Quote:
Originally Posted by Dominic
no, I agree with Domer...a little of nunnehi goes a long way. He's exhausting.
I'm sorry I challenge your worldview Professor Dom. Computers invented the scroll bar for a reason. This kind of peanut gallery stuff is where I lose respect for you.
I don't care if you don't like me, but don't try to devalue real content because it interferes with your sensibilities. Most of my criticisms are very apt (and nearly every problem I have with a poster on this site is someone like you or people who can't stand more than one sentence replies and trolling), and I don't come from a bad place with any of it. I criticize stuff I think should be better, and I criticize it heavily if I feel it deserves it (I'm the only one defending many of the right now nonsensical appearing choices of The Night Of, but feel the classic foreshadowing will lead to a conclusion that makes sense specifically because we should trust the people making it due to their past work). Most people don't even regard a lot of the stuff I talk about that would give greater enjoyment to the overall viewing experience for almost everyone. That's because they don't know any better. You do. Giving a pass to everything isn't good discourse, nor is crapping on anything you don't like because it doesn't resonate with you. You're especially guilty of tunnel vision logic on stuff that doesn't hit your hot buttons (I haven't seen Stranger Things yet, but you appear to be in the extreme minority in your thoughts on that show). I'm sure it's nice to be able to watch everything as a standard consumer (especially with your knowledge), but I don't know how to do that anymore. That's what happens when 21+ years of your career is spent dissecting problems and fixing them. I have a very hard time watching anything as just a consumer, so when something does that for me I love it (like the Fargo TV show).
Why did you get into the business, and why did you basically leave it? Why did you end up in porn? Everyone in Hollywood has to deal with some kind of porn in their career (at least in the old days, and I've certainly done my fair share of Playboy work), but why that instead of other stuff? Based on what you said in another thread, you worked in TV. I'm confused as to how you ended up working on the other stuff, unless that was after you felt you couldn't get anywhere you actually wanted to go. It's not as if you care, but I got into the business because I loved TV (and because of the love of late 70s early 80s Spielberg type movies), and what that stuff meant to me growing up. That said, I still am only going to watch what appeals to me, and I'm very honest about that. I generally respect most of your opinions, but when I don't I really don't. Sorry I'm exhausting for you, don't know how you're able to be a teacher with that mindset.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dominic
The whole point to the Serchers is that John Wayne hates all "savages," and will find his niece so he can kill her for being tainted by those savages. The fact that he doesn't is his one redemption. And the fact that he he is not included in his family's celebration at the end is his consequence.
John Wayne's character is incredibly racist - and that racism leaves him alone and ostracised from his own family. That's the point.
I fins it ironic you are railing against prejudice here but you are refusing to see another interpretation of the film as at all legitimate.
And whether or not Ford was a nice huy on set - who cares? Do you make those judgements about Hitchcock or Allen or Ridley Scott?
The whole point from your perspective? He was already ostracized of his own making before the story even began,
I have no idea what point you're trying to make the nice guy on set stuff. I don't care whether he was nice on the set (I think it's better to be nice on the set for a lot of reasons). My point is that he would rip everyone who went even a little off to shreds on the set. The one guy he wouldn't do that to on The Searchers was John Wayne. So, if Wayne took over the set, in regard to his part, it allows you to give somewhat of a pass to Ford. If this was them working together, he's complicit in how the movie comes across. I don't think Ford intended it to come across the way it did, but he just couldn't see it because he wouldn't understand that line of thinking anyway. Wayne was absolutely intending to get the message across that Manifest Destiny was right, even if that's not how his character was written. I think his character was written as a driven guy constantly on the wrong side of history. But instead of eventually realizing he's wrong (or at least having some kind of internal conflict about it regarding his own blood), he doubles down on that aspect of his personality. I find it hard to believe internal conflict isn't in the book, though it was also a product of its time, and I obviously haven't read it. Wayne could have played the part with nuance, but he clearly didn't want to. He was liberated with his character's ability to spew ridiculous and horrific hate at any time he wanted. He also likely knew that anyone in the audience of the time who was a fan of his would still think he was the great hero of the picture,
Quote:
I fins it ironic you are railing against prejudice here but you are refusing to see another interpretation of the film as at all legitimate.
I'm not at all refusing to see another interpretation of the film as at all legitimate. Do you consider the movie to be anti-racist like kioshk does? If so, that's the problem. You can either say the movie ended up racist, or had no social message (I believe this would be Ford's own interpretation), but in no way, shape, or form can you call it anti-racist. I think your interpretation probably lines up quite closely with Ford's as he was making it. He didn't think it was a problem, because he didn't care one effing bit about Native Americans, and the constant lying about what Native Americans did. Here's a quote from him I found on wikipedia:
Quote:
In a 1964 interview with Cosmopolitan magazine, Ford said,
There's some merit to the charge that the Indian hasn't been portrayed accurately or fairly in the Western, but again, this charge has been a broad generalization and often unfair. The Indian didn't welcome the white man ... and he wasn't diplomatic ... If he has been treated unfairly by whites in films, that, unfortunately, was often the case in real life. There was much racial prejudice in the West.[27]
My problem with that attitude is he is clearly telling a fictional story, and not re-creating history. By continuing portrayal of the attitude with no social commentary, it's essentially him saying it's okay that it happened, and that's basically what his own words say. If you cut out his "softness", it's essentially, "Yes, it sucked to be a Native American. Yes, we've perpetuated a bunch of myths that led to the continual racism the people faced. But it was their fault. If they'd just given us the land diplomatically then we wouldn't have had this problem." That's pure tone deafness, as many of the Native Americans did cooperate until they realized they were being lied to. A lot of the biggest massacres were related to tribes that had actually made deals with the U.S. government that the government did not fulfill. So, do I think Ford was racist against Native Americans as a hate thing? No. Do I think he overly romanticized the white man's part of Manifest Destiny? Yes. The Searchers is that peak of both realizing that there was racism, but not really giving a crap about any of the collateral damage until it affected the white family.
As part of a factually based story, this level of racism should be there (though there were absolutely many people living then that did not have the kind of racism exhibited by Ethan's character), as a fictional story, UNLESS there's nuance, it is not necessary. And for the millionth time, most of Ford's Westerns I worked on have very nuanced racism if it's even brought up at all. Racism against Native Americans was a huge deal then, and it took until the 80s probably before any stories started being told from that perspective (any that were were mainly written by white people prior to that). The book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee was supposedly told from that perspective, but it absolutely was not. I found myself hating the author almost as much as the atrocities the book depicted, because his angle as a white guy was still in there, and he sometimes provided similar defenses to certain depictions that Ford did in The Searchers and the quote above.
As someone who is part Native American, you are saying my interpretation is invalid. Is this really the kind of discourse you encourage in your English classes? My opinion is absolutely not wrong. It is an interpretation, and I can back it up because of the pure lack of nuance.
If you really think this movie wasn't different than most of Ford's and Wayne's Westerns, take a look at Fort Apache. That is an exceptional example of how to tackle the overwhelming racial themes of Manifest Destiny, even though it's still largely a Custer story. Wayne clearly wasn't the same guy he was in 1948, and he wanted to make sure you knew he was a racist, not some lover of Native Americans like could have easily been taken from Fort Apache. Again, and I thought I was super clear about this, The Searchers script and story are not overtly racist, but the way Wayne forced his agenda on to the movie, and Ford's letting him do that are absolutely what make it racist. Any nuance from Wayne would have lent the movie to the interpretation you have, but his portrayal from soup to nuts without any nuance means that it's likely not the best interpretation. This is a filmmaking and acting problem, not a story problem, in my opinion. I feel I know what the story was trying to get across, and Wayne was not having that.
To underline the horror of Wayne's performance is this. One of the big character points is that Ethan knew the Comanche ways, knew the Comanche language, knew he was lying about who they were, and decided that their way of life was wrong and his was right. That's probably the most singular thing that makes the movie so scary. This wasn't an ignorant guy who didn't know any better, this was a knowledgeable guy who refused to change his worldview when it didn't line up with reality.
If you don't see this aspect of the movie it's your own tone deafness about racism and how it actually affects people. At one point when this movie was brought up earlier in the thread, I said it was the most uncomfortable I ever felt watching a movie, because there was zero commentary about Ethan...zero. That's a vision (Wayne's), not a story, and Ford didn't rein him in. This interpretation is certainly Wayne's fault, but it's debatable how much fault belongs on Ford (some at the very least). Again, in no way, shape, or form could that movie ever be interpreted as anti-racist.
