Remember The Titans Character Analysis Essay

The film Remember the Titans, directed by Boaz Yakin, set in 1971, is about a high school football team who are forced to integrate and overcome their racial prejudice. An important character is Gary Bertier as throughout the film he changes and strays away from his prejudice manner and becomes a fair and promising leader that overcomes conflict that lies beneath the segregated community.

Boaz Yakin has used various methods such as the evocative use of expressive dialogue to present to us the importance of the character - Gary Bertier- and how his attitude changes overtime. An example of his initial attitude was in the near the beginning, after Coach Yoast had exclaimed that he was going to stand down from being coach. He had said to Coach

Yoast and his team that he wasn’t going to play with “those black animals”- showing how Gary displays no tolerance to a person of a different colour to him and feels as if he is superior than him. A turning point in the film where his view soon after changed was when he and Julius were telling each other the cold hard truth after being fed up of each other; of Julius’ narcissistic attitude and Gary’s ignorance. The conversation ending with Julius saying that “Attitude reflects leadership, Captain” and a snapshot of Gary’s face full of emotion and sudden realisation that maybe he hasn’t done his job and he needs to be fair to both races.
Gary Bertier is an important character as he changes his attitude towards his coloured fellow teammates and community overtime and understands them. It teaches me that if you change your attitude and stop judging someone by how they look like, then they might not be so bad.

Another technique that Boaz Yakin has used to express the importance of Gary Bertier is lighting to demonstrate to us Gary’s path to becoming a good leader from his change of attitude. An example of this is in the team meeting where a few of his teammates had invited the whole crew to the gym with Blue saying that “world doesn’t want us to be together”that shows the attempt to bring the team back together after the stress being put on them from the community refusing to get along. Gary sings with the team and with that, he brings the team together, huddling in a circle that is shown from a long shot in the dark gym with the spotlight to Gary to show that he is the centre of attention and he brought the team together. With the help of effective use of lighting, Boaz Yakin shows how Gary is an important character and a good leader from the team meeting in the gym. It teaches me that If you want to lead a group of people then you have to be fair, or else you’re leading the team in all the wrong ways.

Gary and his team overcome conflict that is caused from the segregated community that think that blacks and whites can’t mix.

Using music to convey that the team is together, and when they are together, they overcome conflict between the two prejudice communities. An example of this is when Gary and his team warm up in the third game by singing and dancing along to a song called “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” by Steam to show that they have finally come together and overcome conflict that happened after camp. Another conflict that Gary has faced due to the tension is his mother doesn’t approve of him associating with a black male and ends up leaning towards his mother and abandoning the team. He overcomes this after realising that they are a team and he shouldn’t treat them any different than before in the team meeting in the gym. The director uses music to show the bond created by the two races in the team. The lesson I learned was that if you work together as a team then you will finally conquer everything. There really is no ‘i’ in ‘team’.

Everyone shouldn’t pre-judge a person by how they look because they might be someone you would get along with is what the movie Remember the Titans is trying to portray. The important character - Gary Bertier shows us that if you look past your prejudice way, people you’d never thought to have associated with or get along with might just be close enough to be your family if you give them a

chance.