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| 329:question:329--week_9_questions_comments [2016/10/27 15:13] – [2 Things the Movie got right] lfrey | 329:question:329--week_9_questions_comments [2018/10/31 19:33] (current) – [3 Questions about interpretation] wroszell |
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| **As my friend and I watched //My Darling Clementine//, I wondered if the film's explicit racism towards Native Americans was a depiction of the racism of the 1880's West, or a depiction of racism in 1940's Hollywood. The naming of a character "Indian Charlie" is problematic to me, because I see it as either another typically quirky, but racist, Western name (i.e. "Curly" Bill Brocious, Newman "Old Man" Clanton, etc.), or a racially stereotyped name in 1940's Hollywood. Maybe both? Let's explore this? ** --- //[[nmilroy@umw.edu|Milroy, Nancy E.]] 2016/10/27 05:50// | **As my friend and I watched //My Darling Clementine//, I wondered if the film's explicit racism towards Native Americans was a depiction of the racism of the 1880's West, or a depiction of racism in 1940's Hollywood. The naming of a character "Indian Charlie" is problematic to me, because I see it as either another typically quirky, but racist, Western name (i.e. "Curly" Bill Brocious, Newman "Old Man" Clanton, etc.), or a racially stereotyped name in 1940's Hollywood. Maybe both? Let's explore this? ** --- //[[nmilroy@umw.edu|Milroy, Nancy E.]] 2016/10/27 05:50// |
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| In reference to what Nancy said, in all likelihood the character of "Indian Charlie" was meant as simply a generic Native character. However, considering the setting of the film and how even to this day there are serious racial difficulties in Hollywood, he was most likely characterized via racist rhetoric from the 1940's. Moving on, the film inadvertently was able to accurately portray how effectively a medical doctor trained in dentistry would be able to perform surgery on a patient. Which is to say very poorly as Chihuahua ends up dead offscreen because of it. And while James Earp did not die in 1882, MORGAN Earp did in fact die in March of 1882. **It seems that much like Glory, My Darling Clementine has the general truth embedded in the film somewhere, but the details are altered which would be typical considering that the film was based off of a fictional account of the events and the stories by Wyatt Earp himself to the director John Ford.** | In reference to what Nancy said, in all likelihood the character of "Indian Charlie" was meant as simply a generic Native character. However, considering the setting of the film and how even to this day there are serious racial difficulties in Hollywood, he was most likely characterized via racist rhetoric from the 1940's. Moving on, the film inadvertently was able to accurately portray how effectively a medical doctor trained in dentistry would be able to perform surgery on a patient. Which is to say very poorly as Chihuahua ends up dead offscreen because of it. And while James Earp did not die in 1882, MORGAN Earp did in fact die in March of 1882. **It seems that much like Glory, My Darling Clementine has the general truth embedded in the film somewhere, but the details are altered which would be typical considering that the film was based off of a fictional account of the events and the stories by Wyatt Earp himself to the director John Ford.** --- //[[ccooney@umw.edu|Cooney, Corey R.]] 2016/10/27 10:19// |
| ====== 3 Questions about interpretation ====== | ====== 3 Questions about interpretation ====== |
| **The two biggest issues I had with the movie were how the film depicted race along with gender roles. In one of the beginning scene Wyatt casually comes out of the barber shop to save the town from Indian Charlie. Indian Charlie is shown shooting a gun with abandon and very drunk. When Wyatt 'corrects' him by showing him his place, he plays into the trope of Native American as the responsibility of white men. Native Americans are seen as the 'other' and cannot be part of white society because they're inferior to them. Another enduring stereotype is Clementine. Clementine serves as Chihuahua's foil, because she is a civilized and proper woman. Clementine calls Doc John, and calls out Chihuahua's hysteric moment. When Chihuahua raids her room she calls the ordeal 'hysteria' further pointing the fact of traditional gender roles. Chihuahua is a prostitute and therefore an unruly woman. Wyatt makes a pointed remark that she may need to be 'spanked' for misbehaving. Pitting against these two women further plays into the trope of endorsing traditional roles and punishing unruly women. When I was watching the film I also realized Chihuahua is supposed to represent a Latina woman, but she is played a white actress. Chihuahua is depicted as sexually available and the exotic other. She is played by a white actress which is essentially similar to 'black face.'** | **The two biggest issues I had with the movie were how the film depicted race along with gender roles. In one of the beginning scene Wyatt casually comes out of the barber shop to save the town from Indian Charlie. Indian Charlie is shown shooting a gun with abandon and very drunk. When Wyatt 'corrects' him by showing him his place, he plays into the trope of Native American as the responsibility of white men. Native Americans are seen as the 'other' and cannot be part of white society because they're inferior to them. Another enduring stereotype is Clementine. Clementine serves as Chihuahua's foil, because she is a civilized and proper woman. Clementine calls Doc John, and calls out Chihuahua's hysteric moment. When Chihuahua raids her room she calls the ordeal 'hysteria' further pointing the fact of traditional gender roles. Chihuahua is a prostitute and therefore an unruly woman. Wyatt makes a pointed remark that she may need to be 'spanked' for misbehaving. Pitting against these two women further plays into the trope of endorsing traditional roles and punishing unruly women. When I was watching the film I also realized Chihuahua is supposed to represent a Latina woman, but she is played a white actress. Chihuahua is depicted as sexually available and the exotic other. She is played by a white actress which is essentially similar to 'black face.'** |
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| The glorification of what once was... the revitalized, revived, and re-spun recollection of history. **Often times we as society remember things (people, places, times) for the good, and cast out the memories of doubt or impurity.** With that said, I feel this movie went above, and quite frankly to infinity and beyond, in telling a story that just isn't accurate. We have talked of how a movie can use a character to portray stereotypes or troupes of the time but why even use the Earps and 'Doc' John and the Clanton family to tell this over stereotypical Western movie? **The Question then is; Would this movie not have made its impact or in that time its revenue if it didn't use these characters? to what extent?** --- //[[jbaker8@umw.edu|Baker, Jonathon A.]] 2016/10/26 17:34// | The glorification of what once was... the revitalized, revived, and re-spun recollection of history. **Often times we as society remember things (people, places, times) for the good, and cast out the memories of doubt or impurity.** With that said, I feel this movie went above, and quite frankly to infinity and beyond, in telling a story that just isn't accurate. We have talked of how a movie can use a character to portray stereotypes or troupes of the time but why even use the Earps and 'Doc' John and the Clanton family to tell this over stereotypical Western movie? **The Question then is; Would this movie not have made its impact or in that time its revenue if it didn't use these characters? to what extent?** --- //[[jbaker8@umw.edu|Baker, Jonathon A.]] 2016/10/26 17:34// |
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| The film's depictions of non-whites was pretty troubling. Of course, this isn't a surprise, but it's still important. In the Southwest, Hispanics actually made up the majority of the population. Although Tombstone was a boomtown that would have seen a lot of white migrants from the East, it seemed that Hispanics were pretty underrepresented given the historical facts. Native Americans were represented in the form of "Indian Charlie," who was a violent drunk that was heroically kicked out of town by Wyatt Earp. This again perpetuates the stereotype of Native Americans as violent drunks who caused trouble and harassed white migrants in the West. The Hispanics in the town were walking stereotypes and seemed to only hang around the saloon. All of this definitely plays a part in how we portray the Old West and westward expansion and the history of racial and social conflicts in American history.** | The film's depictions of non-whites was pretty troubling. Of course, this isn't a surprise, but it's still important. In the Southwest, Hispanics actually made up the majority of the population. Although Tombstone was a boomtown that would have seen a lot of white migrants from the East, it seemed that Hispanics were pretty underrepresented given the historical facts. Native Americans were represented in the form of "Indian Charlie," who was a violent drunk that was heroically kicked out of town by Wyatt Earp. This again perpetuates the stereotype of Native Americans as violent drunks who caused trouble and harassed white migrants in the West. The Hispanics in the town were walking stereotypes and seemed to only hang around the saloon. All of this definitely plays a part in how we portray the Old West and westward expansion and the history of racial and social conflicts in American history.** |
| --- //[[dhawkins@umw.edu|Hawkins Daniel C.]] 2016/10/26 21:23// | --- //[[dhawkins@umw.edu|Hawkins Daniel C.]] 2016/10/26 21:23// |
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| Surely the character of Clementine was created for reasons aside from using the song... As has been pointed out, Clementine Carter is a fictional character. Why create her when there were women in Wyatt Earp's life, even at Tombstone? This obviously is not new for our class, Glory used fictional characters instead of historical ones, such as Charles and Lewis Douglass, as did Amistad. (I won't even get into The Patriot). **But the point I'm trying to get it is why invent new characters to serve storylines that could have easily been told with real people?**--- //[[lfrey@umw.edu|Frey Lauren E.]] 2016/10/26 23:01// | Surely the character of Clementine was created for reasons aside from using the song... As has been pointed out, Clementine Carter is a fictional character. Why create her when there were women in Wyatt Earp's life, even at Tombstone? This obviously is not new for our class, Glory used fictional characters instead of historical ones, such as Charles and Lewis Douglass, as did Amistad. (I won't even get into The Patriot). **But the point I'm trying to get at is why invent new characters to serve storylines that could have easily been told with real people?**--- //[[lfrey@umw.edu|Frey Lauren E.]] 2016/10/26 23:01// |
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| The messages about gender in the movie are fascinating. First, the way that Earp treats Chihuahua, roughly grabbing her, pulling her outside, and pushing her into a water trough clearly indicates to the audience that she is not a lady. Yes, this is because she is presumably a prostitute (or at least an "immoral" woman), but she is also Mexican. In contrast, Clementine arrives and all heads turn. Earp reveres her immediately. Doc Holliday also regards the two women differently. While Holliday seems to think that because he is sick and a gambler he can not be with Clementine, being with Chihuahua is still more than acceptable (as is leaving her). While he is shown to care enough for her to go fight her killer's family, the Clantons, this ultimately leads to his downfall, doubling down on the message that w woman like Chihuahua leads to no good. | The messages about gender in the movie are fascinating. First, the way that Earp treats Chihuahua, roughly grabbing her, pulling her outside, and pushing her into a water trough clearly indicates to the audience that she is not a lady. Yes, this is because she is presumably a prostitute (or at least an "immoral" woman), but she is also Mexican. In contrast, Clementine arrives and all heads turn. Earp reveres her immediately. Doc Holliday also regards the two women differently. While Holliday seems to think that because he is sick and a gambler he can not be with Clementine, being with Chihuahua is still more than acceptable (as is leaving her). While he is shown to care enough for her to go fight her killer's family, the Clantons, this ultimately leads to his downfall, doubling down on the message that w woman like Chihuahua leads to no good. |
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| **Why was this made into a love story? Is this entangled with the gendered and racialized messages (described above)? --Julia Peterson** | **Why was this made into a love story? Is this entangled with the gendered and racialized messages (described above)? --Julia Peterson** |
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| | This movie did a great a job at painting a very white version of the west . It only mentioned one minority group that followed the stereotype of drunk Indians in saloons. It made no mention of the diverse populations that were migrating out west. Where are the non-white people at? --William Roszell |
| ====== 4 Movie as a Primary Source about the time in which it was made ====== | ====== 4 Movie as a Primary Source about the time in which it was made ====== |
| This film was made in a time when western genre films were becoming increasingly popular. In 1946 the west was still seen as an open land full of promise, but equally as harsh. Films like //My Darling Clementine// played off this idea, showing how the west could wrangled by one tough cowboy, while throwing in the usual western tropes such as a romantic angle, a gang rivalry, and the classic shootout. --- //[[nfanning@umw.edu|Fanning Neal R.]] 2016/10/26 09:39// | This film was made in a time when western genre films were becoming increasingly popular. In 1946 the west was still seen as an open land full of promise, but equally as harsh. Films like //My Darling Clementine// played off this idea, showing how the west could wrangled by one tough cowboy, while throwing in the usual western tropes such as a romantic angle, a gang rivalry, and the classic shootout. --- //[[nfanning@umw.edu|Fanning Neal R.]] 2016/10/26 09:39// |
| “My Darling Clementine” has no shortage of elements that characterize the 1940’s, a time when story telling was more imperative in cinema than fact telling historic events. As far as the story, this film (to me) is the embodiment of the (now Classic) Western genre which was hugely popular at that time. **The film’s cast is comprised of actors who display the typical Hollywood, glamorous features/demeanors, for roles that probably don’t realistically line-up.** These architypes include the suave debonair males who epitomize masculinity, or the “wide-eyed dames” who encompass feminization (for that time). In regards to the latter, **this era in film also limits its female roles to one of two types, the “well reserved (behaved) woman of modesty” who ends up surviving the film’s turmoil, or the “less modest woman of loose morals” who is essentially ruined as a result of her insubordination.** Both of these characters are used in the film though one, Linda Darnell’s Chihuahua, was intended to be of a different ethnicity which is another common trait of that era in film. --- //[[dblount@umw.edu|Blount, David]] 2016/10/27 0330// | “My Darling Clementine” has no shortage of elements that characterize the 1940’s, a time when story telling was more imperative in cinema than fact telling historic events. As far as the story, this film (to me) is the embodiment of the (now Classic) Western genre which was hugely popular at that time. **The film’s cast is comprised of actors who display the typical Hollywood, glamorous features/demeanors, for roles that probably don’t realistically line-up.** These architypes include the suave debonair males who epitomize masculinity, or the “wide-eyed dames” who encompass feminization (for that time). In regards to the latter, **this era in film also limits its female roles to one of two types, the “well reserved (behaved) woman of modesty” who ends up surviving the film’s turmoil, or the “less modest woman of loose morals” who is essentially ruined as a result of her insubordination.** Both of these characters are used in the film though one, Linda Darnell’s Chihuahua, was intended to be of a different ethnicity which is another common trait of that era in film. --- //[[dblount@umw.edu|Blount, David]] 2016/10/27 0330// |
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| | My Darling Clementine is a classic western that attempts to depict the definition of what a manliness in 1940’s .--William Roszell |
| ====== 5 Comparing the reading to the movie ====== | ====== 5 Comparing the reading to the movie ====== |
| **The movie reflects the way people romanticize the idea of outlaws and cowboys shown in the description of the Popular Account of the Death of Jesse James. In both, people who were never there and do not know what really happened tell a story of what they think to have happened even if it is not the full truth or in such detail. In the case of the primary source, they used flowery language and what they think may have went down to make the story sound better. In the movie they use a fictional retelling of an event to make it sound better**. --- //[[mlindse2@umw.edu|Lindsey, Megan E.]] 2016/10/26 16:56// | **The movie reflects the way people romanticize the idea of outlaws and cowboys shown in the description of the Popular Account of the Death of Jesse James. In both, people who were never there and do not know what really happened tell a story of what they think to have happened even if it is not the full truth or in such detail. In the case of the primary source, they used flowery language and what they think may have went down to make the story sound better. In the movie they use a fictional retelling of an event to make it sound better**. --- //[[mlindse2@umw.edu|Lindsey, Megan E.]] 2016/10/26 16:56// |
