Remember The Titans (Lunch Scene)- Walt Disney Studios When the IM reaches New York, he finds his first job at a factory where he is sent to work in the basement with pipes worker Brockway. Training ends, and the IM goes upstairs to get his lunch where he ends up running into The Union. They interrogate him and are extremely wary of him due to his affiliation with Brockway. When he reports back to Brockway about this encounter, Brockway reacts the same way, if not more exaggeratedly, and utterly revolts at the IM for even interacting with The Union. Similarly, looking at the movie Remember The Titans, racial hostility is heavily prevalent throughout, as it is the main conflict the desegregated football team must overcome.
|
More specifically, in this lunch scene, the coach asks if anyone would be willing to talk about a teammate of the opposite race, and nobody volunteers except for one White boy, and the whole team is uncomfortable while he speaks about his Black lunchmate. We can see the parallels between the lunch scene and Brockway vs The Union; any interaction with members of the opposite race was looked down upon and met with great hostility. The IM travels to the North with hopes of escaping racial prejudice. But, in fact, it is evermore abundant, for there is prejudice towards not just African Americans but Whites as well. Brockway shows that even if the American Dream were to truly manifest, there would be those who refuse to accept it and stand against it. People are prideful and convicted in their beliefs which consequently leaves humanity at a stalemate.
|
Black Man - Stevie Wonder
|
“We pledge allegiance all our lives to the magic colors/Red, blue and white/But we all must be given the liberty that we defend/For with justice not for all men/History will repeat again/It’s time we learned/This world was made for all men” - Stevie Wonder
|
As the IM stays longer and longer in the Brotherhood, he begins drifting away, as he begins to see that they do not see him, and their seemingly apathetic response to Clifton’s death further solidifies this view. He has a dispute with Brother Jack regarding the incident which ultimately results in the IM’s disillusionment of the Brotherhood and the realization of his true reality: he is, in fact, still invisible. We see now that the IM experiences this lack of dignity not just in the South with the college and Dr.Bledsoe, but also in the North where racial prejudice was supposedly lacking. Delving into the lyrics of Stevie Wonder’s Black Man, Wonder speaks out against racial inequality in America. In these specific lyrics, he also alludes to the Declaration of Independence. It entails that “all men are created equal” and how we all have a right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” similar to the American Dream which - as Vanneman and Cannon explain - proposes the idea that America provides opportunity for all — “open to every person of talent and hard work” — and that all can thrive given they put in the effort. It “promised…a common vision to all Americans.” The U.S. has supposedly claimed such promises since its origins which dates all the way back in the 1700’s, yet here is Stevie Wonder lyricizing against it centuries later. It has become evident that America’s words and actions, or the Brotherhood in the IM’s case, hold different values.
“Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above. (It never was America to me.)” - Let America Be America Again, Langston Hughes |
After the IM is sent by Bledsoe to go up North for work, he runs into the vet doctor he met at The Golden Day who is there to see him off. The vet informs him of the wonders of the North and how it’s a place of dreams. And the IM, once he’s arrived, sees that it appears to be just like he described. Even later on when introduced to Brother Jack, he is immediately imbursed with up front cash for his membership in the Brotherhood which entices the IM even more. Ellison explains how the IM’s invisibility derives from his relationship dynamics throughout the novel, those “donor-recipient relationship[s]…that [lead] him to go underground and conclude that he is invisible,” which we see is the root of the IM’s relations with the Brotherhood. In Langston Hughes’ poem Let America Be America Again, he calls out America for falling short of expectations, exclaiming his wishes of “[Letting] America be the dream the dreamers dreamed…Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme.” The North was presented as essentially an embodiment of the American Dream: freedom, equality, land of opportunity. This fantasy was merely covered up by harsh reality and those green American bills. “Tyrants” Bledsoe and Brother Jack were always ambiguous and had ulterior motives. A corrupt and racist class system enforced with money is what ultimately leaves us with this Un-American Reality.
. |