Overcoming Racism in Remember The Titans

Remember the Titans is a film that shows the conflict of racism at a school called T.C Williams in Alexandria, Virginia,1971. The film follows the football team, The Titans. Gerry and Julius, two very important boys in the film, were a part of the football team. They helped the town take down racism. Alexandria, Virginia was a very racist town. There were no mixed colored schools, buses or football teams. During the beginning of the film, a black teenager was shot by a white shop owner. Things like this were stopped after a high school named T.C Williams became a mixed color school and had started a mixed color football team. The Titans were not happy when they found out that colored boys will be joining their football team. The team captain, Gerry, was especially not happy about this. However, Gerry started to change when the team went to a football camp.

Coach Boon made the team learn all about their teammates. He put them through rigorous training. His teammates and new black coach started to grow on him and helped him understand the difficulties and the bad parts of racism. Gerry started treating his colored teammates (and just colored people in general) like normal people - just how it should be. This helped me understand the character Gerry as the kind and loving person he is. As an example of the change we saw in Gerry was when Gerry and his colored teammate, Julius, helped break up a fight between white and colored boys. Yakin shows that Gerry and Julius aren’t very different in this scene with a wide two shot of the boys mirroring each others body language after the fight had finished.

Julius joined the football team because of his love for football. When they went to the football camp, Julius was constantly bickering with Gerry. As the football camp continued, Gerry and Julius formed a friendship. They all did. Julius was a big part in how they changed the town as he helped them win all their football games that brought the town together. Julius was very determined in winning every game they played and to be perfect. He helped bring the team together to be the best team they could be. This shows that Julius is a kind and loving person that won’t stop to help others become better until they are better. He helped Gerry change into an open minded and loving friend.

An example of this is when Gerry was in hospital and Julius ran into his room and the nurse told him to leave but Gerry used dialogue to tell her he was family. “Alice, are you blind? don’t you see the family resemblance? He’s my brother”.After watching this film, I have seen the kind and loving boys Gerry and Julius have become after they helped overcome racism. The hard work they put into inning all those games and showing people that colored people are not bad people shows how kind they are. This was an excellent movie and I enjoyed watching it.