Communication: Ethics and Conflict in Remember the Titans
Breaking down the barriers of communication can often prove to be a difficult task especially if the obstacles are rooted in personal biases or biases rooted in social constructs. In Remember the Titans (2000), coach Herman Boone is tasked with teaching T.C. Williams High School's football staff and players how to overcome their biases in order to become a successful football team that operates as a single unit. Two concepts of communication, ethics and conflict management/resolution, are intrinsically intertwined.
Remember the Titans (2000) is set in the racially charged Virginia of the 1970s at the recently desegregated T.C. Williams High School. Coach Herman Boone, played by Denzel Washington, has recently been appointed as head football coach at the school much to the dismay of the school's former head football coach and staff, all of who happen to be white. Likewise, conflict emerges between the high school's white football team, and the black students, who are seen as interlopers by the school's existing...
In addition to his role as political leader, Yoast leads from a symbolic framework. He had coached the team through fifteen successful seasons and therefore the entire town of Alexandria, the school staff, and the players all respected him as leader even after he was demoted. Yoast's spunky daughter looks up to her dad as a symbolic leader and because of her passionate involvement with the team, she also serves
Remember the Titans is very much based on a true story; fact can back up most of the movie's dramatic events in some way. However, almost every time factual events are presented in the film, they are exaggerated or altered to help direct the audience towards a better understanding of the film's themes. For instance, T.C. Williams High School was an attempt at forced integration, but not to the extent
Titans Racial differences and prejudice: the role of intercultural communication competence in strengthening group cohesion in "Remember the Titans" Popular media such as films are most effective ways to convey specific messages to the audience that are socially-relevant to them. Through audio-visual media, people are able to put into the right perspective or context issues that would otherwise have been discussed without clarity and understanding. Because of the effectiveness of audio-visual
(Rose 307) Rose cites the repeated imagery of flying in the film, finding that this matches what critic Philip Slater says about the Freudian and phallic images in the Perseus myth. Rose refers to this film, and several others of a similar nature, as modern versions of the myths, to a degree cut down from the original in order to something more visceral and more direct. In a film like
The skill being instilled in the team is important on two levels- to instill solidarity in the team and breaking down barriers and by serving as a macrocosm of what these team members will encounter over the course of their lives. Barriers will always exist among people, for whatever reason, but by pushing the boundaries and thinking outside the "bubble" that some of these team members exist and think
Titans Change leaders are defined as "individuals with innovative solutions to society's most pressing social problems," (Reach for Change, 2012). As such, change leaders undertake roles that are greater than the job itself. The role of the change leader is not only to achieve the goals of the team, but also to affect normative changes that can represent paradigm shifts. Coach Herman Boone of the Williams High football club in Alexandria,
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