Remember the Titans Review

by Tim Wick

I have a guilty confession to make. I like sports. I know it is hard to believe that I, a self acknowledged geek, really enjoys sports. Now, I have really never been able to understand the allure of baseball, but I do love watching tennis, football, the Olympics, ice skating, the occasional hockey or basketball game and even <gasp> golf. I realize this confession will probably force me to return my geek membership card, but I needed you all to know that. Are we all a little closer now?

So, having a love for sports, I did the predictable and went to see Remember the Titans on opening weekend. My only regret is that due to baby considerations, I was forced to watch this movie as the MINNESOTA VIKINGS CRUSHED THE DETROIT LIONS 31-24 TO ADVANCE THEIR RECORD TO AN AMAZING 4-0!!!!!!! Sorry. Got carried away there. The point is that I liked this movie quite a bit and it was OK that I missed RANDY MOSS' 3 SPECTACULAR TOUCHDOWN CATCHES to see it.

Anyone who read my review of The Patriot (yes, I'm talking to the five of you) knows that I acknowledge the phrase "based on a true story" as an indication that the film is fiction. To be more specific, I view that the film is likely to be a highly fictionalized account of something that actually happened. Often the same names are used and little else. This knowledge does not really interfere with my enjoyment of a film and typically I am not overly anxious to look into the "true story" on which the film was based.

In that respect, Remember the Titans was a different experience for me. I have actually spent a frustratingly large amount of time trying to determine what the true story was. The film, which is about the forced integration of the T.C Williams Titans football team in 1971, raised a ton of questions in my mind about the young men who played on that team, the coaches who led them through that tumultuous season, and the record of that team in 1971 and in the years since. I really want to know what is real and not real in the world created.

I think it is hard for us to admit that it wasn't so long ago that racism was something on the surface and easy to see. I don't deny racism still exists, but we kind of think we have moved past it. Racists are forced to live quite, sheltered lives and keep their opinions to themselves. That's what we would like to think. But we have to remember that we still live in a world where Jesse Helms can be elected to the senate over and over and over again without anyone seeming to care that he is a misogynistic bigot. People like Rush Limbaugh score thousands of followers who gleefully call themselves "dittoheads" as they rant about feminazis and environazis without even understanding how offensive it is to suggest that someone who believes in equal rights for females should be grouped in with people who exterminated over six million jews (if you are a "dittoheads", I am not at all sorry I have offended you - read a book written by someone other than Rush and start thinking for yourself). The Nazi party, by the way, still exists in modern day Germany and they vehemently deny that the holocaust ever happened.

So it's probably a good thing that films like Remember the Titans, schmaltzy though they may be, still come out from time to time. That this is a Disney film is probably even better.

Let me explain.

Spike Lee is well known for making films about the experience of being black in America. They are angry films from someone who knows what it means to be discriminated against because of his skin color. In some ways, watching a film by Spike Lee lessens the blow to many WASP's because they just don't know how to relate.

When Disney makes a film about dealing with Racism, it becomes a movie that WASP's can understand. Is it real? No. In my research about this film, I learned that the racist incidents depicted in the film were actually extremely mild compared to what actually happened (not a big surprise). However, I wonder if the average new ager can easily accept what white people were capable of in the sixties and early seventies. Does that mean that a movie should shy away from showing things as they really are (or were)? Not at all, but a film can sometimes have more effect if it lessens the blow.

This is grand Hollywood filmmaking, filled with moving speeches, come from behind victories and friendships formed across racial boundaries. Nothing in the real world is this easy. We all know that. Every day I am reminded that the world we live in will never be as perfect as the one depicted on the screen in movies like Remember the Titans.

But movies are supposed to be an escape. As much as I love a great realistic film, if every movie I watched was about the world as it is, I would get mighty depressed. That's what the paper is for. Once in a while, it's worth it to see a movie that makes you feel good about being a human being since it so often seems like we human beings are just a bunch of jerks (please refer to the Middle East or the former Yugoslavia if you don't understand my meaning).

Disney can create that escape film that still manages to remind us that the world is not perfect. Even as the football players learn to come together, their community is working to rip them apart. Relationships end, friendships are strained and parents are at odds with their children. Even glossed over, the central points are still real. We know this is how it must have been at it's best. Maybe we don't really want to see how it was when it was at it's worst.

If the movie has a stumbling point, it is only in the fact that while some white people in the film are not jerks, not a single black person in the film is. We all know that is not the way the world works and it wouldn't hurt to remind people that there were people going to far on both sides of the racial fence. Mending can never begin until we all realize that none of us are perfect.

So this diatribe above is basically trying to justify why I liked Remember the Titans more than a self respecting critic should (not that I'm self repesecting). The movie is about learning to celebrate our differences while recognizing we are all essentially the same. I'm not really talking about the actors (all very good), the direction (Disney shcmaltzy) or the script (a bit overbearing) because overall the thing works. You want to stand up and cheer for a bunch of kids that learned to act more like adults than their parents could.

Oh, and GO VIKINGS!!!!

Remember the Titans

Four Beakers
(out of five)

Disney can create that escape film that still manages to remind us that the world is not perfect.