California rejects "John Wayne Day"

John Wayne's negative views about tribes resurface in California debate

Was John Wayne Racist? California Democrats Refuse to Honor Film Star Because of White Supremacy Views

By Cristina SilvaAn effort to declare May 26 John Wayne Day in California was defeated in the Assembly Thursday after lawmakers denounced the international movie icon as a racist. Several members said the state shouldn't honor the film star famous for his roles in Hollywood Westerns and war movies because he made racist comments about minority groups and supported the anti-Communist House Un-American Activities Committee and John Birch Society.Comment:  For more on John Wayne, see America Changed with Davy Crockett and "I Thought John Wayne Killed You All."

America changed with Davy Crockett

Continuing the discussion I began in Ups and Downs of Hollywood Indians. Here's more on how movie and TV portrayals of cowboys and Indians mirror the nation's political climate.

An Appreciation:  Fess Parker's Davy Crockett was a hero when we needed one.

The actor's character embodied courage and common sense in the uncertain '50s.

By Neal Gabler[E]ven Parker understood that Davy Crockett wasn't just manufactured by mass culture. It struck a much deeper chord in the American psyche.

Some at the time attributed its success to the country's need to assuage its self-doubt after the Joseph McCarthy red-baiting debacle earlier that year and during the struggle against the Soviets at the height of the Cold War. Others thought that Crockett was an example not of inferiority but of American self-confidence. He was courageous, resolute, plain-spoken, common sense, transparent--the perfect American to contrast with our wily Soviet enemies. Time magazine, surveying America in this period and extolling her virtues, even called it "Davy's Time."

And yet, if Parker had some John Wayne in him, he also had some Jimmy Stewart. Wayne had no modesty. Parker did. His Crockett was kind, temperate, sensitive, tolerant--less an Indian fighter in the Wayne mold than an Indian mediator. He was also something of a renegade, opposing authority and challenging the system. That enabled him to bridge political and ideological divides or, rather, to blur them.

Conservatives claimed him--and Parker was a conservative himself who was a friend and neighbor of Ronald Reagan--but so did liberals. He belonged to everyone.

In fact, after he left Disney because he was tired of being typecast as a frontiersman, Parker starred for one season, from 1962 to 1963, in a television version of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," which only showed the continuity between his Crockett and 20th century Frank Capra populism.Comment:  Before Davy Crockett, we had the classic era of Western movies, with Indian fighters in the John Wayne mold. The Indians were little more than predatory animals. Not coincidentally, we faced intractable enemies in the real world: Nazis, "Japs," and Commies.

"Davy's Time" coincided with the end of the McCarthy era--a diminishing fear of a Communist takeover. The Civil Rights movement gathered steam, as did the move toward revisionist Western movies and TV shows. Even John Wayne's characters became something akin to Indian supporters.

And in the '60s Camelot era, with JFK as president, we started getting urbane, sensitive cowboys like Ben Cartwright on Bonanza. Not to mention urbane, sensitive space cowboys like Captain Kirk. He usually stood up for the savage alien races he met, even if it meant overthrowing their superstitious religion (computer) and bringing them civilization (the Federation).

So cowboy characters (including proto-cowboys like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone) became more thoughtful and sensitive. And Indian characters became more complex and human. And this coincided with a decreased fear of foreign attack and an increased understanding of US minorities. Was this coincidence a coincidence? I think not.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies and TV Shows Featuring Indians.

"I thought John Wayne killed you all"

Righting the wrongs:  Hundreds honor CSKT attorney for work on behalf of Indian children

By Vince DevlinThe case involved four special-needs children taken from their parents, one an enrolled member of the CSKT, by New York authorities. Stevenson had already contacted the attorney for the state and explained all the ways New York had violated the Indian Child Welfare Act when it removed the children from their home, starting with the fact that Salish and Kootenai officials had never been notified that it was happening.

The man's response, according to Stevenson?

"Indians? There are still Indians? I thought John Wayne killed you all."Comment:  Another excellent example of what many Americans think.

Recall that this is an educated New York lawyer speaking. His city has the largest number of Indians living off-reservation, I believe. Yet he's complete ignorant of Indian country today.

Instead of saying something intelligent, he regurgitates the stereotypical notion he's learned from a thousand old Westerns. Namely, that John Wayne (i.e., cowboys, the Army, Anglo-Americans) defeated and killed the Indians. That Indians are a "breed" that vanished more than a century ago.

Here we have a textbook example of how stereotypes influence real-world behavior. A lawyer thinks Indians no longer exist. Therefore, he has no idea there's such a thing as the Indian Child Welfare Act. Because of his ignorance, he allows authorities to remove Indian children from homes.

This is why we keep discussing Indians in the media: because the media is central in shaping our understanding of them. We could trace most Indian problems to non-Indians' misunderstanding of Native history and culture. The results would be similar to those seen here: "Indians are more or less gone, so their concerns and issues don't matter."

I'm amazed that some people still don't get this. If you have any doubts on the subject, educate yourself. Read The Harm of Native Stereotyping:  Facts and Evidence and learn what the experts say.

For more on the subject, see Westerns Are Hostile to Indians and The Influence of Movies.

Below:  "I did what needed doing, pilgrim."

Revisionist Indians in the 1950s

Beginning in the late 1940s and blossoming in the 1950s, Hollywood began to revise its portrayals of Indians. The Indian characters were still badly stereotypical, but at least they were recognizably human. Writers and directors were finally questioning the dominant paradigm of Indians as predatory, beast-like savages.

In movies, Broken Arrow (1950) probably was the biggest breakthrough. Other milestones along the path to authenticity were Fort Apache (1948), The Man from Laramie (1955), The Searchers (1956), The Tin Star (1957), The Light in the Forest (1958), McLintock! (1963), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).

On television, The Lone Ranger (1949) undoubtedly was the biggest breakthrough. I haven't seen most of the '50s TV Westerns, so I can't speak for them, but Northwest Passage (1958) had a semi-positive attitude toward Indians and Bonanza (1959) was largely positive.

The typical '50s Indians

McLintock!, which I recently reviewed, includes several of the transitional elements in the portrayal of Indians:

Major Indian characters are still played by ethnic-looking non-Indians, but real Indians appear in background roles.

The Plains stereotypes persist, but many of the Indians are generic. Braids and headbands with feathers are common, but the people tend to wear Western clothes or buckskins. The half-naked warriors begin to disappear.

The Indians are more likely to be noble than ignoble savages. They have pride and dignity but no real indicators of depth. I.e., no language, culture, or religion.

"Regular" Indians, including women and children, start to appear. Not every Indian is a weapon-wielding warrior.

The Indians are no longer pure villains. Any villains are likely to be "renegades," "half-breeds," or outlaws emulating Indians.

The "plight" of the Indian becomes evident. Indians are forced to give up their way of life, march to and live on reservations, scrounge for dwindling land and game, deal with corrupt Indian agents, convert to Western ways, etc. It's all very tragic.

Guilt-free history

The '50s movies and TV shows began to challenge the idea of Indians as aggressors attacking the innocent white settlers. They began to acknowledge that Indians were the victims of the "taming" of the West. But the shows didn't go any deeper than that.

In particular, they rarely questioned why the Indians were suffering. Although the middle-aged protagonists played by John Wayne, James Stewart, et al. lived through the Indian Wars, no one was ever responsible for breaking a treaty, defeating an Indian, or establishing a reservation. Somehow these things just happened and became the status quo.

So the people in these shows began accepting and dealing with the "plight" of the Indian. What they didn't do was acknowledge their part in causing the plight of the Indian. That wouldn't happen until the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

Indians in McLintock!

The 1963 movie McLintock! is another of those transitional films that, from the 1950s to the 1970s, started doing Indians justice. As such, it's an odd mishmash of good and bad moments.

Here's the story:

McLintock!George Washington McLintock (John Wayne) has a saddlebag full of trouble. The owner of the largest ranch in the territory, which also includes a mine and a lumber mill that he built up himself, should be a happy, fulfilled man, but he isn't. His wife, Katherine (Maureen O'Hara), walked out on him two years ago without a word of explanation and has been living back east and running in very fancy circles. He's getting older, a fact of which he's constantly reminded as friends around him decline in health. He's being challenged by their sons, eager to make their mark on the territory, and by the homesteaders who are pouring in with the support of the government, hoping to farm on land that's just barely adequate for cattle to graze on; he's got government officials underfoot, including an inept Indian agent (Strother Martin) and a corrupt land agent (Gordon Jones); the thick-headed, longwinded territorial governor, the honorable Cuthbert H. Humphrey (Robert Lowery), and the government back east are trying to push the Indians--whose chiefs are some of McLintock's oldest enemies and his best and most honored friends--by shipping them off to a reservation, where they'll be cared for like old women; and to top it all off, Katherine is coming back to secure a divorce and take custody of their 17-year-old daughter, Rebecca (Stefanie Powers), who's been at school back east and no longer likes anything to do with the West, any more than her mother does. All of that--plus the presence of a young hired hand (Patrick Wayne) who's interested romantically in McLintock's daughter--is the setup for a sprawling comedy Western with serious overtones, part battle-of-the-sexes and part political tract. --Bruce Eder, All Movie GuideNative aspects

Here are the key Indian bits in McLintock!:

The first Indian we meet is Davey Elk, who has short hair and is dressed as a gentleman. As he notes, he's college-educated, the fastest runner in town, and the telegraph operator. Unfortunately, he's played by Latino actor Perry Lopez, who was the Indian scientist in The Time Tunnel and Esteban Rodriguez in the Star Trek episode Shore Leave.

Indians led by Running Buffalo come to town to meet the chiefs returning from Washington. They look like Plains Indians, which is okay if the movie is set in Oklahoma. They appear to be real Indians, not actors of other ethnicities.

The Indian agent objects to their leaving the reservation without permission. When a white woman disappears, the townspeople think the Indians kidnapped her. They prepare to hang Running Buffalo.

McLintock intervenes, leading to the famous fight scene in the quarry. Running Buffalo walks through the fighters without being touched. Other Indians stand on sidelines and watch the crazy white men. They decide to leave the "party" because there's no whiskey.

Davey wants to ask Rebecca for a dance. Some men accost him for this, leading to a brawl.

Led by Chief Puma, the chiefs return from Washington on a train. They've secured the release of the Indians--probably Comanches--held at Ft. Sill. Unfortunately, Puma is played by Australian actor Michael Pate.

Puma greets his friend McLintock, whom he once rescued, with a Navajo "yah ta hey." Nearby, Indians in a circle perform a powwow-style drum song. Neither one is appropriate for a 19th-century Oklahoma setting.

Note: It's unclear where McLintock! is supposed to be set. If it's in Arizona rather than Oklahoma, the movie's got more problems than I thought. Comanches or Plains Indians in Arizona? Not.

McLintock speaks for Indians

Puma asks McLintock to speak for the Comanches at a hearing with the governor. McLintock does in this scene. The Indians are few but proud, says McLintock. They'd rather die as men than live as captives.

As usual in a John Ford-style film, Wayne's character blames the government for treating the Indians badly:Agard, if you knew anything about Indians, you'd know that they're doing their level best to put up with our so-called 'benevolent patronage' in spite of the nincompoops that've been put in charge of it!It's plausible that the Indians might ask a "great white father" to speak for them. But it's also plausible that they could've spoken for themselves--perhaps through a translator. There's a bit of paternalism going on here.

McLintock makes a good case for them, but he doesn't address the underlying issues. How did he become such a huge landowner on what was formerly Indian territory? Who broke the treaties and forced the Indians onto reservations in poor locations? If "nincompoops" and other bad people can corrupt the reservation system, is the system any good?

McLintock/Wayne never questions US policy. He assumes the land is his and the Indians have gotten what they deserve. The only question is whether the government treats them fairly or unfairly as conquered subjects.

Alas, the governor is unmoved and orders the Indians to Ft. Sill. But McLintock concocts a plan. One of his confederates gives them guns, and they ride through the streets shooting and causing mayhem.

And...that's it for the Indians.

This display of wildness is supposed to distract the governor from sending them off, or something. In reality, it would bring a swift reprisal from the military. If anyone was thinking of letting the Indians remain free, it's no longer an option.

Conclusion

McClintock! is definitely a mixed bag when it comes to Indians. Could've been better, could've been worse. I guess that's all you can expect from a John Wayne movie.

As for the rest of the movie, the critics are right that it's a broad comedy, fun but sexist, not Wayne's best but watchable. Rob's rating: 7.5 of 10.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

Coen brothers to do Indians

Coen brothers to adapt 'True Grit'

New version will stay faithful to Portis' novelAs their next film, Joel and Ethan Coen will put their spin on "True Grit," the iconic Western that won John Wayne an Oscar.

Not a traditional remake, the Paramount film will be more faithful to the Charles Portis book than the 1969 pic, also distributed by Par.

Portis' novel is about a 14-year-old girl who, along with an aging U.S. marshal and another lawman, tracks her father's killer in hostile Indian territory.

But while the original film was a showcase for Wayne, the Coens' version will tell the tale from the girl's p.o.v.And:The Western steps in front of another novel adaptation the Coens have with Rudin: "The Yiddish Policemen's Union," based on the Michael Chabon novel and set up at Columbia.Comment:  The remake of True Grit may or may not have any Indians in it. These notes on the novel suggest Indians are only a minor presence.

The movie version of The Yiddish Policemen's Union should show a significant amount of Tlingit culture. Whether it does or not remains to be seen.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

Navajo hotel in Monument Valley

Navajo Nation’s View Hotel in Monument Valley set to open in DecemberA new hotel in Monument Valley aims to live up to its name—the View.

The 95-room hotel scheduled to open in December is situated with panoramic views of the well-known rock formations the Mittens, technically, the East and West Mitten Buttes on the Arizona side of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. You’ve probably seen John Wayne riding purposefully past the Mittens in westerns.

The hotel is built on the site of a former campground, adjacent to the Tribal Park Visitors Center and Trading Post. Designed to maximize views and minimize impact on the environment, the View will feature Navajo artwork, a two-story lobby, “green” building technology and a low building contour that conforms to the mesa site.

Monument Valley lore

Some tidbits from a long article on Monument Valley:

John Ford's Monument

A secluded stretch of Utah cast a spell on the acclaimed director. His masterpiece 'The Searchers' cast a similar spell on the author, so he followed the trail into the remote West.Don says Navajos believe the spirits of the Anasazi linger and that Navajos who enter their territory may fall ill. To ward off these spirits, he and his fellow guides go through a four-day cleansing ceremony with a local medicine man before the tourist season begins.And:Julie Viramontes, one of the senior managers at Goulding's, recalls the time a French travel agent asked her to arrange for a group of Navajos to don war paint and stage a mock bow-and-arrow attack on his tour group's airplane when it landed at the lodge's small air strip. "There was no way I would humiliate people by asking them to do that," she says. "We got those tourists a powwow dance instead."And:At the height of the Depression in 1938, when Harry heard that a film company was exploring the region for a new western, he and Mike took their last $80 and caught a train to Hollywood. Harry forced his way into Ford's office at United Artists and showed him a set of stunning photographs taken by German photographer Joseph Muench, who was a frequent visitor to the area. Ford was entranced. To Harry's amazement, Ford had United Artists cut Harry a check for $5,000 and ordered him home to line up food, water and tents for a large film crew.And:Most westerns back then were filmed on stage sets or in the open spaces just north of Hollywood, and they looked artificial. "Stagecoach," the first movie Ford shot in the valley, brought a fresh sense of drama and authenticity to a fading genre. It also established 32-year-old John Wayne as a star. Ford stayed up in the guest room in Harry and Mike's quarters on the second floor of the trading post, while most of the cast and crew bunked in tents along the valley floor. The crew named the dirt crossroads "Hollywood and Vine."And:When the director said he needed billowing clouds to frame the monuments, Harry turned to Hosteen Tso, a medicine man known among the Navajos as "Big Fats" because of his heroic girth. The next day, clouds appeared along the skyline just after lunch. After that, Harry took Hosteen Tso to Ford's room late every afternoon. Ford would pour the old man a drink and ask him to predict the weather for the next day's shoot.

"We'd ask him, 'Grandfather, how'd you know the weather for tomorrow?' " recalls Don Holiday, one of Hosteen Tso's grandchildren. "He'd say, 'I go to my hogan and listen to the radio.' "And:After heading up the Navy's combat film unit in World War II, Ford came back to the valley to shoot "My Darling Clementine," "Fort Apache" and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon." Navajo extras played Apaches, Comanches and Cheyenne--whatever Ford needed. He paid them cash--$5 a day at first. And he didn't forget them when times were hard. During bad storms in the winter of 1948, Ford pulled strings with the military and had supplies of food and hay airlifted to the area.And:On July 4, the Navajos honored Ford by installing him as a member of the tribe. Ford was delighted. The Indians presented him with a ceremonial deerskin that dubbed him Natani Nez--"Tall Leader." Ford would later describe this honor as more meaningful to him than his Oscars.Comment:  The author says The Searchers is his favorite film. I say it's the worst of the five films John Ford made at Monument Valley.

I like the travel-agent anecdote for what it says about our perceptions of Indians. The agent didn't learn about the Navajo in advance or use the opportunity to educate the tour group about Indians. Instead the agent asked the Indians to conform to the standard movie stereotypes. You know, the stereotypes on display in Ford's movies, in which Apaches, Comanches, and Cheyenne--but not the native Navajos--roam the area.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies. For pictures of Monument Valley, see my Colorado Trip Pix (Day 9).

Red River's Manifest Destiny

John Wayne as a colonizer...Indian killer...murderer...cattle rustler...tyrant...and slaveowner. Howard Hawks's Red River has it all.

If Wayne's character is supposed to be the good guy, I'd hate to see a bad guy. If only the Lone Ranger and Tonto could hunt him down for his crimes.

Read my review of the movie here:  Indians in Red River.

Apaches in Hondo

I recently watched John Wayne's 1953 movie Hondo, which "tells the adventures of a cavalry scout and his relation with a frontier woman and her son at an isolated ranch." Its treatment of Indians supposedly was progressive for the time, but not really. You can read my review of it in Apaches in Hondo.

Why The Searchers isn't no. 1

Some excerpts from Nemo Dally's review of The Searchers, which AFI claims is the greatest Western movie in history:

Review--The Searchers--19%I watched The Searchers because it was ranked the number one Western on the AFI's new list of top genre films.

I am shocked that The Searchers is spoken about without any caveat like the permanent introduction attached to screenings of Birth of a Nation: "this is a racist film important for its filming techniques."

Director John Ford was trying to make a movie that plainly showed the racist and genocidal tendencies on the frontier. Sounds interesting, neh? Unfortunately, while he crafts a wide variety of interesting, racist, white characters, the Indian characters are shallow, stereotyped plot devices.

John Wayne is perfect in his role as the racist, cold, frontier savvy tough guy. But don't go thinking that this film has depth. Despite the critics talking about its "deep layers" it's still the heavily sensationalized frontier simulacra so popular in American cinema.

This film has a degree of understanding akin to suburban kids singing along to gangsta rap. They know all the words but they're clueless.

Consider this comic relief. A young white man "accidentally" buys an Indian wife in a trade. After trying to scare her off like a wild animal he tolerates her pouring him coffee. Then, upset that she has laid down beside him to sleep he gives her an exceptionally violent kick that sends her rolling down a hill. The music suggests that this is comical and John Wayne laughs.Comment:  Exactly. The problem with scenes such as this one isn't that they're racist. The problem is that they're stupid. They bear little or no resemblance to actual human behavior.

The Searchers is possibly the worst movie John Ford made with Indians, not the best. Rob's rating: 6.0 of 10.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

George W. Bush = John Wayne

Actor John Cusack makes an apt comparison between Bush and Wayne. In this case we're all Indians. We're all getting screwed by Bush's obsessive desire to turn over the war, the environment, etc. to corporate America.

The Real Blackwater Scandal:  Build a Frontier, You Get Cowboys, Part IIWe've had Poppa Wayne (Reagan) and Baby Wayne (Bush). Ronald Reagan was the old John Wayne...when kindness comes. But the key to the old Wayne is that he was once a killer; you can see it in his eyes... beneath the kindness lingers that hard truth: he was once a killer. He tames the natural world, but he does it with a veneer of benevolence.

Bush is the young John Wayne--Ethan from The Searchers. Obsessive. Merciless. Ethan is a deranged person. He will fight the battle no one has the guts to fight...do whatever it takes...kill whoever violates the natural law of the frontier (jungle). This cowboy is the great righter of wrongs. He is wrath incarnate. Part of the mythology is that he's wrong a lot and pig headed and stubborn, it's part of the package. But he is a force of nature and you can argue about it all you want, but you must respect a force of nature.

The protector, the son of anger is coming, with god on his side, to protect the ones he has chosen to love. In Bush's case you can substitute the damsel being raped by natives with the US corporation denied 100 percent ownership of a privatized state company.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Corporate Culture:  Rotten to the Core.