The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly / Navajo Joe SH

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as well as Navajo Joe are spaghetti westerns created by europeans as a critique of American ideology during the times in which the films were created. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly presents a critique of capitalism, racism, and morality in America throughout the film.

The Good, Blondie, is a white, blond male by no mistake. He is also involved in a bounty hunting scam. He is entirely motivated by money, as this is the only reason he keeps Tuco (the ugly) alive on their search for the gold. He is clearly a critique of American capitalism and the anglo-right connotations given to this capitalism. The Ugly, Tuco, is a mexican. He is presented as a fool and somewhat of a comic relief. As mexicans were commonly portrayed in the classic western, he was only a secondary character that Blondie uses to make money. This is the european critique of racism in America that was prevelant in the mid nineteenth century toward most non-anglo ethnicities.

Navajo Joe can be seen as a criticism of America's treatment of the Indian. As Navajo Joe is a strong, dominating male, motivated by revenge, he takes on the role of an alpha male cowboy and transcends the role most indians are doomed to in the classic American western. Never before had a Native American taken such a strong role in a western, which shows the european influence on this film. They took a type of person previously oppressed in both America and the Western genre and gave him the power and dominance of the alpha male cowboy.

310 To Yuma SH

A major difference between the original 1957 version and the 2007 remake of 3:10 to Yuma is the relationship between Dan Evans and his son William. In the older version, he leaves his wife to take Ben Wade to Jail. In the remake, there is a definate strain on the relationship between Dan and his son. Dan has had a leg amputated and struggles to show his son he is not a failure. His farm borders on being taken by the bank, and he initially avoids any action. He takes the job to escort Ben to the railroad for the money to support his family. The film touches on many concerns of families of the early 21st century. There has been a recent surge of emphasis on our children as our future, with the No Child Left Behind Act as an example of legislation resulting from this surge. As the divorce and unemployment rates continue to rise, parents constantly face departing from the traditional model of an American family and struggle to uphold trust or respect from their children. The focus on the father-son relationship and the son's respect for the father as portrayed in the remake of 3:10 to Yuma echoes the struggles of the modern family.

Good, Bad, and Ugly/ Navajo Joe Blog JY

Spaghetti westerns are westerns that are created by directors not from the United States, mostly Italian and European directors. These spaghetti westerns show the outsider view of American society through a western film. In the American made westerns we see how America views itself, but now with these spaghetti westerns the audiences are allowed to see how outsiders view American society and culture. The major difference in these spaghetti westerns as opposed to American westerns is how the directors portray the alpha male cowboy and “others.” We can see the differences clearly when we look at the films The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Navajo Joe, which are both spaghetti westerns.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was directed and written by Italian writers and directors. So before I even started watching this film I had an idea that the views on the alpha male cowboy and the “others” would be different. In this film the alpha male was not viewed as the courageous hero that American westerns portrayed him as. Instead, as we see in all three of the main character, they were villainous characters that were fixated are getting money anyway they could. Blondie and Tuco resorted to scamming towns by having Blondie catch Tuco and getting the reward money and then freeing him only seconds before Tuco is hung. Also Angel Eyes was another alpha male cowboy that would kill anyone for money. All three of these alpha male characters throughout the whole movie were looking to find the hidden money and would do anything to get rid of the other two. The portrayal of these characters as money hunger characters shows that outsiders view American culture and society as being based around money and material things. Another thing that stuck out to me is that the directors labeled the immigrant (Tuco), The Ugly. This just shows that the directors of this film sympathized with the treatment of immigrants in American society. They believed that immigrants and America were treated as an “ugly” class and were considered outsiders in our eyes. In a way the directors of this film were right. America society has labeled immigrants outsiders by creating law such as the one in Arizona were anyone can be pulled over and checked to see if they are citizens.

In Navajo Joe the directors really focused on the Native American. In the movie a group of white men come into an Indian village and kill everyone but one man, Navajo Joe. In a fit of rage he vows to himself that he will avenge this massacre. The directors portray Joe as a savage that is only focused on getting revenge. This portrayal sympathizes with the Native Americans and is saying that Americans have assumptions that Native Americans are savages. On part in the movie Joe steals a train of money back for a town and then asks them if they would like him to protect them from Duncan and his gang for a small fee. But have the typical stereotypes, the people of the down decline because Joe is and Indian and “they don’t make bargains with Indians.” Another point that the directors of this movie make is that Duncan and his gang are only fixated on money much like the characters from The good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The main part of the movie is based around Duncan and his gang trying to steal a train of money and Joe trying to stop them. Again the directors of this movie are portraying the white settlers as money hungry people. This is how outsiders portray American culture, that we all base are lives around money and obtaining a lot of it.