I LOVE the Searchers. It may be my favorite classic western and it’s certainly my favorite from John Ford.
I think it walks the line between being about prejudice and racism while still falling into the contemporary pitfalls of the genre. It, along with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, are the closest to revisionist western Ford ever came and wrestling with the myth of the American West he helped cement.
I don’t think it’s inappropriate to have a Native American antagonist in the western, and retaliatory raids did happen on families that had nothing to do with the motivating incident (terror tactics are long since a part of American history) but such an attempt gets a little crossed when that villain is played by a white man in red face and the good hearted “half breed” is played by a fully white guy. There’s also not a great deal of irony in the ethnocentrism on display for the romanticized civilizing European culture, with other native cultures that aren’t villainous being played for laughs.
That said, it is considerably more complex than many of its contemporaries (only Devil’s Doorway really seems to compare) and the level of filmmaking, character building and performances are among the finest in the genre.
It may not be Unforgiven but if I were making a list, there wouldn’t be a whole lot between them.
It's not 100% inappropriate to have a Native American villain in a Western, but it's obviously an aspect that doesn't age the best due to the historical portrayals of Natives in Hollywood, and like you said, the film does send some muddled messages on that front, like when
WARNING: spoilers below
Martin randomly speculates that his "wife" might have been waiting to spring a trap for them with the rest of the Comanches when they find her body in their camp, an assumption that makes little sense given the context, and undermines the sympathy we might've felt for her and her senseless death.
Martin randomly speculates that his "wife" might have been waiting to spring a trap for them with the rest of the Comanches when they find her body in their camp, an assumption that makes little sense given the context, and undermines the sympathy we might've felt for her and her senseless death.
Still a good movie despite all of that, but like I said, there are some mixed messages on its racial front.
I tend to be very skeptical of creators who indulge in negative stereotypes about a certain group, especially if across their other work there is no positive (or even neutral) representation of that same group.
I agree, although I tend to stay skeptical of the director's intentions even if there are positive representations within the same film as the stereotype, due to the possibility of the former being used as a cover for the latter; it's why, in addition to Martin Scorsese's existing track record in portraying Black men onscreen, I'm also skeptical of the director's awareness (or lack of) of the way that the portrayal of "Stacks" in
Goodfellas reinforced stereotypes in that film, despite its status otherwise as one of my favorite films, and the conspicuous presence of Isiah Whitlock's particularly helpful doctor in it (although there's more to my point that just that, which I can go into more detail later if anyone's curious). It's not entirely different from the skepticism I hold towards the racism in Tarantino's films because of his track record, like I mentioned
in the Crocodile Dundee thread, regardless of if that racism is period-"appropriate".