Basic Film Information

• Release Date: December 25, 2007
• Director: Denzel Washington
• Writer: Robert Eisele (screenplay and story), Jeffrey Porro (story), Tony Scheman (inspired by the American Legacy article)
• Actors: Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Kimberly Elise

Synopsis

• A drama based on the true story of Melvin B. Tolson, a professor at Wiley College Texas. In 1935, he inspired students to form the school’s first debate team, which went on to challenge Harvard in the national championship.

Contemporary Reviews

• Rotten Tomatoes Consensus: A wonderful cast and top-notch script elevate The Great Debaters beyond a familiar formula for a touching, uplifting drama.
• Cynthia Fuchs of Common Sense Media called it an “earnest-till-it-hurts film [that] has a lot of the characteristics of the typical “underdog” movie: personal hardship, social oppression, and resilient spirits”

Background and Interesting Facts

• “The Great Debaters” is based on the true story of the Wiley College debate team, and the events in the film take place in 1935 at the small historical Black college in Marshall, Texas.
• The film was the first since 1979 to be allowed to film on Harvard’s campus.

Analysis

Based on a true story, The Great Debaters tells the story of Wiley College’s Professor Melvin Tolson as he leads his African-American debate team to victory. However, in 1930’s segregated Texas, this task proves to be hard with racism, hatred, and prejudice at an all time high. Throughout The Great Debaters, the line of division between black people and white people is drawn and depicted through the education of the Wiley College students. From this, issues of predominantly black and white thought, sexism and racism arise and are critiqued heavily throughout the film.

While not the most noticeable issue within film, sexism is subtly addressed and critiqued in The Great Debaters. Samantha Booke is the only female on the Wiley College debate team and is barely noticed other than for her beauty in the beginning of the film when she catches the eye of Henry Lowe and James Farmer Jr. Because she is the minority on the team, she feels that she must prove herself worthy of being on the team. When she is trying out for the debate team, Professor Tolson questions Samantha. He asks her, “What makes you think you should be the first female to join our team?” (The Great Debaters, 2007). She responds by stating that she is just as qualified and that her gender has nothing to do with it, but he prompts her with a debate question. He challenges her during her tryout, arguably more so than he does the black males that are trying out. Despite the challenge, she makes the debate team, however, as an alternate.

As the film continues, she gains confidence, especially during the team’s first debate between a white college in Oklahoma. At the Oklahoma debate, Wiley College is to argue the affirmative on the issue of college integration in the South. In response to the Oklahoma’s student’s claim that the time for blacks and whites to walk on the campus was not that time period, Booke responds, asking, “Well, would you kindly tell me when is that day gonna come? Is it gonna come tomorrow? Is it gonna come next week? In a hundred years? Never? No, the time for justice, the time for freedom, and the time for equality is always, is always right now!” (The Great Debaters, 2007). Before this debate, Booke was often in the background of the Wiley College debate team, but the Oklahoma debate was her moment to prove to everyone at her school and to the people in the audience that she was more than just a pretty face and that she had just as much vigor and rhetorical wit as any man. Though sexism proved to be an issue for Ms. Booke, she rose above the gender stereotype and learned to use her words to prove herself not only as a black woman, but also as a woman in general.

Another more prominent issue throughout the film is racism in segregated, 1930s Texas. There is a clear divide between blacks and white within the town that is critiqued and pointed out heavily throughout the film. One example of this racial divide in The Great Debaters is a scene when James Farmer Sr. runs over a white man’s pig. The two white pig farmers who owned the pig confront him about it: “You killed my hog…. It’s gonna cost you $25” (The Great Debaters, 2007). When Farmer says he doesn’t have that much, one of the farmers pulls a gun on him. Out of fear, Farmer gives the pig farmers his Wiley College paycheck rather than standing up to them. This scene displays the fear that black people had of white people during that time. It was easy to be remained tight-lipped and compliant to what white people wanted and expected from black people. Another example of the racial divide is the midnight lynching that Professor Tolson and his students observe on their way to Prairie View. Professor Tolson continues to drive until he sees what appears to be a white lynch mob gathered around a tree. Everyone in the car remains silent and Henry Lowe pulls out a knife in fear, causing Tolson to ask, “What are you doing?” Before Lowe can do anything, Tolson urges him to get back in the car. By then, the lynch mob starts to notice Tolson’s stopped car. Tolson urges his students to get down now that the mob knows there are black people in the car. Because they know this, they proceed to chase down Tolson’s car until they are too tired. During the chase, his car is shot at and the students are visibly terrified as they hide under the seats of the car. This scene is a more frighteningly real depiction of the black people and the fear they had for their lives in the Jim Crow South. The fight for the Wiley College debate team becomes about more than just saying the right things in a debate, but also overcoming the continued fear, oppression and control of whites in the South.

The third most important aspect of the racial divide is the difference between black and white thought. For black people in the 1930s South, it is about recovering self-esteem and self-worth in the aftermath of a period of slavery that sought to destroy the black mind. Professor Tolson explains his goals for the debate team to his students. In an impactful speech, Tolson explains that while the goal of slavery was to, “Keep the slave physically strong, but psychologically weak and dependent on the slave master” and to “keep the body, take the mind,” he and the other professors of Wiley College are here to help the students “to find, take back, and keep [their] righteous mind[s] because obviously, [they] have lost it” (The Great Debaters, 2007). Tolson’s goal highlights the importance of black empowerment through education, an institution that wishes to work against black folks.

This empowerment through black education is showcased when the debaters face their biggest competition yet, Harvard University, a predominantly white, Ivy League college. Because of circumstances in Texas, Professor Tolson is not allowed to travel with the students. Henry Lowe, who is somewhat unstable, also decides to only allow Samantha Booke and James Farmer Jr., the two alternates for the debate team, to debate without him. Though the odds seemed stacked against them with Lowe having more debating experience than Booke and Farmer, it is Booke and Farmer’s time to shine brighter than they ever have. The issue that they are presented with is the question of whether civil disobedience is moral, with Wiley College arguing the affirmative. During Farmer’s final rebuttal, he mentions the night that they witnessed the lynching in relation to civil disobedience asking: “And who are we to just lie there and do nothing?…My opponent says, ‘Nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral’, but there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow South, not when Negroes are denied housing, turned away from schools, hospitals, and not when we are lynched. Saint Augustine said ‘An unjust law is no law at all,’ which means I have a right, even a duty to resist with violence or with civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter” (The Great Debaters, 2007). The final rebuttal is a great example of how the students of Wiley College have achieved Tolson’s goal of regaining control of and communicating black thought. In achieving this goal, the students are one step closer to bridging the racial gap by critiquing and fixing the problem.

Whether completely historically accurate or not, The Great Debaters showcases the power of the black voice, rhetorical debate, and fighting for what you believe in despite racial constraints and gender stereotypes. The politics of Jim Crow are alive and well in the 1930s and that is made evident in several instances in the film. Besides racism, sexism is still a major issue as well, made evident by Samantha Booke being the only African-American female on the Wiley debate team. Politics may not be at the forefront of this issues-based film, but the effects of 1930’s state politics are critiqued heavily through the voices of the Wiley College debate team. It is through this debate team that the true American voice is used to cry out against racial injustice and the black voice triumphs over the deep, centuries-long oppression.

Bibliography

Eisele, Robert, and Jeffrey Porro. “The Great Debaters.” The Great Debaters (2007) – Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango, 02 Dec. 2016. Web. 03 Dec. 2016.

Fuchs, Cynthia. “The Great Debaters – Movie Review.” Movie Review. Common Sense Media, 12 May 2008. Web. 03 Dec. 2016.

Harpo Films. The Great Debaters Poster. Advertisement. Harpo Films. 2007. Web.

“The Great Debaters: Basic Film Information and Synopsis.” IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2016.

The Great Debaters. Dir. Denzel Washington. Perf. Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, and Kimberly Elise. The Weinstein Company, 2007. DVD.

“The Great Debaters.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2016.