Review of The Great Debaters, directed by Denzel Washington

As I confront the end of graduate school and the prospects of moving abroad for a Fulbright, I’ve been watching a ton of movies. I’m slowly coming to terms that soon I will have to be an actual adult, which means that I will be forced to work more than I already do.

So my way of coping with this, as I just said, is watching a ton of movies until I feel like my brain is rotting. Recently, my vibe has been watching a ton of historical films based on real events, so I can actually learn something as I let my brain decay after writing an almost hundred page thesis on Korean literature.

The Great Debaters was one of those movies. I had never heard of it until I was doom scrolling onto the depths of my Netflix account, then I just kind of shrugged after reading the synopsis and decided to press play. It doesn’t take much to get me to watch a movie sometimes.

Let’s get into the review—I can already feel myself starting to ramble already.

In the 1930s, a Black debate team looks to make their mark.

This film is set in the 1930s, specifically at Wiley College. Wiley is a Black university, and there’s one debate coach there who wants to make his mark in the world of debate: Melvin B. Tolson. This university is in the American South, so you can imagine there are so many Jim Crow laws and discriminatory practices in place.

So Tolson begins the task of building the team. He finds some of the brightest minds at the school, including a girl who would be the only woman on the team who was prepared to take on other national champions.

With his help, they’re going to rise to the challenge all throughout the course of the movie, and some of his students are successful enough that they are sent to Harvard University to debate with the white students. It’s very much a success story at this point, as they came from unlikely circumstances to get there.

We even get some shots of their family listening on the big 1930s style radios as their kids prepare their speeches for debate. It’s a moment that feels sweet, even if we know they might not be successful in the end.

However, this isn’t just what the movie is about. We explore the lives of the students on the team, who would go on tobe very successful people themselves. As they try to keep the world of debate contained within their lives, other social issues and problems facing other Black Americans bleed into this reality.

One of the members of the team is James Farmer, who would go on to become the co-founder of the Congress of Racial Equality. The only girl on the team is based on Henrietta Bell Wells, who I had actually heard of before this movie. She was a prominent poet and a brilliant mind up until the end of her days.

That said, this is a true story, although it has its fictional bend here and there, including changing the female character’s name.

Overall Thoughts

When it comes to this movie, something I said in previous posts comes to mind. Certain movies are not entertaining in the traditional sense when it comes to films and cinema, especially blockbusters, but they’re brain food.

I’m glad I watched this movie and learned about some incredible people who did great work in the United States. I had no idea before watching this movie that these people existed, and now I’m going to remember them for the rest of my life.

It might not have been entertaining, but it was certainly a necessary watch. I’ve been having a lot of necessary watches lately, which you can read about on other blog posts. I don’t regret any of them, honestly.

Follow me below on Instagram and Goodreads for more.