Manifest Destiny hung out to dry (again)

The movie is old hat for "boomers"

You didn't need to be a psychic to foresee difficulties for the Kevin Costner western movie "Horizon." A western? A western with the standard categories of characters including the "Indians?" We see the Indians on screen and know exactly what lay ahead for them, their displacement from the way of life they had over time immemorial. 

And I'm not suggesting that the Indians weren't going to have to be dragged into a new age. The new age was going to sweep across the newly "developed" continent. I put "developed" in quotes as an immediate reaction to how anthropology professors would react. Oh they'd be down on me, diss me, imply that I was so totally unknowing. "How can you say who the more developed people are?" they'd ask incredulously. 

I think deep down they'd see the obvious truth, and always have. It's just that they built up their own "racket" in academia. 

But society is progressively getting wiser to all that. We are slowly beating down the last bastions of pretentious academia. Look at how the flawed "academic research" is now being exposed at our University of Minnesota. Formal retractions are being issued. Story made the top of Page 1 of our flagship newspaper, the Star Tribune. Big headline type. 

 

Shall set us free

The Internet is a relentless meritocracy that helps the truth always rise to the surface. Do not believe the doubting words of academics about the Internet. The academics underestimate the ability of people to sift through it all, find what's credible. And the Internet has steadily grown with its resources to become more reliable. We can remember that in its early days, the situation was not so promising. 

When LBJ's former high-level associate joined in with those who thought TWA Flight 800 was taken down by a missile, the news article reported his fairly advanced age near the top, maybe in the lead sentence. The obvious suggestion being, that this old person had gotten taken in by "something on the Internet." 

"You can't believe what you see on the Internet." The line had some currency once, has since become sounding dated. An analogy I'll suggest: referring to television as "the boob tube." If you used that term today, most people would think it odd. 

So I have spent several paragraphs here to try to demonstrate that the advancing Europeans did have a more "developed" culture and lifestyle than the Indians. The confluence of the two cultures was surely sad. Not sure I'd be "entertained" to see a movie like "Horizon" that reminds us of it. 

You must understand: "History in its essence is the story of the strong exploiting the weak." We must not shy away from the realities. We cannot waste time today trying to reason that what the Europeans did to the Indians was totally unjust. "Manifest destiny" was going to happen. The ideal would be to minimize the suffering. Also, I guess, to get the Indians to adjust to the new standards. 

I guess that was the point behind the "Indian school" that marked the start of our campus here in Morris MN, although people have tried to enlighten me about how the purpose was actually very dark, even malevolent. I won't say those people are wrong. And I'd be distressed to learn of anything that was really malevolent. 

 

Tone-deaf Hollywood

Our society has progressed quite far since the days when movies and television did little if anything to help us understand Indians as human beings with depth. Maybe some of the old Hollywood should actually be banned. And here's a question: is there room for any sense of humor in how Indians of the Old West are portrayed? I would suggest this is a pretty deep question. 

George Carlin, his look in 1965

I personally cut quite a bit of slack for a comedian like George Carlin doing his famous "Indian Sergeant" routine. He really made his career with this. This was during his "first incarnation" as a comedian: he looked clean-cut. Later he morphed into the counter-culture image, i.e. hippie-ish, which appealed to the youth of the 1970s. That includes me. Was this a genuine change or merely a calculated one? Hmmm. 

So George Carlin did a routine from the point of really poking fun at all the old western characters. Ditto with the movie "Texas Across the River" starring Dean Martin. Consider Joey Bishop as an Indian! Was there anything wrong with that when it was so broadly satirical? I guess I have to respect people who say "yes." I personally demur from that. 

Remember how the Peter Graves character was made to look so foolish in "Texas Across the River?" He was white of course. The cavalry leader. "Harrar hare!" Boomers who grew up with that movie are going to smile at that reference. Graves was not a comedian of course, he just read funny lines. The movie included the boilerplate western scene of settlers circling the wagons and fighting an Indian attack. First the Indians "lined up on the hill." 

The boomers soaked in all this material for years, first seriously and later as parody, and so now we're supposed to get excited about Costner's "Horizon." Well I'll pass. Costner knew he was taking a risk with this. All the king's horses aren't going to help him now.

Addendum: Remember the "Indians" in the Three Stooges shorts? I thought they were a barrel of laughs. The Three Stooges also showed "Negro" characters scaring easily. Can't we all just have some fun? Same with Johnny Carson's character "Aunt Blabby" parody on old people. He had to cancel the character. But I remember one spokesman of a senior citizen group saying, in effect, "aw c'mon, it's all in fun."

 

Addendum #2: I did not conclude my thoughts about TWA Flight 800. So much time has passed, emotions have dimmed. Time created emotional distance ultimately. Not enough time has passed to expect blockbuster movies about 9/11. I expect the time will come. 

As for Flight 800, nothing dark or conspiratorial in my thoughts at all, as I suggest it was a military training accident. But, with consequences that would be so devastatingly embarrassing for the U.S., our government could simply never announce it that way. 

Why wasn't the National Safety and Transportation Board allowed to take over as per routine? "This is what they do." Instead, the CIA? 

So, this is not like some exotic theory about the JFK assassination. This ought to be mainstream. And I actually think it is getting there.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com