In brief, the film is about a Virginia high school in the 1970’s that is forced to admit black students, with a focus on the school’s football team. Denzel Washington plays Coach Herman Boone, the new black football coach, which causes a fury among white parents and students. At the school’s football camp, tension builds between the white and black players, but through Coach Boone’s leadership, the team comes together, and slowly unites the entire community.

Prior to football training camp, both the black and white students came with a prejudice and stereotype of the other race, causing much discrimination, as well as verbal and physical conflic

ts between the teammates. The idea of social learning view (of prejudice), gives one explanation of how the teammates obtained their prejudices. Through the views and observations of their parents, teachers, and friends’ behaviors, negative attitudes were acquired. They learned the behavior of prejudice and discrimination was the appropriate social norms to follow. For instance, in the cafeteria during football camp, at first, blacks and whites would sit at separate tables – a social norm no one dared to break for fear of exclusion from their friends. It was not normal in their society for the two races to interact and sit together, or even to enter the same restaurant establishment. However, Coach Boone challenged the boys’ social norms. He tried to prevent social categorization by uniting the supposed in-groups and out-groups. The common goal of the team was to play together and win, but it would be unattainable because of the extreme hostility and separation between the two groups. Coach Boone decided to use the contact hypothesis to deal with the problem – he tried to increase contact to decrease prejudice between them. He made the players team up with a partner of a different race and learn something new

Some topics in this essay:
Coach Boone, Coach Boone’s, Remember Titans, Titans Gerry, , Herman Boone, football team, coach boone, Denzel Washington, social norms, football camp, influence formed, formed students, common goal, remember titans, school football, influence formed students, school’s football,