whiteness, Wayne
At work I'm in and out of an area with tv and this scene caught my eye:
(some dude character, speaking of young women who appear to have mental disabilities) It's hard to believe they're white.
(John Wayne's character) They ain't white; not anymore.
Turns out to be The Searchers, "widely considered to be the greatest Western ever made and one of the greatest films ever made." This review says:
...he's spent a good deal of time obsessing over his lost love, and now he shifts that obsession to both a hatred of Indians and a yearning to find his niece (mostly the former, though). When he finds the body of a dead Comanche, he shoots its eyes out so that the Comanche's spirit will not be able to enter the spirit world. It becomes clear that when Debbie is found, if Ethan determines her to be too far gone (in other words, if she's had sex with Comanches) that he will kill her. Yet Ethan speaks Comanche and knows a good deal about the tribe.
Ethan's obsession is matched by the evil Comanche chief, Scar (Henry Brandon), who, the movie implies, is Ethan's equal in every way.
Without having seen it I don't know if it's meant to be more complex than most westerns when it comes to matters of humanity, race and women; and if so, how many Wayne fans got it. But I can't get over that one scene's blunt declaration of the meaning of whiteness.
Meanwhile, Derrick Jensen has looked at length at not just Westerns but settler history, and King's Green Grass, Running Water flat out sets the Westerns right by killing off John Wayne with a barrage of arrows.
Oh, well, here we go (leave it to Wikipedia): "his racism and hatred are so open that they sear the viewer, and Ford intended it so. His own comments make clear he is seeking to portray the racism of white America that led to the genocide practiced against Native Americans."
(some dude character, speaking of young women who appear to have mental disabilities) It's hard to believe they're white.
(John Wayne's character) They ain't white; not anymore.
Turns out to be The Searchers, "widely considered to be the greatest Western ever made and one of the greatest films ever made." This review says:
...he's spent a good deal of time obsessing over his lost love, and now he shifts that obsession to both a hatred of Indians and a yearning to find his niece (mostly the former, though). When he finds the body of a dead Comanche, he shoots its eyes out so that the Comanche's spirit will not be able to enter the spirit world. It becomes clear that when Debbie is found, if Ethan determines her to be too far gone (in other words, if she's had sex with Comanches) that he will kill her. Yet Ethan speaks Comanche and knows a good deal about the tribe.
Ethan's obsession is matched by the evil Comanche chief, Scar (Henry Brandon), who, the movie implies, is Ethan's equal in every way.
Without having seen it I don't know if it's meant to be more complex than most westerns when it comes to matters of humanity, race and women; and if so, how many Wayne fans got it. But I can't get over that one scene's blunt declaration of the meaning of whiteness.
Meanwhile, Derrick Jensen has looked at length at not just Westerns but settler history, and King's Green Grass, Running Water flat out sets the Westerns right by killing off John Wayne with a barrage of arrows.
Oh, well, here we go (leave it to Wikipedia): "his racism and hatred are so open that they sear the viewer, and Ford intended it so. His own comments make clear he is seeking to portray the racism of white America that led to the genocide practiced against Native Americans."