The movie that I have chosen to do for this paper is Remember the Titans. The reason why I chose to watch this movie and relate it to interpersonal communications is because it deals with racism and the struggles the team had. This movie happens to be one of my all time favorites so it wasn’t too difficult to decide on how I wanted to write it. The movie involves an African-American man who becomes the head coach of a football team. Many people in the town as well as the team and parents are strongly against this move since during this timeframe racism was still very prevalent.
As the movie goes on, many teammates have to adapt with playing for a black coach as well as with black players. The head coach, Herman Boone, struggles to meet the expectations of the town and even has his family threatened by townspeople. The team is forced to learn how to cooperate with each other and to play together as a team. Even with their differences, they finally are able to mesh as one united team, which happens to be very good football squad. The movie overall shows the struggle of both races coming together as well as the town and its people’s reaction to it. The contents of the movie have a variety of interpersonal conflicts as white and black players are forced to set aside their differences and essentially become brothers.
The first concept that I found within chapter 11 that directly relates to a scene in the story is when Gerry and Julius, the two captains on the defensive end, have to come together and become friends in order for the team to succeed. The concept that they struggled with was Interpersonal Conflict. As shown in the book, interpersonal conflict is “an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perc...
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... fathers of the white players also attack Boone behind his back while talking to Coach Yoast calling him racist remarks such as “coon”. Contempt can be seen throughout the movie, as racism is one of the main problems that both players and coaches have to endure.
Having watched this movie and applying these concepts to it, I can also relate the concepts to some of my daily interactions with people. Even though racism isn’t prominent in today’s society, it still can be seen on a daily basis. I often have interpersonal conflict with my family as well as contempt with my brother. Passive aggression can also be seen when I have certain feelings towards an individual I don’t like. I show innocent behavior towards them when in reality I can’t stand to be around them. All three of these concepts as well as others in the book can be seen daily if paid close attention to.
The beliefs and values held by many of the characters change over the course of the film as a result of Coach Boone and Coach Yoast’s work. It is clear that their belief in racial equality and love for football helped a team, and ultimately a town, begin to come to terms with the issue of race in America’s schools.
He was later appointed head Coach over a winning white coach; he is reluctant to accept the position because a similar situation happened to him when a white Coach had been appointed over him in South Carolina. He finally accepts the head coach position with Support from the black residents who see him as a symbol of pride and admiration that is absent in their community.
In 1971, two schools in Alexandria integrated to form T.C. Williams High School. Head coach Bill Yoast is replaced by African American coach Boone, which causes tensions to rise. Tensions also start rising when the two schools of different races are forced to work together as one football team. Most of the players start to get used to their team during their two week training camp in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. But when the players return to Alexandria, they revert back to how they were before the training camp.
African-American players are often negatively affected due to the prevalence of racism in the town. Ivory Christian, for instance, is a born-again Christian with aspirations to be a famous evangelist, but he is unable to pursue his dream due to his commitment to the football team. Because of this, the townspeople have unrealistic expectations of him and assume that he will put all his time and energy into football. Furthermore, there is a greater pressure on him to succeed...
The term “contact hypothesis” embodies the idea that groups of people do not like each other simply because they do not spend time together. Upon analyzing this term, racism floated around the idea that distinctive practices, beliefs and hereditary factors determine the social structure of one’s race. Furthermore, racism can be broken down to discursive racism, which is expressed in racialized meanings. “People say that it can 't work, black and white. Here, we make it work every day. We still have our disagreements, of course, but before we reach for hate, always, always, we remember the Titans.” (Yakin)The team captains in the film Gerry Bertier and arguably Julius Campbell consistently come into conflict regarding prejudice views of each other. Superiority is the basis of racism; it determines the systemic forms that
Walter Winchell once said, “Never above you. Never below you. Always beside you.” The movie Remember The Titans gives truth to this quote. Produced in 2000, this movie stars actors such as Denzel Washington, Will Patton and Wood Harris. One may think that this movie is just about football but its depth is so much more. Taking place in Alexandria, Virginia, race mixing is unheard of until 1971 when T.C. Williams High School is established. When the schools are integrated a new football coach is brought in and the community and students are not happy about it, as the new coach is an African American. This movie shows how people overcome adversity and unite as one to achieve a common goal.
A couple of films that I watched personally that I feel really speaks to the culture and tensions of the time the film was to take place is Remember the Titans a movie about racial tension as town begins to desegregating schools and the other film is Men of Honor which was a film inspired by the true story of Master Chief Petty Officer Carl Brashear the first african american navy diver. Both of these films deal heavily with racism in the United States. The first film Remember the Titans was set in the 1970’s during a point in time where in the United States was going through a cultural change of the civil rights movements of equality for African Americans. The film is centered around a town that is desegregating its school and allowing black students
Throughout the semester, we have been introduced to many topics related to interpersonal communication. I have come to believe that these concepts have allowed me to better understand interactions that occur in our daily lives. My knowledge of these concepts was challenged when asked to relate these notions to a movie. During the time that I was watching the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I realized myself grasping onto what was going on and being able to relate certain scenes and situations to topics I had previously learned about. Interactions in My Big Fat Greek Wedding display concepts of conflict and politeness theory, which can be pointed out in a few specific scenes.
The novel is loaded with a plethora of imageries of a hostile white world. Wright shows how white racism affects the behavior, feelings, and thoughts of Bigger.
But after Boone saw what it meant to the black community, he accepted the job. Yoast, however, wanted to go elsewhere. As the white players threatened to boycott the team, Yoast became the assistant coach with his friend, coach Tyrell, lest the white boys jeopardize their future. As training camp starts, they have to break up numerous fights between the white and black teammates. Yoast does not like Boone’s extremely aggressive training style and is reflected in the quote “There’s a fine line between strict and crazy, and I reckon you’re flirting with it”. After Boone’s Gettysburg speech, the coaches begin to move together. Eventually, coach Tyrell and coach Yoast have a split in friendship about integration. Tyrell does not like it, but Yoast stays integrated. This is reflected in Tyrell’s quote “Go to hell”, as Tyrell quits. Yoast and Boone go and win the state championship without Tyrell. As viewers, we can see that both coaches are forced into a place they did not initially accept but adapted and got through the hardships as a part of accepting integration and growing
Today in society we see racism is okay in a lot of ways because we act like is normal for society and we do not do anything to help or make our voice heard,but we expect one day that it might change. Racism means discrimination or antagonism directed against someone of a different race, which in “Crash,” it shows all antagonism to people that are different .In the movie Crash, directed by Paul Haggis, the author develops the central idea that you never know what your actions will produce. “Crash” is a movie that focuses on the narrator’s message that we all have prejudices, and also that we all need to realize that we cannot judge people by those prejudices because the same people that we pre-judge may actually be the people we need in our lives. The narrator experiences the conflicting emotions with
There are many more examples throughout this movie that can be connected or assessed to the many different concepts that was learned. There are many real-life events and these concepts are important because they allow people to see how different types of people and families deal with stress and problems and it is important not to judge or jump to conclusions and maybe take a step back and take time to consider what others may be going
This was especially evident when they were being pulled over by a racist white cop. She felt that he could have done more to defend their rights instead of accepting injustice. There is also a Persian store owner, who feels that he is getting the short end of the stick in American society because his store was robbed multiple times. Then the Hispanic locksmith encounters racial slurs and discrimination, although he just wanted to keep his family safe. The partnered detectives and lovers of different races, one is a Hispanic woman and the other is a black male, who are dealing with his drug addicted mother who feels that he does not care enough about taking care of his family. In this movie, discrimination and prejudice are the cause of all kinds of collisions. We easily prejudge people with stereotypes, and we are concerned with our pre-thoughts of what kind of person he/she should be, we forget to actually get to know them. It is human nature to have some type of prejudices in one way or another; we fear the unknown. There are stereotypes that black people are angry or tend to be violent; white people feel they are the dominant race and discriminate against all; Asians are thought to be poor or ignorant, and people with higher economic statuses are distinguished to the working class
Although there were many concepts that were present within the movie, I choose to focus on two that I thought to be most important. The first is the realistic conflict theory. Our textbook defines this as, “the view that prejudice...
“We fight each other for territory; we kill each other over race, pride, and respect. We fight for what is ours. They think they’re winning by jumping me now, but soon they’re all going down, war has been declared.” Abuse, Pain, Violence, Racism and Hate fill the streets of Long Beach, California. Asians, Blacks, Whites and Hispanics filled Wilson High School; these students from different ethnic backgrounds faced gang problems from day to night. This movie contains five messages: people shouldn’t be judgmental because being open-minded allows people to know others, having compassion for a person can help people change their views in life, being a racist can only create hate, having the power of the human will/goodness to benefit humanity will cause a person to succeed at any cost and becoming educated helps bring out the intelligence of people.