Essay on Racism in 'Remember the Titans'

Oscar Wilde once stated, “Disobedience in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and rebellion.” The battle between what is right and wrong is a crusade that has been embarked upon since the birth of time. From a young age, children are commanded to obey authoritative figures. It is to be understood that following rules is the prime established way of society. Disobedience, on the contrary, is deemed as unpleasant and almost a seductive forbidden act resulting in consequential discipline. It is through these understandings of what is considered right and wrong rules that comes the power to enforce them and the choice to either obey such submission or to disobey in resistance. Questioning the conscious mind rather than the puppet strings of an accepted majority is a social and psychological phenomenon that Remember the Titans’ Coach Bill Yoast explores extensively. When Coach Yoast defies the normalization of racial segregation, he creates an uproar of disobedience against the mainstream upholding these falsified moral institutions to create insurgency within the town. By standing alone against a majority, Yoast’s repeated decisions to disobey the social status quo unmasks his ability to realize the greater preponderance behind the credence of racial supremacy and highlights the cruciality of intellectual disobedience to escape the spiral of human nature’s downfall.

Erich Fromm writes in this instance that from time’s creation, it has been man’s nature to disobey. Stemming from the first sin, it has been the notion of defying that has further questioned the idea of at what capacity should opposing thoughts be suppressed (Fromm). Erich Fromm explains this psychological behavior in “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem” by noting that, “A person can become free through acts of disobedience by learning to say no to power. But not only is the capacity for disobedience the condition for freedom; freedom is also the condition for disobedience” (Fromm, 686). Fromm implies that it is disobedience that stirs the notions of insurrection and innovation. Yoast’s urge to be free from the board in making his own decision is the very culprit for his defiance. While disobedience led to a path of losing the Hall of Fame, in the end, Yoast was able to take his team to victory and showcase what true unified sportsmanship means. Coach Yoast’s statement to the referee, “You call this game fair, or I’ll go the papers. I don’t care if I go down with you. But before God, I swear I’ll see every last one of you thrown in jail…” is what Fromm would point out as defying the looming power of society to advance a moral that is not accepted by the masses, but must be done to create a transformation that will evolve society further into a new direction (Fromm). Though Solomon Asch would agree with Fromm that disobedience authors Coach Yoast’s actions, his reasoning states that Yoast’s true defining moment to finally disobey lay in the Coach’s realization that he was now in the majority. Asch’s psychological analysis of a test subject who was placed in a group that would occasionally hold a majority in answering test question situations provides knowledge on the reasoning behind one would start to openly go against the majority (Asch). In Asch’s findings in “Opinions and Social Pressure,” he observes that “it was surprising to find that the experience of having had a partner and of having braved the majority opposition with him…his support of the subject usually resisted pressures from the majority” (Asch 5). At the beginning of the scene with the regional game where the camera whips feverishly through a montage of the players on the field, to the referees trying to hold the Titan’s players, then to Boone calling out the referees frantically, next to the opposing coach smiling victoriously about the rigged game and lastly to the angry crowd where Sheryl is hysterically jumping on the stands screaming about all the made calls. The last part of the pan shot concludes with Yoast realizing that there are the two board members who insisted on Yoast throwing the game. It is at that moment that Yoast notices that he now possesses the majority. The crowd, his daughter, his co-coach, and his whole team are behind him, therefore deciding to stand against the supposed majority of the board easier. Although Fromm would conclude that it is the understanding of needing to dig into one’s self to muster the ability to defy to transcend mankind further, Asch would promote the conception of how a person needs the confidence of those behind them to stand against the masses. However, both Fromm and Asch would agree in their deductions that it is disobedience that stands as the driving force between choosing one road or another.

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It is the first game of the season for the Titans. Coach Boone’s back is against the wall. The town is torn between wanting a winning and coveting the whole decision to have a racially integrated football team to backfire. The game has begun, and all hope is placed on Boone’s back to see if he will pull out a win for the Titans or be kicked to the curb. The Titans are down by 7 points and in desperate need of a change. Although Head Coach, Boone, gave the call to send Petey to the sidelines, Yoast chose to violate Boone’s orders telling Petey, “I want you to play linebacker for me. 23 is killing us. I want you to get out there and cover for him instead.” Theodore Dalrymple explains Yoast’s sudden moment to defy the Head Coach’s orders as “Disobedience to authority is not inherently more glorious than obedience. It rather depends on the nature of the orders given or the behavior demanded” (Dalrymple). The demand of the moment was simply that if Yoast did not go ahead and send Petey back in under a different position, then the game would most likely have been lost. The upheaval within that call was not that of a revolutionary glorious nature, but one of intelligence and dexterous thinking. The goal of Yoast’s actions was to showcase defensible rational disobedience, where although authority dictated one deed, a separate action was more necessary to assist the end justifying the means. Fromm notes that this behavior is rational due to how “rational authority is rational because the authority, whether it is held by a teacher or a captain of a ship giving orders in an emergency, acts in the name of reason which, being universal, can be accepted without submitting”(Fromm 687). It was imperative in that moment that Yoast switch out Allan for Petey because had he not disobeyed; the same issue would have kept insinuating itself into every play further on in the game. Yoast’s “humanistic consciousness” kicked in making it so that he could judge to predicament, weigh the outcomes, and promptly decide what he was going to do about the circumstances (Fromm). By defying Boone, and switching out Allan, a white player, for Petey, a black player, not only did Yoast make a call that disobeyed Boone’s best judgment, but the racial norms of the town as what they saw as irrational judgment. Although Dalrymple addresses the reasoning for Yoast’s actions differently, he finds common ground with Fromm in how that moment called for enough transformation through immediate action.

While evident that there are a multitude of outlooks on how behavior is identified, it is clear that Coach Yoast’s act to disobey is formulated. Similar to man’s innate psychological behavior and thought process, Yoast acts accordingly conveying the patterns of rational and irrational ruminating to convey a decision on whether or not to obey or disobey authoritarian convictions or stern judgment. Fromm, Asch, and Dalrymple all agree upon the fact that disobedience is the driving force behind all great progressive movements. To move away from long-established orthodox traditions, like those of racial inequalities, a person must be willing to step out alone into the light of free thought, disregarding all notions of safety within submission, proposing an idea that may be controversial or ill-received. Man’s nature is to keep a concentrated impulse of advancement and progression through the generations. It is through human nature and human conscience alone that will keep elevating man to make a cognizant decision on whether to comply with such ambiguously uncertain orders or to resist in the hopes of morally creating an acceptable and logical locum when necessary