The White Supremacist Syndrome Hollywood has shaped the "tough guy" image of the USA and exports this "don't mess with me" persona to the rest of the world as its contribution to the advancement of American jingoism and imperialism. The frontiersman represents the epitome of American masculinity. He's everywhere fighting Indians, Nazis,Commies, Arabs, sissies and space creatures, playing out the mythical narrative of American birth and continual rebirth Hollywood loves this guy because nothing is more American than he is.
The myth sells a lot of movie tickets. The Frontier myth is America's secular creation narrative--the story of how the waves of the historical frontier experience simultaneously birthed and cleansed the nation.
In this way European culture was said to be stripped away by the challenges posed on and by the savage frontier; and then, in turn, through an ill-defined, nearly mystical, quasi-magical process of environmental determinism, America was born.
That is, as the inevitable result of this transformation, the prototypical American emerged--Natty Bumpoo, John Wayne, Indiana Jones, the Marlboro Man--take your pick.
Hollywood has played and continues to play an important role in this process for two reasons. First, movies serve as our most influential history teachers, reaching and swaying audiences that the professional historian cannot even dream of.
Just think about it. You know what gladiators, Nazis, the Titanic and cowboys looked like because you've seen them in film (or, possibly worse, on television).
Second, the frontiersman represents the epitome of American masculinity. And he's everywhere fighting Indians, Nazis, Commies, Arabs, sissies and space creatures, playing out the mythical narrative of American birth and continual rebirth. Hollywood loves this guy because nothing is more American than he is (and, for corresponding reasons, he sells a lot of movie tickets).
As a result, Hollywood has been instrumental in promoting America's imperial project. Without domestic support aggressive foreign policy is not workable in the long term (witness George W. Bush).
The formula pays rich dividends, too, whether it's Indiana Jones smacking down Arabs, Hart Solo gunfighting his way across the galaxy, Sigourney Weaver as Ripley playing against gender type by beating up an alien, or the Duke picking off Injuns/ Vietcong in the Green Berets. The choices are nearly endless and the recipe is simple.
All you need is a version of the frontier story and a leading man who can play a plausible frontiersman--in short, a hunk and a few savages.
Visual images are far more effective than words in relating the simple emotive force of myth.
A myth is nothing more than a story that a culture tells to itself about itself in order to portray itself in a positive light. It's all about perception. Physical reality is largely beside the point.
Here's the basic frontier mythical tale. See if you recognize it. A ruggedly handsome, innately clever and athletic white male simply appears on the frontier, where free land abounds.
He's challenged. Maybe it's from Indians, Mexicans, men in black hats, varmints, whatever. Doesn't matter. The point is the setting--civilization versus savagery. And that the white guy prevails.
He saves the day and he sets the standard.
He conquers the land and makes it his own. He makes it fit for civilization, for women and children and decency and apple pie. It's the movie Far and Away, starring Tom Cruise.
It's Richard Harris in Man in the Wilderness. It's Bogart in African Queen. John Wayne in Hondo, in the Man Who Shot Lierty Valance, in Stagecoach. Gary Cooper in The Virginian.
Kevin Costner as the fair-haired saviour of all Indians (except the Pawnee) in Dances with Wolves. Star Wars. Dirty Harry. And on and on.
It's nearly everywhere in American popular culture. And its signifiers are so powerful--tumbleweed, Monument Valley, cowboys, feathered headdresses, gunfighters, saloons, men on horseback.
Clint Eastwood's eyes, that they have the power to invoke the myth in stories that fall well outside the frontier--as in advertising, science fiction, action movies, and the like.
While the symbols may seem innocuous--say, an ad for a jeep sitting atop a mesa in Arizona, or the skin color of the evil lion in Lion King, or the Hispanic accent of the bad bugs in a Bug's Life--they subtly reinforce (or not so subtly in the case of a typical Schwarznegger flick) white American conquest. Mark Anderson
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