Remember the Titans

Remember the Titans

Remember The Titans is a film text, centred by the issue of race and how it is triumphantly overcome. It is an uplifting story how an American town, Alexandria, conquered overwhelming resentment, friction and disharmony brought on by racial discrimination and mistrust. The town is further thrown into chaos, as protests rage over the killing of an African-American youth and then the integration of the major local High school; T.C. Williams. The integration lead to the demotion of a much loved and highly successful head coach of the school state football team by the name of Bill Yoast, the job's new occupancy went to an African-American, Herman Boone. What follows is a rousing movie that shows how this disunity and racism can be overcome, in this case through the ultra popular sport of NFL. The team and coaches couldn't be more different, which makes for an enlightening journey of change, where many contrasting images arise, although an overpowering sense of camaraderie succeeds in the end as the team win the state final.

Remember The Titans represents change very optimistically, showing it as something with difficulties that eventually are beaten. Once the discomfort is gone change is fantastically beneficial, where it contributes to better attitudes, a more open-mind, a more accepting society and something that can unify. Change seen by the responder can be interpreted as something that should be embraced otherwise you will not experience its benefits [e.g. the characters who do not accept the new moral standard are outcaste and unhappy].

Captured by this text is the core aspect of change, which are the process and the consequence of the process. The process in this text is the community learning to understand, accept, respect and trust citizens of a different racial heritage. A further case study of this and the most prominent example within this text is the team. The team is symbolic of the community's attitudes, pride and morale level. Change is embodied by the contradictory images, of the community's initially judgemental and unwelcoming attitude in contrast with the praise that is received by the Titans football team in the latter half of the text. Contrasting also is the original sceptic view Yoast had of Boone, and then later on they establish mutual respect and admiration as friends.

Change can be viewed as represented by the cohesion and co-operation amongst the team; they played together in anarchy selfishly to begin with, but later their team play and co-operation improved into a champion side.

The techniques that are prevalent in Remember The Titans are specific camera shots (esp. medium shot and zoom), contrasting images (often in juxtaposition), the accompaniment of appropriate music and slow-motioned shots (esp. during action shots).

Whenever a character is realising something for the first time, we can see its significance in the way the camera steadies, zooms closer to the person at medium shot range, the contrast between the character and their surrounding increases and the music changes to a lively or inspiring ...