1. Coach Boone's white neighbors applaud him one night when they are going to the state championship game. When Boone first moves into their current home, the neighbors were nervous about black people taking over their neighborhood. Only when their home town high school football team performs well do they accept him, celebrate him, and applaud him (from a distance).
2. Ryan Gosling was a string bean in this movie.
3. What was supposed to be a "get this over with" meet and greet between Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell turned out to be, in my opinion, the most powerful scene in the movie. Their raw anger and brutal honestly towards each other brought out the best change in one of the next scenes where Gerry gets on his white teammates for not blocking for the black QB. Julius, who recently lost a friend who got shot by a white business owner, was playing for himself and no one else. What team?
4. The Hall of Fame committee played a part in trying to rig a game in order for Coach Boone to get fired in order for Coach Yoast to be reinstated as head coach. This made me think, "Hmmm, I wonder if either of those NFL Conference Championship games were rigged."
5. Lastly, I never noticed subtleties in the following scenes of the movie.
Disgruntled football parent: He's not some walk-on scrub, Yoast. The boy's a player. He's a star. And he busted his butt for you. [Turns to Coach Boone] This is all your doing, you black---
Yoast: That is enough. It's my call.
Parent: Now listen.
Yoast: You just go on home now, Fred, before you do something that you're going to regret.
Doc: [Sighs] Yeah, well...I guess we won't be seeing much of him, huh?
Yoast: I will. He's on the deacon board with me.
Boone: [Laughs]
Gerry: I'm going to play basketball with Julius. Then we're going to come back here for dinner.
Mom: Gerry, if your father was still alive---
Gerry: Ma, would--just give him a chance. Just get to know him.
Mom: I don't want to get to know him. You are coming to church with your mother.
I never thought much about the underlined sentences when I saw this movie when I was younger, the irony of Gerry's mom being so committed to having her son come to church with her while wanting to keep black people out of her sight. Gerry was going to hang out with Julius, a black teammate whom she wanted nothing to do with. In the first scene, the disgruntled football parent's character doesn't quite match what you might expect in the deacon of a church either. Boone's laugh never made sense growing up until watching this movie again.
Unfortunately, this movie is still all too relevant today. Although segregation is illegal, in appearance it would seem that many people conduct their lives in a very segregated way. What might it be like if we had a Coach Boone forcing us to spend each day getting to know a brother of a different race, asking questions about their families, their likes and dislikes. There is too much hate, too much ignorance, too much talking and not enough listening.
What is discrimination like?
Zero fun, Sir.
No comments:
Post a Comment