"Reel Truth vs. Real Truth"

      As a sports fanatic, my favorite movie of all time is Remember the Titans. It includes football, Denzel Washington, and drama. What's not to like? The credits tell you that the movie is "based on a true story" about a mixed race football team in Alexandria, Virginia in 1971. 
      I've always taken the "based on a true story" phrase as meaning that the director and producers may have added characters, changed characters, and made things more dramatic than they actually were. But, at the same time, I always trusted that the events in the movie were very similar as those in real life. 
      Now, as an avid reader of Cracked.com, when I saw the article titled, "6 Movies Based on a True Story (That Are Also Full of S***), I clicked on it right away. I found what I didn't want to find: There is was: #5 Remember the Titans. I didn't want to find out that the movie of my childhood and one of the greatest sports dramas ever made was simply made up. No, it had to have been a TRUE story.
      
I kept reading and found this:    

 "By the time the championship season rolled around [racial tension] had mostly subsided. No one protested on the first day of school, and while there were heated exchanges in practice, according to the actual players and coaches it was based purely on position battles, and not race."

      What? Much of the movie illustrates the tension between the black and white players. It shows Gerry Bertier, white, and Julius Campbell, black, overcome their hatred, become close friends, and thus lead the Titans to victory. Practices are marred with fights that are started because of race. 

      Coach Herman Boone, played by Washington, even leads the team on a middle of the night run to Gettysburg, illustrated in the picture to the side.

       Guess what? That never happened in real life. The real Boone never brought his team to the Gettysburg cemetery for that iconic speech. That was purely for plot and drama. Their training was held at Gettysburg College, as depicted in the film.

Is that okay? Does the dramatization of this story take away from the power of the film? Should directors be able to claim it as "based on a true story?" Is this intellectual honesty? 

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