The Great Debaters Research Paper

642 Words2 Pages

Denzel Washington as Melvin Tolson Forest Whitaker as James Farmer Sr. Nate Parker as Henry Lowe Jurnee Smollett as Samantha Booke Denzel Whitaker as James Farmer Jr. Jermaine Williams as Hamilton Burgess

Directed by

Denzel Washington

Written by

Robert Eisele Jeffrey Porro

Drama, Family

Rated PG-13

126 minutes
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| Roger Ebert
December 24, 2007 | 1
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"The Great Debaters" is about an underdog debate team that wins a national championship, and some critics have complained that it follows the formula of all sports movies by leading up, through …show more content…

The school's English professor, Melvin Tolson (Denzel Washington), is a taskmaster who demands the highest standards from his debate team, and they're rewarded with a national championship. That's what the "sports movie" is about, but the movie is about so much more, and in ways that do not follow …show more content…

(Forest Whitaker), a precocious 14-year-old who is their researcher, and Samantha Booke (Jurnee Smollett), the substitute, and the only female debater they've heard of. Tolson drills them, disciplines them, counsels them and leads them to a string of victories that culminates a victory over Harvard, the national champion.

We get a good sense of the nurturing black community that has produced these students, in particular James Farmer Sr. (Forest Whitaker), a preacher. (Young Denzel Whitaker, as his son, is no relation, and not named after Washington). James Jr. would go on to found the Congress of Racial Equality.

Tolson drives his team on long road trips to out-of-town debates, and one night traveling late, they have the defining emotional experience of the film: They happen upon a scene where a white mob has just lynched a black man and set his body afire. They barely escape with their own lives. And daily life for them is fraught with racist peril; especially for Tolson, who has been singled out by the local sheriff as a rabble-rouser. These experiences inform their debates as much as formal

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