It’s super Sunday, as always, I talk about a football movie to celebrate the annual Super Bowl. This one is personal to me since it’s the first football movie that I’ve been exposed to. Of course, the commentary angle in the movie flew over my head because I couldn’t grasp it at a young age. Thinking about it more, I think this film was responsible for the multiple sports films that came out from Disney in the early 2000s.
1. Race and Football
Based on the 1971 season of the T.C. Williams Titans, the film’s told non-chronologically as we see the football team gather at a cemetery. In the ensuing scene, we see that Alexandria, Virgina is bereft with racial tensions. Making matters worse is that the football team has been forced to integrate with black and white players. Played by Denzel Washington, Coach Boone leads the team alongside Will Patton’s Coach Yoast.
Like with any other football movie that came before this one, they all have the basic film tropes such as having an underdog angle involve either a player or a team. The film fits the latter What separated this one among the others was that it leaned heavily at the racial angle. Now, we don’t see the N word be thrown around since it’s a Disney movie. More so that we see just how hot the level of contention between the players and the coaches have to put up with each other.
In some way, I feel this is mostly a movie about Coach Boone. He’s forced to coach a team that are at odds with each other. And he has to prove that he’s the one to lead them. And I’m glad that the contested areas aren’t exclusively to the players. Moments when Coaches Boone and Yoast are trying to remain calm in a game just represents how far they are trying to not kill each other metaphorically speaking.
The best moment in the film is when the team goes to training camp. We really see the method to the madness of how Coach Boone operates. More so that away from the gridiron, we see the camaraderie that the players develop. As always, there forced to room with each other which leads to fights. It was weird seeing Ryan Gosling be in this one, just before he made it big with The Notebook. I think the follow up scene is when the team hikes to where the site of the Battle of Gettysburg happened punctuates that the hatred everyone has is nothing compared to what happened.
I think what makes the film better aside from the players learning to tolerate each other is that they still live in an area where it’s still divided. It shows us that the players have learned to accept each other but the past doesn’t necessarily fixes it either. Like, it’s not hamfisted in an obscene way but just how this one team somehow made it work beyond everything that was happening.
If I have any faults with the movie is that it pulled a Gipper move. So what’s a Gipper, well it was a nickname for a player at Notre Dame that got famous when the coach gave a motivating speech to his team win the game for him. Halfway through the movie, one of the key players gets injured on the eve of the championship game. In some respects, I give the movie this where the coach doesn’t give a rousing speech to the team to win the game for the injured player. It’s a trope, but it’s one thing when reading about the actual events that the player in question got injured after the team won.
2. Legacy
It felt like with the success of Remember the Titans, Disney planned more movies from every individual sport. You had others like The Rookie, Miracle about the 1980 US Hockey Team that beat the Soviets and Invincible to name a few that the studio had cornered the market with telling those stories. To me, I can’t confirm if that was the case or if everything was already greenlit but with Titans’ box office gross gave Disney more of a clear shot to move forward. What I do know is that among the live action films that the studio puts out, these are safer with getting critical and audience praise.
3. Overall
Remember the Titans is one of the best football movies of the decade and the one to kick off the new century.
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