Glory one of Cracked's 'Most Unintentionally Racist Movies About Racism'

http://www.cracked.com/article/178_the-5-most-unintentionally-racist-movies-about-racism/

Granted, it's #5 of the list, but still.

(Some spoilers if you still haven't seen Glory yet...)

The author of the article's main point is that Zwick focusses too much on Broderick's role instead of expanding with Freeman, Washington, Braugher, and Kennedy's story. In fact, I thought Zwick did a very nice job of bringing the two perspectives together.

We see Shaw's conflicts with Forbes who thinks his friend's nutty because he's doing this ("I know you want to be Colonel, Robert, but a colored regiment...") and others such as the quartermaster ("Twit."), not to mention the Confederate policy of executing any white officer in charge of a colored regiment. Then we see the African-American soldier's perspectives. Trip, the spirited young former slave, belittles Thomas, the most educated soldier in the regiment, because he believes him to be "too white". Trip clearly has a chip in his shoulder because of treatment from his former masters. He gets some sense knocked in his head from Sgt. Rawlins in that very awesome scene. ("And what are you? So full of hate you want to go out and fight everybody! Because you've been whipped and chased by hounds. Well that might not be living, but it sure as hell ain't dying.")

Later, we see Col. Shaw ask Trip to be the flag bearer, which is a really great honor. Trip denies because he feels that it's not his war. Up to this point, they see themselves as seperate, not just officer vs. soldier but belonging to different worlds. But then after Shaw is killed in the charge, Trip rushes to grab the flag, shouts "Come on!" and is shot dead. In the very last scene of the film, they are burried right next to each other. In the end, they are all colorblind because they realize they are fighting with each other for the same common goal, equality.

In real life, Col. Shaw was also burried with his men. His parents had the choice of retrieving his body and burying him in Boston, in their family plot in Mt. Auburn, but decided to leave him because they felt that there was no greater place of honor for their son to rest with them men he fought with.