against his Caucasian teammates when running a play. Gerry was experiencing racial redemption by noticing that he was judging people for the wrong reasons. They soon become best friends, and individuals on the team begin to get along with almost everyone, regardless of race. However, this type of mechanism helps to only show individual racism, it ignores the structural process in which racism happens in society …show more content…
This film takes place in the early 1970’s, when segregation was still prevalent making racism more of an issue than it is today. With the time frame, African Americans were not allowed to have much social mobility. However, with sports African Americans can move up in society. This is seen when Julius goes to visit Ray. Julius is a young black man in an all white neighborhood when a police officer pulls up. Julius seems scared and hesitant, maybe assuming the officer was going to ask him what he was doing in this neighborhood, instead he congratulates him saying “Heck of a game you boys played last night” and to tell his coach to keep up the good work. This is an example of how African Americans are experiencing social mobility in this time frame because of football. In the film football is seen as the vehicle of social mobility for those who try and make scarifies (Montez de Oca, 2013, p.323) Social mobility in the film is see again when Coach Boone wins state and all his white neighbors suddenly love him. His status is changed from someone who was looked at as a degenerate, who is now revered. This type of mobility is not realistic, and is problematic because not everyone can succeed in