Lecture 8:
How Whiteness Won the Western
The Searchers (1956)
Directed by John Ford
Professor Michael Green
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Previous Lecture
•
Melodrama and the
“Woman’s Film”
•
Miscegenation,
Passing,
Subversion and
Racial Masquerade
•
Imitation of Life
•
Writing About Film:
Essay Structure
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This Lecture
•
The Representation
of Native Americans
in Hollywood Film
•
John Ford and The
Searchers
•
“The Multicultural
Dynamics of John
Ford’s Westerns”
•
Writing About Film
3
The Representation of Native
Americans in Hollywood Film
Fort Apache (1948)
Directed by John Ford
Lecture 8: Part I
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Shifting Social Race Dynamics
•
Remember, the meaning of race and how
race is understood in society changes over
space and time.
•
Race relations, and the meaning of race, in
the Confederate south during the Civil War
are vastly different than they were in
Berkeley in the 1960s or in Seattle today.
•
We always must proceed from the idea that
race and gender are the ideological and
historical constructs of people in societies.
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Race and Gender in 1950s U.S.A.
•
Conservative ideas about race, class,
gender and sexuality reigned supreme in
the dominant U.S. culture of the 1950s.
•
African Americans were still subject to Jim
Crow laws; Jewish Americans were being
persecuted by HUAC; gays were closeted;
and women were confined to the home.
•
However, society was rippling with the
emerging Civil Rights Movement and with
massive social changes that would define
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the United States in the 1960s.
Shifting Ideas of Race in Hollywood
•
Remember, in the late 1940s and 1950s,
Hollywood had begun to approach race
differently with the advent of the racial
social problem film and with a pronounced
lessening of overt racial representation
through blackface and other techniques.
•
We saw this in such films as Pinky,
Gentlemen’s Agreement, Home of the
Brave and Imitation of Life, films that
overtly tackled subjects of race and racism.
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Traditional Norms
•
However, Hollywood films still largely
advanced traditional ideologies of race
(whiteness), gender (patriarchy), class
(middle class norm) and sexuality
(heterosexual norm).
•
These ideologies were especially prominent
in certain genres, among them the Western.
•
In the 1950s, the Western still largely
supported patriarchy and white racism
against Native Americans and other groups.
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Two Stereotypes
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Americans have a long tradition
representing Native Americans in art and
literature; early representations of Native
Americans have persisted through the
centuries and are still with us today, still
perpetuated through mass media.
•
Two primary ways in which the Native
Americans have been represented are as
the savage and the noble native.
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The Savage Native Stereotype
Dark, satanic, evil, perverse, paranoid
Wild, cruel, barbarous, brutish heathen.
Autocratic and dictatorial; ruthless
The opposite of the (white, male) hero
Pause the lecture and watch clip #1 from The Searchers.
The Noble Native Stereotype
•
•
•
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Natives are primitive but gentle (noble
savages).
They supposedly embody a paradise on
Earth, free of constricting modernity.
Natives lack a hero of their own kind and
often worship the white hero (often led to
this by a native child)
Native women love the white hero and are
often willing to die for that love.
Pause the lecture and watch clip from Dances with Wolves.
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Politics of Romanticizing
•
•
With the Noble Native stereotype, Native
Americans become a romanticized culture,
fetishized for their gentleness, spirituality,
and affinity with nature, in a way that’s
positive but still reductive, simplistic, and
idealistic.
To be reduced to a romantic essence, is no
less problematic (ideological) than to be
reduced to a negative thing, or savage
essence.
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The Noble Savage as Social Critic
“The use of the Noble Savage, and the
American Indian as . . . convention, to
criticize existing social institutions and to
propose reform reached its height with the
philosophies of the Enlightenment.
Fundamental to their thinking was the
dichotomy between nature and convention.
If what was natural was good, then what
was civilized was artificial, hence decadent
and certainly bad.”
Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., “Imagery in Literature, Art, and Philosophy: The
Indian in White Imagination and Ideology”
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The Shifting Image of the Native
•
In the Hollywood Western of the
conservative 1950s (and before) the Native
American, is represented as the savage.
•
As we get closer to the 1960s, a time of
intense social self-criticism in the United
States, the Native American figure is that of
the idyllic/noble native long used to criticize
corrupt Western society and stand for the
“true” values of nature and freedom.
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Contemporary History
“The 1960s youth counterculture reacted not
only against America’s conduct in the war in
Vietnam but also against their own white,
middle-class identity by identifying strongly
with oppressed minorities whom they
romanticized, such as the Viet Cong,
African Americans, and Native Americans.”
–
Hernán Vera and Andrew Gordon, “Screen Saviors: Hollywood
Fictions of Whiteness”
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Summary of Points
•
There is a long tradition in American art,
literature and film of stereotyping Native
Americans as either savage or noble native.
•
Changing social, cultural and historical
context dictated which of these stereotypes
was more popular in any given era.
•
The Western, one of Hollywood’s most
popular and enduring genres, was involved
in the white racist agenda of perpetuating
these stereotypes.
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John Ford and The Searchers
The Searchers (1956)
Directed by John Ford
Lecture 8: Part II
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John Ford (1894 – 1973)
•
A preeminent American filmmaker who
made films from the silent era all the way
into the 1960s.
•
He worked in multiple genres but is most
famous for his Westerns.
•
One of the most influential filmmakers,
influencing many of the most prominent
filmmakers who came after him, including
Akira Kurosowa, Orson Welles, George
Lucas and Martin Scorsese
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Prominent John Ford Films
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Ford made more than 100 films and won
six Oscars. Among the most prominent:
–
Stagecoach (1939)
–
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
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Grapes of Wrath (1940)
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How Green was my Valley (1941)
–
My Darling Clementine (1946)
–
The Quiet Man (1952)
–
The Searchers (1956)
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Racial Representation in Ford
•
Many critics and scholars
have criticized Ford for
his negative ethnic and
racial representation,
particularly of Native
Americans, who are often
condescended to and/or
depicted as savages and
threats to civilization.
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Gender Roles in Ford Westerns
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Women are rarely
the protagonists in
Ford’s movies or in
Westerns in general;
rather they support
male protagonists in
traditional ways and
need the protection
and guidance of the
white male heroes.
Stagecoach (1939)
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Protecting the White Woman
•
•
Building on the cinematic template
established by Griffith and other early
narrative filmmakers, Ford and other
directors of Westerns depicted savage
natives as a threat to the white family, white
women and thus westward expansion of
white civilization.
Native women are seen as marginalized
figures, subjects to native men and either
exoticised or made to seem undesirable.
Pause the lecture and watch clip #2 from The Searchers.
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Themes and Style
•
Ford’s films often focus on a lone hero –
invariably white and male – outside of
society who embodies American myths of
self-reliance and manifest destiny.
•
He often used long shots, location filming
and deep focus cinematography to capture
a “mythical” American West.
•
Ford was a formalist who carefully and with
much sophistication employed film
techniques in the service of plot and theme.
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The Searchers
• The movie was made at the height of the
Cold War and the height of the studio
system when the Western was dominant
• It is a historical romance of the Indian War,
the savage War, in Texas.
• Plot centers on Ethan and Martin’s search
for Debbie, who has been captured by
Comanche Indians.
• Ethan plans to kill Debbie because he
cannot stand the idea of miscegenation.
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Visual Style Facilitates Racism
•
•
•
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In The Searchers, civilization is represented
inside/ wilderness is outside
Internal framing separates civilization and
wilderness (door motif).
Camera angles reinforce stereotypes
As in The Birth of a Nation, parallel editing
is used to convey contrasts between
civilization and the savage
wilderness/undesirable Other.
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Fear of “Going Native”
“The fear of ‘going native,’ of being taken over
sexually and culturally by what is perceived
as the savage other, is a common trait of the
white men portrayed in the movies. The
assumption is that whites possess a
monopoly on ‘civilization’ . . . but that white
civilization is always in danger of crumbling in
the face of the attraction of the seductive,
feared Other, and therefore is in constant
need of defense.”
– Hernán Vera and Andrew Gordon, “Screen Saviors: Hollywood Fictions of
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Whiteness”
Summary of Points
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For many, The Searchers represents middle
ground for Ford in his representation of
Native Americans.
•
On the one hand, Ethan is depicted as an
ugly racist, and the wanton destruction of
Native Americans by the U.S. Calvary is
shown to be cruel.
•
On the other hand, the movie condemns
miscegenation and argues for the superiority
of white civilization.
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The Multicultural Dynamics of John
Ford’s Westerns
My Darling Clementine (1946)
Directed by John Ford
Lecture 8: Part III
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An Alternate Take
“John Ford cannot be fully appreciated without
taking into account his Irish heritage.
Remembering that he was the son of Irish
immigrants, surely something he never
forgot, one begins to appreciate the fact that
his films emanate from the position of that
oppressed ethnic minority and that his stories
typically focused on marginalized outcasts.”
Charles Ramírez Berg, “The Margin as Center The
Multicultural Dynamics of John Ford’s Westerns”
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An Alternate Take (continued)
“This made his cinema far different from most
Hollywood films, which centered on the
WASP Mainstream as a matter of course and
looked uncritically at assimilation. Thus,
counterbalancing Ford’s stereotyping is a
richly textured multicultural vision that is
nuanced in comparison with the broad
strokes that characterized much of classical
Hollywood’s ethnic representation.”
Charles Ramírez Berg, “The Margin as Center The
Multicultural Dynamics of John Ford’s Westerns”
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Marginalized “Others”
•
Ramírez Berg argues that multiculturalism
is evident in many of Ford’s films, but
particularly in the Westerns.
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His frontiers are populated with ethnic
characters who are seen, because of their
ethnicity, as disenfranchised outsiders.
•
These marginalized “Others” include some
Native Americans, Mexicans, women and
African Americans, Slavs, Poles, Italians.
Germans, poor whites and southerners.
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Tension between Ethnics and the
Wasp Mainstream
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According to Ramírez Berg, for Ford,
ethnicity was the most important human
attribute, from which tolerance and justice
flowed; therefore, he was in favor of
multiculturalism but against assimilation.
•
His films often locate tension between
ethnics who have been pushed to the social
and geographical margin and the WASP
Mainstream that has pushed them there.
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Multiculturalism in the Narrative
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Ramírez Berg argues that the multicultural
perspective is manifested in three
prominent aspects of Ford’s Westerns:
–
–
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Familiar Ford motifs – such as singing, dancing,
brawling and militarism.
A sympathy for ethnics, especially Native
Americans, Mexicans and Mexican Americans,
revealed in subversive ways through form.
A well defined cultural narrative that ran below
the surface of a given film’s dramatic narrative.
Pause the lecture and watch clip #3 from The Searchers.
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Stereotyping WASPs
•
According to Ramírez Berg, for Ford,
represents the WASP mainstream as rigid,
hypocritical, intolerant, self-righteous,
heartless, oppressive Yankees convinced of
their social, moral and racial superiority –
Henry Fonda’s Colonel Thursday’s character
from Fort Apache is an example
•
If ethnics and minorities are sometimes
stereotyped, the WASPs always are.
Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Fort Apache.
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Ethnic at the Frontier
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According to Ramírez Berg, Ford’s ethnic
settlers must choose between assimilation
into the intolerant mainstream or life among
the Native Americans, both of which are
seen as cultural deaths.
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Ford sees the best choice as to live at the
frontier/ethnic margin, which prizes
tolerance and justice.
Pause the lecture and watch the clip from My Darling Clementine.
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Author’s Final Point
“Hollywood’s “America” was constructed to
conform to the majority’s utopian view of
itself. . .In contrast, Ford’s films centered not
on the dominant Mainstream but on the
immigrant, working-class, socially and
geographically isolated Margin. And just as
most Hollywood cinema used people of color
to prop up its WASP self, Ford’s films . . .
used them to promote immigrant ethnicity
over the eastern Anglo elite.
Charles Ramírez Berg, “The Margin as Center The
Multicultural Dynamics of John Ford’s Westerns”
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Writing About Film: Tips and
Suggestions Part I
Stagecoach (1939)
Directed by John Ford
Lecture 8: Part IV
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Summary: Essay Structure
• Broadly speaking, an argumentative essay
has this underlying structure:
• Introduction: Which can be background
information (context) or a vivid example of
your topic leading up to your thesis.
• Body: Reasons to believe your thesis –
evidence and examples in support of it.
• Conclusion: Restatement of your thesis
and discussion of its broader implications.
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Context and Definitions
• Whenever you critically engage specific
topics and terms, you must provide definition
and context for those topics and terms.
• Never begin your analysis assuming that
your reader knows what you mean.
• For example if your thesis investigates the
representation of whiteness in The
Searchers, be sure to define whiteness high
in your paper, supporting that definition with
applicable quotes.
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Plot vs. Representation
• In critical film writing, understand the
difference between plot and representation.
• The plot is the movie’s story and may be
about a topic such as racism. Representation
is how that story is represented beyond the
plot through filmmaking techniques.
• So, the plot of The Searchers might purport
to be about how destructive racism is, but
might be advancing opposite ideas through
representation.
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Plot vs. Representation
(continued)
• For example, if all the white characters are
shown communing at the homestead, but all
the Comanche are shown engaged in
violence, then this might be a racist
representation, despite a progressive plot
that nominally preaches against the
harmfulness of racism.
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Keeping the Thrust of your
Argument
• Every section in your paper must reiterate
your thesis; you must weave the strand of
your argument all the way through to the
end, as a roadmap for your reader – and
for yourself to help you stay on topic.
• Essays that fail to do this almost
invariably stray off topic and/or become
vague and confusing.
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Staying Organized
• Every paragraph has one topic sentence
(usually the first sentence) and every other
sentence in that paragraph is about that
topic—elaborates, analyzes, explains the
topic. Don’t include more than one topic
per paragraph.
• Stick to the film to be analyzed. Don’t bring
in extra films or ideas that have no
relevance to your topic as you don’t have
enough space to write about them.
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End of Lecture 8
Next Lecture: Assimilating Blackness Through Love
and Friendship
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