There were questions that I had about this Long Ranger, although mostly, the questions were affected by all of the overwhelming negative reviews that the movie had received.
People did not seem to like it. Hardly anyone seemed very enthusiastic about it. Many were criticizing Johnny Depp's portrayal of Tonto. There were claims that the movie was too violent, and that westerns never do very well in movie sales. It just seemed that people could not pile enough low expectations in regards to this movie.
Here's a link to one article in particular that seemed somehow particularly disturbing, essentially alleging that Depp's portrayal of Tonto does little to nothing more than reinforce some of thr worst stereotypes of natives that modern-day Americans tend to hold (io9.com):
http://io9.com/tonto-wtf-675616096
The movie is completely torn apart in this blog. So low was this uy's opinion of the movie, and in particular, of Johnny Depp's portrayal of the Tonto character, that he compares him to Jar Jar Binks - one of the notoriously most hated characters in movie history. Jar Jar Binks was the hated character in the newest Star Wars Trilogy that left fans feeling bitter and angry, and here, the author is alleging that Tonto might just do the same for fans of the Lone Ranger.
Here, in short, is the beef this blogger (I believe her name is Annalee Newitz) had about the Tonto character:
The problem with Depp's Tonto is he's the butt of the movie's jokes, not the trickster who reminds us that our preconceptions about Indians are foolish.
She then goes on to quote a review from Jerry Adler in Smithsonian:
Although Tonto’s grammar has improved greatly since the “Me go now” dialogue of 60 years ago, Depp still reads his lines in the sententious, wisdom-of-the-elders cadences that Indians call “Tonto-speak.” “He could have treated the Tonto-speak as a joke, like the spirit-talk and the funny hat,” muses Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., director of the Native American Cultural Center at Yale. “In 2013, that could work. But by playing it straight, he gives the impression that Indians really were like that. And I’m afraid that Tonto is the only Indian most Americans will ever see.”
That's not it, of course. She mentions a part of the movie in which Tonto sees the aftermath of his entire village being slaughtered, and has this to say about it, claiming that it detracts even further from this portrayal of Tonto:
This backstory doesn't add gravitas to Tonto; instead, it makes the killing of Indians into just another aspect of his general foolishness. The Lone Ranger folds genocide into a slapstick routine, making the victim into the punchline.
She takes aim at the movie, and what it is trying to do. That it does not know exactly what it is trying to accomplish, in other words. She writes:
This movie is neither a media meta-commentary, nor a tale of how people cope with tragedy through laughter. It's just a really awkward attempt to preserve the campy tone of the 1950s Lone Ranger TV series, while also inserting all the things that white liberals learned from watching Dances with Wolves.
Finally, she concludes his blog in this way:
There are already many reasons why the reboot frenzy in pop culture is impoverishing our abilities to tell fresh, challenging stories. But when a movie like The Lone Ranger gets remade like this, with its Tonto stereotype intact, we don't just starve ourselves creatively. We starve ourselves politically too.
I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. I am often criticized for reading too much, even far too much, into things. But maybe, for once, I'm guilty of reading too little into a movie, and the possibility that the portrayal of an Indian could be portrayed in a manner that reinforces stereotypes and, thus, could be interpreted as racist, on some level.
Don't get me wrong: I understand on some level what she is saying. At least, in theory. There is indeed a lot of hypocrisy in what "white liberals learned from watching Dances with Wolves." Indeed, Johnny Depp has been relaying that he might have some native blood in him. Perhaps having a white actor portray Tonto, or any Native American, is in poor taste. Perhaps there is some validity to the stereotypes that this blogger claims are portrayed in the latest incarnation of "The L:one Ranger".
Yet, I get the distinct feeling that this blogger, whatever her agenda, specifically went into reviewing this movie with a very cynical mind, intent on not liking it, for reasons all her own. It could not reinvent itself, as she claims, because she would never allow it to. I am not entirely convinced that she simply feels that there is no room for "The Lone Ranger" (the character from which the movie and television shows get their name, yet who barely gets mentioned as a character at all in this blog review, by the way) in our modern world, that the existence of a cowboy in a white hat essentially starves the nation creatively and politically.
One might get the feeling that this movie is a complete disaster from her perspective, and that it has absolutely no good points about it whatsoever. But I watched a brief piece on CBS Sunday Morning, and felt that Depp and the others involved with the movie acquitted themselves fairly well, truth be told. Here, you can judge for yourself by watching the short clip of Depp discussing his role as Tonto in the following link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50149826n
Or, here is a small piece on him elaborating about his role:, where he is saying, essentially, that the native Tonto that he always watched as a kid was subservient to the white Lone Ranger, and he wanted to change the nature of that relationship:
"I remember watching it as a kid, with Jay Silverheels and Clayton Moore, and going: 'Why is the f--ing Lone Ranger telling Tonto what to do?'" Depp told Entertainment Weekly. "I liked Tonto, even at that tender age, and knew Tonto was getting the unpleasant end of the stick here. That's stuck with me. And when the idea came up [for the movie], I started thinking about Tonto and what could be done in my own small way try to -- 'eliminate' isn't possible -- but reinvent the relationship, to attempt to take some of the ugliness thrown on the Native Americans, not only in The Lone Ranger, but the way Indians were treated throughout history of cinema, and turn it on its head."
Taken from "Johnny Depp's 'Lone Ranger' Seeks To 'Reinvent' Tonto, Native American Treatment" from the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/johnny-depps-lone-ranger-tonto-native-americans_n_859279.html
Yet, not only does this blogger not give any credit to Depp for this rather intelligent, and very different, approach to the Tonto character, but she does not even so much as dignify it by mentioning it anywhere in her review. Apparently, it is beneath her dignity to give even that much credit to the movie that she obviously so despises, because it starves the country creatively and politically.
Perhaps, if you go into a movie like this with an agenda both culturally and politically, you might indeed find reason for fault. But, by the way, if I actually need to remind people, The Lone Ranger was originally meant for kids, generally speaking. It never pretended to be the defining staterment for the country creatively or politically
Anyone who knows me, or follows this blog, knows that I can be a pretty damn political person. Perhaps, I can be dismissed by people like this for being a "white liberal" who enjoyed "Dances with Wolves" (which I am not ashamed to say I did). My experience with native culture is limited, admittedly. I have read some material (such as "Touch The Earth"), gone to some pow wows, gone to a museum or two on Native Americans, and studied the history a bit of the string of broken treaties, one after the other - which again, is mentioned in this movie fairly prominently, if one is willing to acknowledge it, of course. When one chooses not to, however, it might not be the full picture, but it goes quite far in slanting arguments in your favor. You just are not being given the entire picture.
What I am trying to say is this: while this movie is certainly not perfect, and perhaps can be criticized, on some level, for expressing stereotypes, it also goes some distance in combatting the traditional American mindset of mindlessly dismissing natives due to those same stereotypes. Again, this movie, and Depp's portrayal of the Tonto character specifically, is not the definitive statement, one way or another, on native character. It does not give the most accurate, or even honest, portrayal of a "typical" native. But then again, it never pretends to. Also, it is not the defining negative stereotype of natives, as you might be led to believe after reading the review by this blogger. I think the truth lies somewhere in between.
This is not an attempt to completely discredit Annalee Newitz, or even her blog review on the Lone Ranger. Far from it, in fact. Read it. It is thought provoking, and will likely influence you when you go (if you go) see this movie. It influence me, admittedly. Mentally, I was getting ready to check for any and every sign of reinforcing the worst stereotypes of natives out there, half-convinced that it surely was yet another, albeit subtly, racist portrayal.
Turns out, though, that it was not all that bad, after all. I did not get the impression, as this blogger apparently did, that Depp's Tonto offers only the worst stereotypes of natives. The look, complete with feathers, was taken by Depp after he saw a picture of a native who looked more or less exactly like that. It might seem like a stereotype, but it actually occurred. There was at least one native who looked like that, and quite possibly, quite a bit more than one.
Is the problem not the portrayal, but that it is a white man who is actually doing the portrayal? If that is the case, who's to judge? Is there some set criteria that we should follow from now on, some specific guidelines that we cannot breach from here on out? Would that help to foster creativity? Is that not itself acceeding to political correctness, which itself can be quite stifling creatively and politically?
Of course, you always run this risk whenever you watch a movie that deal with the old days of the "Wild West", and this is especially true when it is, in effect, "cowboys and Indians". And that is what this movie is on many levels, albeit quite a bit different than those of the fifties and sixties, when there was indeed no question that natives were portrayed not just in stereotypes, but in outright negative, blatantly racist stereotypes, to boot.
There is just something about the West that makes it uniquely American, for better or for worse. Or, let me be even more specific: it is both for better and for worse. The West was the last real place that traditional native culture survived, and made it's last stand. But the West also attracted whites, and it was the "Manifest Destiny" mindset that, ultimately, played events out to their tragic conclusion. The movie, whatever stereotypes it does or does not portray, definitely addresses the excesses of this prejudiced mindset. I think it is fair to say that this is not your daddy's Lone Ranger.
Fact is, I do have problems with the way that the Lone Ranger, and his sidekick (for that was what he was, at least until this movie) traditionally was portrayed. By now, I hardly think that it is necessary to get into the specifics of why.
Yet, I want to say something about this, as well. There are different sides of everything, and for all the obvious negatives in our modern day sensibilities that the characters in The Lone Ranger can often portray: negative stereotypes and negative stereotypes and/or racism, perhaps both overt and covert, there is another side to it, too. You see, I remember hearing somewhere that the United States was the only nation that did not have a "Robin Hood" like character in literature or mythology. On some level, I think the Lone Ranger actually goes some distance towards remedying this.
But the Lone Ranger that I knew was as close to the American mythology as you could get (with the possible exception of Star Wars). What more romanticized setting can their be than the wide open, almost alien landscape of the West? At a time when we are dealing with overpopulation, with diminishing resources being increasingly controlled by fewer, albeit more powerful, corporate entities and obscenely wealthy individuals, when pollution is running rampant, as is the stress and chaos of our modern lives, the quiet solitude that the West can offer us (yes, even in glimpses at the movies) appeals to something within us. It is ideal, on many levels: the arid desert of the physical landscape in The Lone Ranger provides fertile ground for the imagination, and even, perhaps, for modern day American mythology.
Think about it: the wild west is an era that Americans have gone back to, for better or for worse, throughout their history, with varying interpretations. In olden days, people wanted to hear about "how the west was won".
But the Lone Ranger, contrary to most of those wild west, cowboy and Indian movies, actually at least has an Indian as a good guy. The early interpretations of Tonto were, indeed, subservient. The relation between the Lone Ranger and Tonto was that of master and servant, without question.
Say what you will, but that is not the case with this movie. Tonto and the Lone Ranger are not automatic or natural partners. They wind up working together, and their separate interpretations of justice become far more compatible when they both see how things really are, following earlier naivete.
I heard once that the United States is the only country in the world without a Robin Hood kind of story. Now, I don't know if that is true or not, but the Lone Ranger is fairly close to being a bit like that in this story. He is a wild west version of the man in green, fighting rich and greedy bastards in Sherwood Forest. Here, the Lone Ranger, along with Tonto (who plays no small part), fight against the hypocrisy that they see as one treaty after another with natives ignored, paticularly
On some level, I can understand, and even perhaps agree, with many, if not even most, of the points that this blogger is making on this review.
But then again, watching the movie, I was able to overcome my initial skepticism, and warm up to the fact that, after a very tough week, my son and I were enjoying a movie together. I was watching the newest incarnation of the Lone Ranger. When I was a kid (about the age that my son is now, as a matter of fact), the Lone Ranger was a fairly popular cartoon series on those blessed Saturday mornings that were absolutely filled with cartoons. Back then, I did not care about political concerns regarding the Lone Ranger or Tonto. I just really enjoyed the show, and got a taste of what had been so popular decades before, during the regular show of the Lone Ranger. I even collected the action figures that were in the stores then.
My son was really looking forward to the Lone Ranger. It made me sad, in a way, because this was something that I myself had loved as a kid. Yet, this particular movie was being torn apart before it was even really released. I almost knew, before it was announced that tickets sales on the opening holiday weekend were so sluggish, that there was almost no chance that this movie would get a sequel. So, this was going to be a one shot deal. Many parents hardly seemed to go out of their way to make a point of getting their kids to see this movie. Perhaps the cartoon Lone Ranger series that I watched as a child was not as popular as I had come to believe, after all.
Yet, my son wanted to see it. And I wanted to see it. But since we were the only ones that I personally know who were excited to go see it, it made me feel a bit sad. Almost like we were lost in a time warp. I regarded my son with a measure of sadness for his strong desire to see this movie, for his being taken by a fossil like "The Lone Ranger". I myself felt almost ashamed of having been so excited at what I naively thought might be a new series, the latest incarnation of an old legend that I had grown up with. In fact, truth be told, after reading that blog entry, I almost felt a bit racist, but was not sure why.
I had wanted to see it for nostalgia. My son wanted to see it, I suspect, because he loves guns. Of course, loving guns was more acceptable for little boys fifty or sixty years ago - even twenty to thirty years ago, when I was growing up. It almost made me feel as if my own son were somehow being left behind. But he is a seven year old boy with a ton of energy and imagination. Is that a crime? If there is an age when you can be like that, wouldn't that be the age?
Fact of the matter is, he loved it. I have taken him to see many movies, and he rarely is so completely engrossed by a movie, as he was with this one. I took him to see Superman a couple of weeks ago, and he sat there like a stone. But this one? He was laughing with almost all of the jokes, and he really got it. He enjoyed all of the action sequences. He whispered in my ear, revealing what was about to happen (even though it was obvious to my own, more experienced eyes). I got a kick out of just how much he was into the movie.
For that matter, I very much enjoyed it, as well. there was a point where I began to forget about that blog, and all of her opinions, and just watched and enjoyed an entertaining movie that brought me back to my childhood. Not only did I not hate it or think it racist, but I enjoyed it enough to recommend it here! Most important, it made my son happy, and brought us together. A father and a son, sharing a tradition, of sorts. I have been telling him of what the Lone Ranger used to be like when daddy was a child (I watched the animated cartoons of the early eighties). It served to bring us closer. My son, enjoying something from his daddy's childhood, and seeing it adapted to his own. After all, The Lone Ranger was, and still is, meant for children, first and foremost, right?
It was nice to just be able to watch this movie, and not worry about whether it is politically correct enough not to offend people like this blogger. Every now and then, it's nice to forget about that reality of our sad world, as well. Sometimes, you just need to enjoy yourself. Ice cream is not necessarily good for you, and many health experts warn about the risks. But that did not stop my son and I form enjoying it, just before seeing the movie. And some bloggers and other "experts" will claim that you should be as outraged as they are by this and that in a movie you were looking forward to. But my son and I went to see it nonetheless and, low and behold, we both enjoyed it!
Which brings me to my last, and biggest, point. We have lost sight of something very simple: these stories were orignally intended for kids. Maybe one blogger thinks that Tonto is not politically correct enough to make the cut in 2013, and that the Lone Ranger should have a more progressive poltiical message. But I beg to differ. My son, who often dismisses many things as "stupid" or tries to appear too old for certain things (readers of my blog would have learned about his reaction to games at a recent party I took him to, and I already mentioned his reaction to Superman, where he seemed indifferent, even bored by it all, including all of those wonderful special effects), actually lost himself in this movie, like I have seen him do maybe once ot twice before with movies like that (he really liked Reel Steel as well, come to think of it, and shadow boxed during the final, epic boxing scene).
I began to get into it myself, though. Of course, that meant forgetting that I was contributing to the creative and political starvation of the nation, and perhaps the decline of our world overall, by watching the remaking of one of my favorites from childhood. Yet, I felt remarkably good about it. Watching my son give himself to the movie som completely, and enjoy it, when he often seems to get down on things like that (as he seemed to with Superman, for example), it made me happy. happy enough to forget any doubts about Depp's portrayal of the character, or why Tonto might not speak English articulately, showing a strong level of education (even if it seems a bit strange that someone who did not grow up in the Anglo-American culture actually would speak English perfectly), and how this was contributing to the worst stereotypes of natives.
Again, my son was very excited to see it, and was obviously very much enjoying himself while watching the film. And isn't that what these movies are supposed to do, after all? I mean, really! Adults of my generation were so spoiled, that they actually seem to believe that kids movies of superheroes and such that they enjoyed as children are made specifically for their approval as adults. Maybe, just maybe, we should stop being so selfish, and let a new generation of children enjoy it on their own.
Is this Tonto so bad, that perhaps my son will come out of this movie and think that all Indians were stupid and, as the blogger said, "the butt of jokes"? I doubt it. If anything, he will probably understand that Indians used to live on the land, but were violently and unfairly removed from it. Tonto was not naturally subservient to the Lone Ranger, or anybody else, for that matter. He was his own man, and exercised his free will. No, he was not perfect. But should we aim for someone perfect when we see Indians portrayed in our movies? Wouldn't that be counterproductive, overly idealizing a group of people, truly as "noble" in every sense of the word.
Fact of the matter is, they were people, like everyone else. They had their flaws, and surely, many of them were petty, were selfish, were perhaps too violent. Were, in other words, not all that different than we are. If we portray them in an overly idealized manner, than we run the risk of putting them on a pedestal, which is probably the best and quickest way that we can essentially dismiss learning anything from them. But when they are portrayed as imperfect, (and obviously leave themselves open to criticism, such as Depp's interpretation), we might actually begin to see another side beyond the stereotypes. A distinctly human side.
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