The Great Debaters - themes

There are several great themes in The Great Debaters. You can write a more trenchant paper by selecting a theme rather than trying to capture everything in this rich movie. Thanks, Boo2, for starting one on what W.E.B. Dubois calls "the colortocracy." That is one theme. This is a time to dust off your theory books or go on line and re-read some W.E.B. Dubois, for he speaks strongly and poetically of these themes:

• colortocracy - which Boo2 started in the prior post
• church and music - the rhythms "underneath" logic
• the importance of family - and the rarity of intact families among blacks, a tradition started by slave holders who liked to break up families
• education - as a way up and out. see how Dubois and Booker T Washington differ on this topic.
• WEB Dubois even wrote about what it was like to go first to Fiske and next to Harvard. At Fiske, all black, he finally felt free because he was no longer in what he called the two-ness or the double-standard; he didn't have to think about who he was vs. who he was thought to be as a black man--he simply could be.
• Communism and organizing labor -- Dubois joined the Communist Party officially at the end of his long life

DuBois began his chapters with verse--poems and scripture. He felt that though "non-rational", it held more truth than rationality.

there are other themes in this movie, too:

• socialization and the importance of structure for a child
• socialization and the distinction between authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive
• socialization and the difference between mom and dad roles
• self determination: help yourself, be vigilant, educate yourself - if you fall down, stand back up and try again.
• self as a political animal - the personal is the political - do not make jokes about yourself (remember when one student trying out made fun of himself and the teacher's reaction?)
• the sociology of law and social control
• fashion and style and dressing up in public - the dignified "vibe" of this group of people and the "vibe" of today's media-pop-casual-global culture. Aretha Franklin's hat and plaid underwear. Chopin and gangsta rap.
• Gender, Sex, Birds, Bees - that ever-present theme and drive
• themes captured in the debates themselves, e.g.,
  non-violence
  justice, fairness - is this natural in the human heart? she said something like "a law cannot override the sense of fairness we have inside."
  separate but equal or separate but unequal - and how it fits in with today's "diversity"
  diversity over unity

Hooray for Denzel Washington, Director. Remember this is not a movie review: it's not about "I liked it; I loved it." You are not a movie critic. You are looking for a sociological theme or two and how this movie illuminates them.