The Searchers analysis

The Indians were represented as bad people.  They were the "bad guys" of the movie.  They were portrayed as savages, murderers.  They would set traps to kill families and kidnap women.  For example in the film, when they let all of the cows loose and killed them, to get the men out of there houses, and then the Indians went and burned down the house of the one family.  They killed the family members that were left behind, and kidnapped the 2 girls of the household, Lucy and Debbie.  


The only Indian character that was shown in depth was Scar, the chief.  None of the Indian actors had any main roles or even many lines.  Scar was the only one with a main role as an Indian.  He was portrayed as a savage and a murderer.  They even showed all the scalps of his that he took.  This could also be a stereotype of the Indians.  


Also, the theme of the movie was another Cowboy VS. Indian type.  The cowboys are the good guys going after the savage, bad guy Indians.  The cowboys are always shown in some way as hero's, as being noble.  Like when Ethan went to go save Debbie.  He was being shown as noble.  

Stereotypes in The Searchers

                The stereotype of the “typical” American Indian is present in many western movies of both the past and the present.  It’s no wonder that this portrayal of the American Indian in these types of movies is the image that most people associate with them.  Their warrior calls and essentially their essence in these movies is what sets them apart from the settlers and makes them look inferior.  From the first time the Indians appear during The Searchers, these stereotypes already emerge.  Some think Indians are cruel and heartless, and these characteristics are supported by their actions in the movie.  This idea is first demonstrated when Ethan’s family is killed and the girls are kidnapped.  Prior to these events occurring, not much background is given to what has actually been occurring between the Indians and the settlers, so when the girls are kidnapped, the audience automatically assumes the Indians did this with provocation from the settlers.  This essentially fuels the idea of Indians being heartless and their actions unjustified.  It’s also shown when Ethan and Martin finally catch up with Scar and he shows them the pole filled with the peoples’ hair and scalps.  This idea of kidnapping settlers that is present in The Searchers, also supports Mary Rowlandson’s account of the time when she was kidnapped.  Many of the kidnapped people were killed while some actually became a part of the tribe.

                These attributes that are often associated with American Indians directly correlates with their onscreen portrayal.  Indians are often given few or no lines in order to make them appear unintelligent.  The few lies that some speak are often in their native language and most of the audience has no way of understanding them.  Also, one way in which Indians are represented as the villain is during attacks.  When the Indians are approaching, loud, booming drums are played.  Also when the settlers are killed by Indian attacks, it’s often seen as unjustified because the settlers feel as though they own the land and they did nothing to deserve the violence that the Indians inflicted.  In contrast, when Indians are killed it’s cause for celebration because they “deserve” it.  For example, in The Searchers, Ethan and Martin are trying to rescue Debra.  When they encounter Indians and kill them, their actions seem justified because it’s for the noble reason of rescuing a child when in reality, this is murder.

                I also found it interesting how the settlers were all against the Indians.  When Ethan found out Martin was part Indian he seemed angered by this and insults him throughout the movie because of it.  They often referred to Indians as savages and when they found Debra was “part” of the tribe, Ethan wanted to kill her rather than let her live with the Indians.  Another interesting aspect of The Searchers is the role of religion in Indian society.  When Ethan came across an Indian that was buried, he shot him in both eyes to prevent him from moving on to the spiritual world.  This was done to show both power over the Indians and to insult the Indians’ beliefs.  It seems as though the cinematography purposely focused on the stereotypes of Indians because of the events that were occurring at the time The Searchers was made, and this strengthens peoples’ judgments to create more hostility between races.  It also reinforces the idea of whites being superior.

               

My Thoughts on "The Searchers"

To be honest, I expected "The Searchers" to be all about Native American stereotypes. They did manage to throw in some stereotypes on them, but they also played a gender role as well, depicting women as helpless, constantly in need to help or saving, overly emotional, and not very intelligent. To portray the gender roles, they first showed Lucy not listening to her mother when she told her not to light the lamp. I didn't believe that to be the reason that the family's house was destroyed and the girls were kidnapped, but they still made Lucy look foolish for not listening to her mother. After her mother yelled at her, Lucy randomly screams then starts crying. This made her seem extremely over-emotional. Maybe it was just the way I saw things but that's what I thought of the scene. They also had the scene where Martin accidentally buys himself a native wife. Not only does that show how little the tribe thought of women that they would let her go for a couple of hats, but it showed how poorly Martin treated her. Yes, he didn't want her as a wife, but he didn't need to kick her down the hill when she laid next to him.
As previously stated, "The Searchers" also shows an Indian stereotype. Everybody expects to see Indians in westerns, usually with the braids and feathers in their hairs, always riding on horseback. This movie not only hit that visual stereotype on the head, but made the natives seem like savages while Ethan and the rest of the gang seemed like good guys. They achieved this through the tricks of cinematography. When they showed Scar or another Native American, they always had the typical drum beats in the background, or shots of them charging towards people, both of which give off an aggressive visual. Not only that, but they had Scar showing off his "trophy" of scalp victims in his uncomfortable looking teepee in a village of unwelcoming and uncomfortable looking teepees. If the Indians spoke, which was far and few between, they either spoke in a native language or said something rude and insulting in English. They also make Ethan occasionally seem incredibly against the Native American race. So much so, that he tries to kill Debbie when he first sees her and takes Debbie out of his will because she wanted to stay with "her people".
All the while, they used cinematography to make Ethan and the team seem like decent guys. They always played a more positive background music if showing them, always had their homes look more welcoming, and always had them appear as if everything they did had a good intention. Aside from the gender roles, the racism, and the violence, "The Searchers" was a pretty decent film. I did find it interesting, though, that all the gender roles, racism, and violence was okay to be shown in this film because they had the good intention of rescuing their family.

A Few Points in "The Searchers"

The first point I would like to make is the obvious racism towards, of course Native Americans, Hispanics, and the Union. I attempted to count the different names John Wayne's character used for Native Americans, my tally ended at 7. It's very easy to see how Native Americans have a distorted view of themselves from years back until today. Constant degradation everywhere (in this film especially) must've had massive impact on society's view of American Indians. Although this movie was like many of it's kind during that time, I was most surprised to see that Ethan openly insulted white Americans. Usually in movies of this nature one group of people is always seen as the superior, John Wayne appeared to be the "lonely soldier" with a bleak opinion of everyone who wasn't exactly like him.

The second point I found was the irony of the intelligence of Ethan. He loathes everything that has to do with Native Americans. However, he knows multiple native languages, their customs, and their religious beliefs. He lives around and among the wild, sounds to me like he shares quite a few similarities with the Native Americans portrayed in the film. Not to mention that his closest friend (Martin) is part Cherokee, I found there to be many inconsistencies in the film.

Related to John Wayne's character is his constant blind ambition for revenge on the entire race of Native Americans. Even though he's an ass to EVERYONE, they all look up to him. They always use him as the rock of their operations. How can the hero do very bad things to the "good guys" in the film and then in the end they all love him. It's obvious that film making has come a long way with solid plot structures.

The Role of Racism in "The Searchers"

     The unabashed racism that drives the plot of "The Searchers" is so prevalent that without it the movie wouldn't make much sense. Many of the deep-rooted stereotypes of Native Americans that were first perpetuated by Mary Rowlandson almost 300 years earlier are still used to establish the plot of the movie and the motives of the characters. While the character's  specific beliefs about Indians are not necessarily discussed, there is an underlying hatred towards these "savages" that makes the whole movie plausible.
     Perhaps the earliest indication of Ethan's feelings towards Indians is witnessed when he first meets Martin. He immediately asks if Martin is some kind of "half-breed" and makes no effort to hide his contempt for him after finding out that he is one-eighth Cherokee, continuing to belittle him throughout the movie. After the posse sets out in search of Lucy and Debbie, it seems as if retrieving the girls is of utmost importance and they will stop at nothing to do so. However, the journey quickly dissolves into a hate-fueled mission of vengeance. Along the way, Ethan goes so far as to shoot a dead Indian in the face - twice - simply to belittle the Indian's spiritual beliefs. When Martin accidentally trades for a squaw wife, he is mocked and the thought of marrying an Indian is seen as ridiculous. The hatred and racism are so intrinsic to the story that it becomes believable that the  "hero" is out to perform a mercy killing on one of his own family members simply because they have spent too much time amongst the "savages."  It seems to get less and less clear whether Debbie is of any importance to Ethan towards the end of his search or if he is only after revenge in the form of Scar's murder.
     What is most interesting to me is not the fact that racism was so prevalent, because it was a part of nearly every western movie from that time period. What I am curious about is the intentions of the people who made "The Searchers." A person could make the argument that they are clearly perpetuating the mistrust towards Indians and using racial stereotypes just to drive the plot. However, it seems that they do make an effort to humanize the Indians a bit. After Ethan spends years searching for Scar to exact his revenge, Scar reveals that his actions were driven by the death of his own two sons at the hands of white men. Essentially this puts Ethan and Scar in the same moral standing and makes their motives equally valid. Also, although Martin's squaw wife Look is mocked earlier, when she is found dead it is seen as an atrocity because she is an innocent and the viewer is made to feel sympathetic. Perhaps this was to represent the many innocent Indians who died in the quest for revenge against the "savage" members of their tribes.  Of course, Ethan's conviction waivers at the end and he does not kill Debbie but rather embraces her in a rare show of compassion. This not-so-subtly represents the changing of our hero's mind to see that, although maybe he doesn't exactly love Indians, perhaps they are not so awful that merely spending time with them would make a person a candidate for execution. Clearly John Wayne is the unquestionable, infallible hero of every movie he is in, and perhaps the idea was to show that if his leathery cowboy mind can be changed then there may be hope for us all. With all of the racist imagery that is used quite effectively throughout this movie, I have to wonder if the filmmakers were knowingly perpetuating these racist ideas or if they were trying to represent them from a more satirical angle to make the viewer take stock of their own beliefs.

thought on The Searchers

The aspects of cinematography that Kilpatrick and Simmon addressed are obvious in this movie. The settlers, Ethan in particular, are given a positive image through the background music, camera angles, lighting, and environment. The Indians on the other hand are given negative background music, very few if any lines, and are shown in the most hostile environments of the film. There was not one scene where an Indians teepee seemed like home, but every settlers home had a warm fire going and happy people inside. All of these differences play a role in the viewer’s image of each group. The stereotypes perpetuated through this movie reflect lingering traces of the attack on settlers that Mary Rowlandson wrote about. The initial attack on the settlers in both the film and Rowlandson’s writing happened for an unknown reason, people were unfairly killed, and someone is taken captive. This is nearly identical to Rowlandson’s account of the Indian raid she experienced. It is very clear that stereotypes were perpetuated throughout this film by the cinematography and the plot.

I found it interesting that this film seemed to support the belief that integration is never really possible even under the best circumstances. Martin was raised as family but Ethan, the man who saved him, disrespects him for his mixed heritage and repeatedly reminds him that he has no family. And later in the movie when his niece calls the Comanche ‘Her people’ he disowns her in his will. Martin and Ethan do have a bond by the end of the film but it seemed to me that it was more of a friendship formed through their years of searching and traveling together than a bond because they were related. I also found it interesting that Ethan is portrayed as the hero of the story because of the strength and endurance he exhibits.  His irrational behavior seems to be completely overlooked because of the final result. He fights to save his niece despite all odds, placing family first; this is a noble cause but he is blatantly violent and racist throughout the film. It is interesting that his racism and violence is accepted, and often encouraged, because he is fighting for a noble cause.

Starter Questions for _The Searchers_

The Searchers is set in 1868 (historical, political, cultural context):

• Ethan (John Wayne) is home from the Civil War (ended in 1865), fought on the side of the Confederacy (uniform, saber)
• Abolition, Reconstruction, lots of backlash
• Land appropriation in the west, battles, and Indian massacres are on the rise
• there is still a "frontier" and the sense of "manifest destiny" is strong
• image of encirclement and self-defense affects power relationships between the groups
• parallels to Little Bighorn and Custer's Seventh Cavalry

The Searchers is made in 1956 (historical, political, cultural context):

• 1954: Brown vs. Board of Education: Desegregation of Schools (March 1956 forced open after 381-day bus boycott)
• Martin Pawley, a mixed-race American embraced by a white American family
• Soviet nuclear threat/"containment"
• fear of mutually assured destruction; families constructed bomb shelters
• anti-Communist witch hunts (but in 1954 50% supported McCarthy)

Questions:

• Through what character is the story told? With whom do you identify?  Why?
• How are Indians represented?  What stereotypes do you see?  Are there ways in which the Indian characters seem to have depth?
• How are gender roles present in the film?  
• What commentary does the film seem to make about integration?  Is Martin "integrated"?  
• Is Ethan a hero or a villain?  Is he a part of the family?  Why or why not?
• How does the movie fit in with your readings about Westerns by Kilpatrick and Simmon?
• Do you see any lingering traces of Mary Rowlandson or John Smith?