The cast of Remember
the Titans is male-dominated, but there are a few women scattered
throughout. Though these women are
present, they are hardly main characters and even the most prominent of the
female characters is only acceptable because of her role in the patriarchy.
Gerry Bertier’s mother: I had to look up her up to even know her
name, I’m not sure if it is mentioned even once in the movie. Gerry’s mother probably has about 4 lines in
the entire movie, all of which involve enforcing or obnoxiously disrupting
practices of masculinity.
·
Gerry’s mother refuses to let Gerry go
play basketball with Julius and tell’s Gerry that he must attend church with
his mother. In this scene, Gerry’s
mother points out to Gerry how ashamed his father would be if he knew what
Gerry is doing. Thus, his mother is here
to enforce the rules of patriarchy that Gerry’s father can no longer do now
that he is dead
·
The scene directly after Gerry is in the
car accident Julius approaches Gerry’s mother with tears in eyes. Gerry’s mother looks at Julie stone-faced and
says “You’re strong. Those tears aren’t
going to make my boy walk again.” What does this enforce? Real men don’t cry and grieving the loss of a
teammate is not worthwhile; it will not solve anything. Julius must suppress his emotional reaction;
otherwise he’d never be able to face Gerry.
In turn, these men must channel their sadness into anger, an appropriate
male reponse, and use it to win.
Gerry Bertier’s girlfriend: the only thing Gerry’s girlfriend serves to
be in a cog in the machine for the male-bonding occurring throughout the
movie. Luckily, Gerry keeps his senses
and doesn’t allow this superfluous influence on his life impact the male
relationships he had with his teammates or his ability to succeed on the field. Remember, women are a distractin.
Julius Campbell’s girlfriend: She doesn’t have a name. What is her role? A prize for Julius’s success on the field. Julius and his team make it to State? Julius is rewarded with sex from his
girl. She is even referred to as “my
girl.” (“I gotta be with my girl
tonight.”). The suggestion here seems to
be that Julius’s male obligations to the team can be sacrificed if he’s
transferring himself into another male role:
the sexual being. It is expected
that a man would sacrifice time with his friends to “get some.”
Sheryl Yoast: probably the most interesting of all
the female depictions in the entire movie, Sherly Yoast the young female
tomboy, child of Coach Yoast. She is
seemingly disruptive to the patriarchy (a girl who knows a lot of about
football, whaaaa??), but at closer evaluation, she is marginalized just like
the other female characters in the film.
·
Throughout the film, male characters are
constantly making remarks about Sheryl’s tomboy behaviors, especially from the
Boone family. Coach Boone is extremely resistant to Sheryl’s behavior,
constantly saying things like “don’t you want to accessorize?” or “why don’t
you go play with dolls,” which is an extremely insulting
way to address a young girl who has a superior
knowledge of sports. Along with this, Coach Boone’s daughter is incessantly
making comments about how weird she is.
Arguably, Coach Boone’s daughter acts as a foil to Sheryl, once even
refusing Sheryl’s offer to play basketball because she had just painted her
nails.
·
There is also the question of why the
film has this tomboy-like character.
Yoast is a single father, and so my suggestion would be that Sheryl is a
tomboy so the movie is not distracted by Yoast’s status as a single
father. It also reminds me of my own
experience as a sports fan growing up.
o
I like sports because my dad and brother
like sports. My father refused to bend
to accommodate my status as a woman, so I had to alter my female status to
better fit his male lifestyle. I too adopted tomboy characteristics as a way to
relate to my father. Because of this, I
relate to sports, and sometimes other aspects of my life as a “typical man”
would because I desired acceptance from my father as a young girl. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve managed to rework
my identity to include those aspects of being a “female” that I enjoy and
appreciate; however, I still maintain many of my “male” characteristics from my
youth.
o
I see a lot of me in the depiction of
Sheryl in this movie. Yoast cannot be
expected to adapt his masculinity to accommodate the rearing of his child. That was supposed to be his wife’s job. Thus
Sheryl must enter the patriarchy as a way to relate to her father and be
including in his world.
·
Despite Sheryl’s efforts; however, she
is still marginalized. A few scenes that
come to mind:
o
Someone saying “why don’t you get that
girl some pretty dolls or something?”
o
She is the one serving the boys water at
camp
·
And of course the epiphany we are forced
to face: we find this girl funny. Even though she acts exactly like zealous
male fans, she is comedic in her reactions to football. Why? Well, she’s a woman and women don’t
watch sports like that. In fact, they
don’t know much about sports at all.
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