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329:question:329--week_9_questions_comments-2026 [2026/11/01 16:22] – [How does this movie work as a primary source about the time in which it was made?] 174.219.244.194329:question:329--week_9_questions_comments-2026 [2026/11/01 16:25] (current) – [The "So What" Question -- Why should we care about the movie and its version of history?] 174.219.244.194
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 My Darling Clementine is one iteration of Wyatt Earp's “story” among many others. This film does not address a major event in American history, and does not have the same historical rewriting effect other films we’ve watched do. This film was directed by one of the most famous American movie creators of all time, which does lend it more popularity than others. I do not believe that this single film matters much, but this film existing alongside the greater Western genre does matter. Many people get their first impressions about American expansion westward from media depicting stories like this film does. While school does teach about manifest destiny and all that, the day to day life of people is lost. This is filled in by Western media. Stereotypes of Native Americans and other groups that American citizens came into contact with are rampant among this genre, and shape public attitudes towards these groups where they continue to reside today. -Katie D. My Darling Clementine is one iteration of Wyatt Earp's “story” among many others. This film does not address a major event in American history, and does not have the same historical rewriting effect other films we’ve watched do. This film was directed by one of the most famous American movie creators of all time, which does lend it more popularity than others. I do not believe that this single film matters much, but this film existing alongside the greater Western genre does matter. Many people get their first impressions about American expansion westward from media depicting stories like this film does. While school does teach about manifest destiny and all that, the day to day life of people is lost. This is filled in by Western media. Stereotypes of Native Americans and other groups that American citizens came into contact with are rampant among this genre, and shape public attitudes towards these groups where they continue to reside today. -Katie D.
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 +I think we should care about My Darling Clementine because movies like this can change how people picture historical figures and events. The movie makes Wyatt Earp look like this ‘perfect hero’ who came into town to bring ‘peace and justice’, even though in reality he was not exactly like that. I think Hollywood wanted its audiences to have someone to root for, so they turned the real people and events into a more entertaining Western story. Even if the movie isn’t completely historically accurate, it is still important because it shows how Hollywood helped create the American legend of the Wild West. —Cait Edwards .
  
 Like most of John Ford’s filmography, My Darling Clementine perpetuates the fantastical ideal of the Western Frontier, adding to America's long list of mythology: Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, Buffalo Bill, and, naturally, Wyatt Earp. As such, America’s fanaticism regarding the Wild West has not, and will never be, a passing fancy, as seen in “Theodore Roosevelt Describes the Cowboy-Land, 1893,” where Roosevelt says, “most of the men with whom I was intimately thrown during my life on the frontier and in the wilderness were good fellows, hard-working, brave, resolute, and truthful.” However, this description ignores—much like the film itself does, given it was created in 1946—a majority of the westward expansion's more delicate intricacies, such as the prosecution of Native Americans and conflicts between urban and rural centers of commerce. Regardless, My Darling Clementine is one of the foundational pillars of the Western genre and, much like the Shootout at O.K. Corral, will remain in America's memory as the keystone of the idealized Wild West. - Bailee E.  Like most of John Ford’s filmography, My Darling Clementine perpetuates the fantastical ideal of the Western Frontier, adding to America's long list of mythology: Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, Buffalo Bill, and, naturally, Wyatt Earp. As such, America’s fanaticism regarding the Wild West has not, and will never be, a passing fancy, as seen in “Theodore Roosevelt Describes the Cowboy-Land, 1893,” where Roosevelt says, “most of the men with whom I was intimately thrown during my life on the frontier and in the wilderness were good fellows, hard-working, brave, resolute, and truthful.” However, this description ignores—much like the film itself does, given it was created in 1946—a majority of the westward expansion's more delicate intricacies, such as the prosecution of Native Americans and conflicts between urban and rural centers of commerce. Regardless, My Darling Clementine is one of the foundational pillars of the Western genre and, much like the Shootout at O.K. Corral, will remain in America's memory as the keystone of the idealized Wild West. - Bailee E. 
  
  
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