Can't Cover A Skunk With Perfume, Ma'am

 


Can a movie be both absolutely beautiful and horrifically racist? There was some chatter yesterday regarding the movie, 'The Searchers.' It stars John Wayne who was a wonderful actor, there's no doubt regarding that. He would have made a great Maga. I'm sure he would be supportive of the orange man in office, but my feathers are ruffled when others speak for the dead, so I shouldn't presume anything. Perhaps, he would have seen the light, eventually. Back in the day, 1972, after Sacheen Littlefeather spoke at the Oscar's, regarding the plight of Native Americans depicted on film and in real life, Wayne had to be held back because he wanted to harm her.

When people watch the movie they all have different viewpoints. Yes, the main character, Ethan Edwards despises Native Americans. He considers them all savages. After his niece is kidnapped by a local tribe he is obsessed with finding her, first out of family duty, then out of rage. His niece is now tainted. She's a savage now. He intends to find her and kill her. Spoiler Alert! Ethan finally finds his niece, Debbie, and takes her home. He still hates Indians, but he cannot kill his own blood. Did he finally see the light? Did he stop becoming a white man who hated every indigenous person after he found Debbie? No. Maybe some believe that but even John Ford, the director confides he was not making a film about redemption or proving people can change. Native Americans were considered animals, not worthy to live amongst the white man. That is how Ford saw them. Ethan Edwards was still the hate filled racist who realized he couldn't kill his white niece even though she was still one of them and would always be one of them. As we have learned, you can be a vile piece of garbage but as long as your skin is peach toned, you are salvageable. There's no hope for you if you have brown skin. 

Ford was one of the greatest directors in his time- a time when it was apparently okay to hate people of color. I'm not sure why this excuse was ever acceptable. "It was the times. Lynching, burning, harming people of color - hey, we didn't know that was wrong." Even today, the Trump regime tries to instill the ugly propagandist viewpoint that certain people are to be feared because they are not white. Trump calls Somalians, "garbage." The immigrants from South America eat cats and dogs. Anyone who thinks otherwise is considered scum. 

So, I don't for a minute believe John Ford was to trying to teach us a moral lesson and Ethan Edwards finally found his moral compass. He just couldn't come to killing a white girl. Even though I think John Wayne was a terrific actor, I don't think he had to reach too far into himself to pull out any rage for the Native Americans. 

Sadly, many of the movies I watched as a kid are no longer watchable because of the blatant racism and misogynistic attitudes. Another example is the movie, "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream house." I love Cary Grant, but in the movie he plays an advertising exec. who needs to come up with a slogan for their newest campaign product, a spam like ham. Their black maid actually comes up with the slogan which he steals from her and the white folks live happily ever after in their beautiful newly built home. 

These movies were made in the 40's and 50's, yet here we are seventy- eighty years later still murdering people of color. Children are being zip tied and hauled away. Somalians are threatened and targeted and people are gunned down if they dare try to protect the targeted.

There is no time when racism or intolerance is acceptable. You can wrap it up in pretty scenery  (The Searchers) or surround it with fantastic music (Melania) it's still a stinking skunk under that perfume. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

She's Still Dead

Image
   Ashli Babbitt was a traitor to this country. They can have all the ceremonial shenanigans the military likes to present as the deceased has been offered full military honors (We all know who requested that) it still won't negate the fact that she and thugs like her stormed a government building to do harm to others. They shit in the hallways. They carried confederate flags. They brought zip ties, bats and rage. The current regime can sugar coat it all they want but one day the orange man will be manure for his golf course grass and we can go back to truth being important. She deserved to be shot. More of them should have been shot that day. Every police officer should have followed the example of the police officer who did his job that day. These deplorables remind me of the fictional character, Ignatius J. Reilly, a lazy, selfish narcissist who decided to gather the factory employees in protest of some useless, archaic self indulgent mischief. He brought from home his soil...
Read more

Benny, Benny And No Regrets

Image
  It's just so hard to keep up with maga creeps. Here's Benny  Johnson, the guy who started the rumor that DC was a cesspool. He also claimed his house burned down while his family was in it. He's a liar. His house never burned down. You really can't believe much of what this asshat says because he has a habit of playing with facts. He also likes to steal other people's words. He has been fired and suspended numerous times for plagiarism, at least 41 times. It just boggles my mind when these people blatantly lie, then are outraged when called out. People like Johnson, Trump and Leavitt have probably lived their whole lives creating a make believe existence where lying is the norm. At some point it just becomes routine where they find lying acceptable and necessary. To me they are empty shells of mindless walking automatons. They live in a bubble of falsehoods. These are the people in charge of our country.  The NYTimes has done a story about Pinocchio Johnson. I dec...
Read more

An Empty Vessel

Image
He fills his head with Bible quotes  to silence the storm inside  An empty, hollow shell he mimics in disguise  You were not wanted You were unplanned  You are a nothing You have no stand  He bows his head and speaks in tongues  to still the flames of rage the pretender, fake, the fraud  hiding in plain sight You were a mistake  A thirty minute accident  a constant regretful memory  who seeks reason to breathe  from holy ghosts  and devils in red ties  the more you take the lesser man you are smoke and mirrors a shifting shape unseen  You are a mistake  You know it well A fake, a fraud, a lie. *Yes, I'm thinking of a certain someone we know.
Read more