Wednesday, October 10, 2007
I didn't think they were that bad...maybe I was wrong...
I'm here to talk about the portrayal of the Apache Native American tribe in the movie Stagecoach. First of all, their '"theme song" was hilarious. There's the stagecoach driving along to some nice "driving music" when all the sudden DUN DUN DUN!!!! here come the Apache. Now this wouldn't have been so cheesy, but oh no DUN DUN DUN!!!! they came back. Now I realize that at the time, this was probably the only thing they could come up with to make the scene seem much more dramatic. But by today's standards, it was way cheesy. Made me laugh a few times. In closing, John Ford, get a time machine...seriously.
I'm not really done though. The other thing I noticed is that the Indians are given no reason for being "on the war path." Now I understand that this was the common attitude at the time, but still, it's a little too..un...politically correct for me. I think this movie would have been a little bit better if there had been some reason as to why hearing the name "Geronimo(sp?)" was so bad. In general I guess I just would have liked to know more about the Apache tribe and their reasons for doing what they were doing.
~PSH
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5 comments:
Very true points. i found it hilarious too and was left wondering why the indians were so pissed off. i geuss it just reflects the time period it was made in
The entire soundtrack in Stagecoach made me want to deafen myself. Every single time they show the stagecoach driving around they play the same tune, over and over and over and over and over and over. And when they show it again, they play a slightly different arrangement over and over and over and over and over and over. I'm glad you found some humor in it because by the time the movie got that far my tolerance for crappy music was shot. As wrong as this may sound, I think John Ford chose to make the indians savages because it keeps the movie simpler. If you dive into the back-story concerning the indians, it would probably reveal some of terrible things the white people did, and that's a lot more complicated than the movie was meant to go. I think the Indians are meant to be part of the wilderness and nothing more, so they aren't characterized at all. I don't condone that, but it's a possibility.
Heh preston, our class did "My Darling Clementine", but by the way you described the music, I want to see Stagecoach now.
Indians always seem to get the short end of the stick. first they got booted from their lands, then they got forced into dying, barren reservations, then came the doomesday soundtrack from Stagecoach. Even today, they get Pine Ridge, and the UND Fighting Sioux. Movies before the PC police do have some appeal, in my opinion. In modern times, they become inadvertendly self-depricating. Watch Birth of a Nation, and you will know what I mean.
---Colin
yeah I watched my darling clemantine too, judging by both yours and bades descriptions, stagecoach was pretty repetitive. Although the music sounds like it could be comical, I dont really see myself going to see it just based off that. Good writeup though.
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