'The Great Debaters is inspired by the true-life exploits of the all-black Wiley College debating team in Marshall, Texas in the 1930s. The script follows only the bare outline of the events that actually occurred. The debates themselves and the ideas behind them are a very small part of the picture. Instead we're treated to a series of snippets (or sound bites) with the Wiley team always taking the morally superior position and of course winning. At no time are they asked to show their real skills as debaters and take a position which they ethically and morally oppose. While the true Wiley College debaters of history were certainly admirable for what they achieved, there was no need to put them all on a pedestal by having them best the Harvard Debate team in the film's climax. In reality, Wiley beat USC; by depicting them as beating Harvard, the implication is that somehow they were superstars for beating the best (and hey maybe they were just excellent students who don't need to be mythologized).
The main character, Melvin B. Tolson (played by Denzel Washington) is based on the real Wiley College professor who also was a union organizer. In a scene that felt like it was more likely to take place in the 1960s than the 1930s, Tolson heads a secret meeting of black sharecroppers as well as whites intent on organizing against racist farmers. The meeting is broken up by a group of angry whites and Tolson escapes with his life (along with James Farmer Jr., the 14 year old member of his debating team, later to become a famous civil rights leader). The probability of this scene actually having happened in 1930s Texas is low especially the idea that there were progressive whites who would even consider attending a meeting together with poor black sharecroppers. Later, Tolson is arrested for organizing the union meeting. In reality,wouldn't he have been taken away in the middle of the night and dumped in a shallow grave? Or perhaps lynched? Here, the black community wields a lot more power than it actually had in those days, when a group led by James Farmer Sr., the dignified Wiley professor played by Forrest Whittaker, convinces the town's sheriff to release Tolson on bond. We never really find out the outcome of Tolson's arrest (which presumably is a fictional scene) but according to the end credits, he went on to live a distinguished life as an academic and poet.
The rest of the movie is taken up with a subplot concerning the romance between the team's only female member, Samantha Booke and the bad-boy character, Henry Lowe (who incurs Samantha's wrath by getting drunk and hanging out with another woman after witnessing a lynching). The aforementioned 14 year old has a crush on Samantha and must overcome his feelings of jealousy before he can best Harvard in the final showdown.
The film is not without its powerful moments. The most memorable is when James Farmer Sr. accidentally kills a boar while driving in his car with his family. He's forced to pay compensation to two racist whites by handing over his paycheck and is further humiliated when one of the racists drops the check and makes Farmer bend over and pick it up (it's scenes like this that are far more effective than the typical mob scenes of racist whites on the loose since they show the day-to-day humiliations which blacks had to endure across the country on a daily basis). There is also an actual lynching scene which Tolson and his debaters stumble upon while driving on a darkened road.
Despite this, The Great Debaters is a well-intentioned but formulaic project. Yes, it always feels good to be on the winning side but when drama becomes manipulative, art is subsumed by propaganda.
The main character, Melvin B. Tolson (played by Denzel Washington) is based on the real Wiley College professor who also was a union organizer. In a scene that felt like it was more likely to take place in the 1960s than the 1930s, Tolson heads a secret meeting of black sharecroppers as well as whites intent on organizing against racist farmers. The meeting is broken up by a group of angry whites and Tolson escapes with his life (along with James Farmer Jr., the 14 year old member of his debating team, later to become a famous civil rights leader). The probability of this scene actually having happened in 1930s Texas is low especially the idea that there were progressive whites who would even consider attending a meeting together with poor black sharecroppers. Later, Tolson is arrested for organizing the union meeting. In reality,wouldn't he have been taken away in the middle of the night and dumped in a shallow grave? Or perhaps lynched? Here, the black community wields a lot more power than it actually had in those days, when a group led by James Farmer Sr., the dignified Wiley professor played by Forrest Whittaker, convinces the town's sheriff to release Tolson on bond. We never really find out the outcome of Tolson's arrest (which presumably is a fictional scene) but according to the end credits, he went on to live a distinguished life as an academic and poet.
The rest of the movie is taken up with a subplot concerning the romance between the team's only female member, Samantha Booke and the bad-boy character, Henry Lowe (who incurs Samantha's wrath by getting drunk and hanging out with another woman after witnessing a lynching). The aforementioned 14 year old has a crush on Samantha and must overcome his feelings of jealousy before he can best Harvard in the final showdown.
The film is not without its powerful moments. The most memorable is when James Farmer Sr. accidentally kills a boar while driving in his car with his family. He's forced to pay compensation to two racist whites by handing over his paycheck and is further humiliated when one of the racists drops the check and makes Farmer bend over and pick it up (it's scenes like this that are far more effective than the typical mob scenes of racist whites on the loose since they show the day-to-day humiliations which blacks had to endure across the country on a daily basis). There is also an actual lynching scene which Tolson and his debaters stumble upon while driving on a darkened road.
Despite this, The Great Debaters is a well-intentioned but formulaic project. Yes, it always feels good to be on the winning side but when drama becomes manipulative, art is subsumed by propaganda.