Eileen Ngo

Sociology 1
Emily Prior

Project 1: Video/DVD Analysis

For my project I chose the movie, Remember the Titans directed by Boaz
Yakin. This movie is based off a true story; taken place in Alexandria, Virginia
where football was a big thing and everyone praised it. During this time, the
suburban schools have been divided for years. Until one day, two segregated
schools were forced to racially integrate into one unit. The movie tells a story
about one black and one white high school football teams journey in their first
season as they struggle to play and cooperate with one another in becoming a
successful team. The desegregation not only took a toll on the football players,
students, and families, but the city as a whole.
During the early ages, sociologists like Auguste Comte would have studied
the characters behavior in the video according to his law of three stages:
theological, metaphysical, and positive stage. Due to the racial conflict amongst
the people in the city, he would not describe this to be any of his set theories. He
only believes that the real truth is only from of human society needs to be
supported with scientific facts and knowledge. Comte influenced other
sociologists, like Karl Marx. Karl Marx is a conflict theorist who believed in an
unequal system in society. Karl Marx is a great example of a sociologist to view
this video showing the ideas of a conflict theory where society will always have
problems within the laws, government, and other authorities to regulating. In his
eyes, the conflicts formed between classes, gender, ethnicity, age, etc. are the

reasons as to how human societies prosper. In the movie, Marx would view that
the more powerful group in the movie are the white coaches, and generally the
white people are those in charge. Conflict theorist view the people who hold the
most power have the most say with laws that apply to crime. For example, in the
movie there are multiple scenes where they clearly identify that the black people
are belittled or blamed for a crime they didn't commit. Like the head coach that is
played by Denzel Washington, he is almost powerless during the first few games
against the other teams coaches because of the color of his skin. Another
philosopher, Emile Durkheim had a different view of social interactions. He
helped form the functionalist theory where he believes that everyone plays a part
in forming a society and that they rely on one another. According to his
perspective, he would see that if there were deviant behavior, this would create
social problems. The functionalist theory is not meant for people to take action
and make a change in their society, rather people will learn naturally if there are
either rewards or punishment for certain behaviors because they will view this as
held social norms.
The paradigm clearly explained in this movie is social conflict theory. For
clarification, conflict theory is about the negative, conflicted, and changing nature
of society. Conflict theory focuses on the social conflict between any
groups, like the movie, the conflict is between the racial groups of white and
black people. At the time the movie took place, it was normal for schools to be
segregated. Therefore, the attempt to integrate the racial groups resulted in
social problems like name talking, fights, racial discrimination, and more, that

eventually will lead to social change. The social roles for the football players in
the movie is to play the game of football and work together as a team to achieve
a goal, which is to win. Throughout the movie we see the conflict between the
coaches, families, and most importantly the members of the team who fight
because they feel threatened by one another. However, the movie signifies the
growth between the two social groups and how they overcome the social conflict
and work together in becoming a team. The team can be considered to be a
primary group, where the players now feel a sense of belonging and forms a
bond that is like family.