Glenn Frankel: "The Searchers"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-03-25/glenn-frankel-searchers
Life in the 19th century American west was hard. Settlers struggled to farm and feed their families, and Indian tribes fought to keep control of shrinking land. The two sides feared each other and clashed frequently along borders. In 1836, a 9-year-old Texas girl was kidnapped by a Comanche tribe. She lived with them for 24 years before she was recaptured, and her story was told to generations of Texans. In the 1950s, a novel about the abduction, titled “The Searchers,” was made into a hit movie starring John Wayne. A new book explores how and why the film changed the story, and its role in shaping myths of the American west.
Guests
Glenn Frankel
director of the School of Journalism, University of Texas, Austin.
Related Items
Read An Excerpt
Reprinted from "The Searchers" by Glenn Frankel. Copyright © 2013 by Glenn Frankel. Used by permission of Bloomsbury USA.
Comments
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This is a horribly racist movie. I cannot believe it is considered one of the all time great movies.
Yes, it depicts a racism and sexism that was real. Many horrors of the past are almost unimaginable now, or at least people deny history. Heck, we even deny global warming, banking conspiracy and the collapse of Capitalist Empire which are right in our face. This is a horse opera, and like all "heavy opera" it depicts compounded tragedy. At the crescendo of much wrong-headed superpatriotism and idealism is the "mercy killing" of a rape victim now "damaged goods." Like many of our recent wars it illustrates how perverted and misleading honor can be.
But we can be thankful we are nearing a level of civility that will make guns and male supremacy seem stupid and old timey, somethings that were not even as prevalent as claimed (in screenplays) in the West of a century and a half ago. I doubt John Wayne could achieve stardom in 2013. He played such crude brutes submerged in denial with no hope of insight. "I'm gonna move that toe."
Yeager, thanks for staying up. Man, do I ever have a toothache. Guess Duke would shoot me.
Having read the masterpiece Empire of the summer Moon by SC Gwynne giving great detail of the lives of Cynthia Ann Parker and her husband Peta Nacoma then her sons including Quanah I have grown to really dislike this movie which gives very little true history. Cynthia didn't run to them at the end and leave with the white men. She was respected by her captors and accepted into their nation. She married a great warrior Peta Nacoma and had two great warriors in her sons. the imagery created in this book of the horsemanship of the Comanches is breathtaking! when Cynthia Ann is taken back she is not revered but treated as a sideshow outcast and dies along with her baby daughter Prairie Flower of sickness and Cynthia Ann dies broken and embittered. Her son Quanah however does profit because he is half white and has a long life. It is a great book and I highly recommend it for the real story. love your show Dianne Amy bailey from Louisville KY
Very little true history in this movie. It is beautiful and the scenery breathtaking.
I agree with earlier remarks, about the overt racism of the film, but I am writing to add a geographical note. Please stop referring to Cynthia Parker's home as in "East Texas." Fort Parker is in Central Texas, just east of Waco. This is relatively open Blackland Prairie terrain, not the dense pine forests of East Texas.
My masters in English focussed on American Indian literature, and if you want to start a heated discussion, just mention "The Searchers." Indians and many scholars, both Indian and non-Indian, uniformly hate it and the damage it did to American's understanding of native cultures.
Cynthia Parker raised a fine son, Quannah, who was an important chief and politician in the Texas and Oklahoma region.
Maggie in Fort Worth
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Summer-Moon-Comanches-Powerful/dp/141659106...
This is a great book about the actual history.
I've wondered about the character of Mose. It seems there was more to him than the traditional comedic foil. He also always seems to me the one with new tips for the Searchers. Was there anything "Moses-like" intentional in the creation of his character? Leading the way, etc.?
Chris Connolly, Fort Worth
The film is not just horribly racist; it's also horribly misogynistic--furthermore, it is hostile to any notion of complicated masculinity. On top of all this, it has a simple, childish notion of good and evil. This film is dramatic and good to look at, but the idea that it is morally complicated (much less great) simply can no longer wash.
This is one of my all-time favorite films. Please have Mr. Frankel tell the story about the very last shot in the film. It is so touching on so many levels.
You should address the fact that Cynthia Ann's husband was killed in a raid and one of her sons is Quanah Parker, one of the last leaders of the Comanches. She tried to escape several times but her home had been destroyed.
Cynthia Parker's son. Quanah Parker, cut a pretty wide swath both as a Comanchee warrior and later as an Oklahoma cattleman and probably deserves a honorable mention here. His is a fascinating story.
Cynthia Ann Parker tried several times to escape. Her son was Quanah Parker, a great leader among the Comanches.
Have you read Empire of the Summer Moon, and if so, what is your opinion of it, . . .
which is supposed to be an accurate portrayal of the events of the life and ordeals surrounding the kidnapping and life of Cynthia Parker?
John Wayne's acting is terrible. It's just a stoney cartoon of masculinity.
When I was at university, I used The Searchers as the basis for a paper for my Critical Theory class. After watching the movie several times, my perception of the Native American struggle against the white community changed dramatically. Yes, it is difficult to watch but doing so with an open mind may just change your perception of Native Americans for the better. I am a Canadian and the indigenous situation here parallels that of the United States.
No matter how bad the whites behaved in that period, the Comanche were murderers and rapist of the worst sort. They were little more than cave men who routinely killed, stole from, and put into slavery whites or other Native-Americans from other tribes. They routinely tortured captives. They were doing this long before the arrival of white settlers.
Movies are a mirror that helps us reflect upon the times. It makes us think about various issues even though its message can be obscure to get it viewed. If in its time African Americans were substituted for Native Americans it may not have been screened in the South.
John Wayne should be given more credit for playing a not so pure American hero.
And the Native Americans are not without sin themselves, they raided and stole and kidnapped each other.
Our view of the relationship between the European invaders and the Native Americans has been slewed by the movies.
Movies have exaggerated characters to get us not only to entertain but to think. Contrast Wayne's True Grit to Jeff Bridges.
We should not romanticize the Commanche. As I learned by reading Empire of the Summer Moon, the Commanche had spent the prior 100 years conquering (ethnically-cleansing) scores of other Plains Indians tribes. Also, ALL of the Plains Indians, regardless of their tribe, undestood that whenever a warrior was captured by an opposing tribe, it would be routine for that warrior to die a slow and agonizing death at the artful and creatively sadistic hands of his captors.
How helpful and instructive are all these comments about racism and sexism in the flick?
In fact, isn't THE major point of the film about the personal redemption of a man (Wayne's character) who finally accepts his niece and the young man "Marty" and overcomes his severe prejudices? And the pioneer women in the movie had apparently already overcome similar prejudices at least on the family level - it was a celebration when "Marty" returns to his Scandinavian girlfriend and "Debbie" returns to the family.
How can society say the pioneers were, on one hand, exemplary, strong people and then condemn them as racists/sexists? Without the pioneers (e.g. those in the movie) there would not be a Texas or the United States.
Those pioneers and their native american competetitors suffered greatly against each other and the elements.
Note that scalp taking was an "innovation" introduced in very early America by those who wanted to remove the native americans to allow settlers to have an easier time moving West. The scalps shown in the movie must have been an adoption by the Apaches of that commercial practice.
By the way, isn't the term "Indian" a mistaken reference to the idea that explorers were originally intent on finding a route to "India"? (Actually, even the "native americans" walked, rowed, or sailed to North America from elsewhere in acient times.) All on this continent are descendents of "immigrants".
People need to realize that the Comanches were very recent immigrants to Texas in the 1800s. They came out of the Rocky Mountains and came south into the Great Plains after acquiring horses. So when people say that Texans stole land from Comanches, you must realize that the Comanches stole their land from Apaches, Kiowas, etc.
I understand why Ford used Monument Valley as a backdrop. But were there ever settlements in this arid space?
People need to realize that the Comanches were very recent immigrants to Texas in the 1800s. They came out of the Rocky Mountains and came south into the Great Plains after acquiring horses. So when people say that Texans stole land from Comanches, you must realize that the Comanches stole their land from Apaches, Kiowas, etc.
Suggestion to your guest today, Glenn Frankel: Have a look at Chuang Hua’s novel from 1968 entitled CROSSINGS. If memory serves me correctly, the main character, a Eurasian woman living in London, enters a movie theater and watches an unidentified western. The experience hits her like a thunderbolt, transforming her understanding of her own inner cultural/racial psychology. (The movie she watches is THE SEARCHERS, made clear from a scene she describes in detail.) I would argue that Chuang Hua’s treatment of this troubling, fascinating movie IS consonant with our contemporary reception. Great show, Diane.
The so-called "Blackfeet" were originally the Creek people forced out of eastern areas by President Andrew Jackson ("Old Hickory") with the help of none other than Davy Crockett. Many of the western native americans were forced further and further west to avoid armies/settlers.
One must also know that there were pre-historic battles among the native american tribes, with peoples displaced from one area to another via wars and starvation. e.g. Yul Brynner and George Chakiris starred in a movie about Aztec-Mayan type native americans warring among themselves and with the bison-hunting local natives.
Another was "Cheyenne Autmn" - not nearly as accurate or well-meaning. And it was so bad as a "dramatic" offering that Mad Magazine lampooned it as "Cheyenne Awful".
I'm surprised at the extent to which people seem to want to pull this movie from the archives because of its controversial content. The ugliness of the attitudes, real or portrayed, and the subject matter itself, critically inform us of a terrible phase of our American history. To not embrace the importance of such "ugliness" is to pave the road for the "history deniers" of the future. This movie is an important part of the lessons from our past from which we must learn lest they be repeated.
Pointing at cultural differences and warlike behavior of the Comanches is sleight of hand to distract from the topic at hand.
No one is ever going to be happy with the history of American Indians and their behavior towards each other. They weren't the romantic children of the earth that some would like to imagine. And no one is going to find the origins of such violent behavior - either innate in the cultures or introduced by conquerors. There is no Ur Indian to speak to the exchange of depredations back and forth between indigenous and conquering populations.
The Searchers is representative of the time in which it was made. We hope we know better now, but if one looks at the situation on reservations today, there are a lot of broken promises that tell the same old story.
I enjoyed the show and can still enjoy watching westerns and especially "The Searchers" even knowing how grossly they distort history and have contributed to the white man's mythology regarding settlement of the west. Of course, a similar mythology was applied to the displacement of the eastern tribes. I think Diane has two shows here: one is about a movie, while the other is about an historical event. I notice that Glenn Frankel lives in Austin and much of the factual info he provides about Cynthia Ann Parker, and the Comanches in general, seems to derive from S. C. Glenn's book EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON. Glenn also lives in Austin. I would like to see a second show where Diane delves into the history of the Comancheria, as well as Cynthia Ann, perhaps having Glenn as her guest. Like it or not, the movie is great art and an interesting topic. However, at least equally fascinating, if not more so, is the actual history. How about it, Diane?
Thank you for your show!
Matilda Lockhart, an ancestor of mine, was kidnapped at the age of 13 by the Comanche. James Michener's book Texas says she was returned two years later in a treaty led in by chieftain Muguara and "when people saw her pitiful condition, sobs...of grief welled up, and may had to look away as she rode silently past" Saying Commissioner Ascot and another man gasped "Jesus Christ! Is that a human being?" saying she quivered like a tortured animal and had wild uncomprehending eyes.
The letter from her mother to her grandmother was given by my grandmother to some museum and I have a copy. I just googled Matilda Lockhart and all the stories tell the same terrible story of abuse and torture. Is this just more bigotry as passed down through generations or maybe true?
Thank you for any insight anyone has to offer!
Lisa
In a crazy coincidence, my short-short story inspired by Cynthia Anne Parker and the book Empire of the Summer Moon was published in the online zine Dr. Hurley's Snake-Oil cure just today! It is called, appropriately enough, "Cindy Anne." How odd.
I'm sorry....John Wayne was no great actor. He could only be John Wayne. Check him out in "Gengis Kahn"...it is so horrible that it's entertaining. He was a bigot, a racist, and a rat during the McCarthy hearings. Also managed to stay out of WWII which makes his military films a joke. They guy was a mutt.