The first time I watched Remember the Titans was quite depressing. I remember watching the first half of the movie and thinking "This isn't going very well for them." Then, as the movie progressed, I was thinking "Hey this could work out!" And then Gerry's accident happened and it completely caught me by surprise. Once he got behind the wheel of the car, and the audience sees him driving, I remember people whispering during the movie in theaters, knowing that something bad was going to happen. However, if anything good did come from this accident, the audience gets to see the most emotional part of the entire movie...the bedside conversation between Gerry and Julius. Julius hears of Gerry's accident and he rushes to the hospital to find the waiting room filled with his teammates, coaches, and members of the town. Julius approaches Coach Boone almost as if he already knows how bad it is. Coach tells Julius that Gerry is paralyzed from the waist down and the audience can see the anguish in Julius' face. Julius then goes to Gerry's mother who says "He only wants to see you Julius."Julius goes towards the hospital room where Gerry is, and when he's about to enter the room, the nurse stops him. "Only kin's allowed in here." Gerry responds with "Alice. Are you blind? Can't you see the family resemblance? He's my brother." When Julius approaches the bed, the only thing he can muster to say is "I should have been there with you. You can't be hurt like this. You're Superman." The audience is able to see the dramatic change that has been made in the friendship between Gerry and Julius. Throughout the second half of the movie, once Gerry and Julius gave their friendship a chance, Julius always called Gerry Superman. Throughout the semester, we discussed comic heroes that had impacts on specific time periods (lecture). Superman was one of the comic heroes that we discussed. After a few moments of silence, Gerry tells Julius that "I was afraid of you Julius. I only saw what I was afraid of. And now I know that I was only hating my brother." This brings up one of the documents that I discussed in an earlier blog. In the Major Problems document "Journalist Tom Wolfe Describes the New Politics of Confrontation, 1970" Wolfe describes that when black people first began using the confrontation tactic, they brought fear into the face of the white man (Major Problems document "Journalist Tom Wolfe Describes the New Politics of Confrontation, 1970").
In the final part of the film, the audience watches as the Titans win the championship game and are Virginia State Champions. "The Titans danced their way into history." Sheryl, Coach Yoast's daughter, narrates that ten years later, Gerry died in a car accident. In the closing remark of the movie, Sheryl states "People say that it can't work, black and white. Well here we make it work every day. We have out disagreements, of course, but before we reach for hate, always we remember the titans." At Gerry's funeral, the players hum "Hey, hey, hey, goodbye." The film ends showing Coach Boone and Coach Yoast standing together at the funeral, not allowing anything to get between them and their players of ten years ago.
When I, first, saw this movie, I noticed a discrepancy and, immediatley, went online to see what else had been changed. I learned an armload. I also learned that Yoast had attended Georgia Military College in the city, where I grew up.
ReplyDeleteBack then, Yoast's personal website had his email address included, so I contacted him. This led to a 7 1/2 year correspondence ... it ended when he was no longer able to remember me and I realized that age was catching up with him.
I was really sad, when I learned he'd gone Home and I wish I knew how to contact this living daughters, so I could share, with them, some of the things I'd learned from their dad.
I guess I'll go ahead and list two or three things I learned that the woman, who asked if I knew Yoast, didn't know, until I told her: First, Yoast never told Petey to come back, the following year, and play as a Senior.
ReplyDeleteCoach Yoast had already told me that Petey was a Senior, in '71, so he couldn't have.
The woman was unaware that Sheryl was not an only child...Nor did she know that all of Yoast's daughterws lived with their own mothers and that he never met his eldest daughter, until she was in her thirties .... Yoast had shipped out to WWII and had received a "Dear John" letter from hiss wife, who never told him she was pregnant...just that she'd found another husband and divorced him.
I wish I'd asked the Coach if the "Momma Jokes," scene, in the movie, was a true occurence...I didn't, though.