Say what else you will about this movie, but "Jean and the kids at the school", were just as intolerant and judgemental in their own way as the rednecks in town. And if anyone had a problem with that, they could take it up with Billy...
Stacy - "We got a job"
Uncle John - "What kind?"
Stacy - "The Forever Kind..."
Well said, dhmason6155!!
"An armed man is a citizen; An unarmed man is a subject.".
I suppose if the desire to be different and not have your a$$ handed to you by a psycho like Posner or his thugs constitutes intolerance.
shareYou're right up to a point, but what is this movie saying exactly? The writers created the bad guys, and then they created a hero who, in spite of the movies message, is very good at violence. The hero's job is to fight off the bad guys who show up on cue to hassle the hippies (and the horses).
There were a lot of paths they could have taken when they made this movie, with it's message of nonviolence and alternative lifestyles, but they chose to make an action movie. They positioned the hippies as victims, then they created an enemy the hippies could point at and be superior to.
I know this was made right at the tail end of the counterculture, when our society and culture was at a boiling point, but did this kind of thing actually happen? Were there hippie communes located in conservative communities who were constantly "hassled" by "rednecks"?
"We makin' trouble for someone?"
"Yeah"
"What kind?"
"...The forever kind"
Actually, the film offers no easy solutions or pat answers. It's about the conflict between passivism and agression, and how one person (Billy Jack), who fights fire with fire, decides to try the non-violent way at the end of the movie. There is a good dialog between him and Jean in this film that everyone used for the trailer but no one seems to have paid much attention to, where he is asking her about where passivism got King, and Kennedy, and to name one place where people weren't violent and loved one another, and she can't answer. The theme of the movie isn't hypocrisy, it is about the dual nature of people and society, with an ending that suggests for us to try the road of peace and see where it leads. I thought this was pretty evident, and in many ways ahead of its time for 1971.
True, as a movie needs to "move." However, the second and third films, for better or worse, didn't have much action in them, and Tom had to sue foreign investors who wanted to co-op the franchise in order to make a more butt-kicking Chuck Norris type remake. So the main interest of the movie is the message, with the martial arts, while important, secondary. Whether some see it that way or not. Also, in our history, schools, and society, there are always victims and bullies. This is just a fact.
Communes were located all over the place. Some were in very rural areas and some did encounter hostility. Others made friends and got on very well with their rural neighbors. Some stayed in those areas and became a part of the community after a time. Others bailed. Many hippies, like the punks after them, weren't understood too well by mainstream society and so of course were treated like pariahs and sometimes beat up. So were blacks, Indians, and many others. Other citizens got along fine with them. Billy Jack and Freedom School is one story, like Easy Rider was one story. While it is a very valid point of view, it isn't the only point of view, of course. Alternative and democratic education, after a period of experimentation, moved beyond the 60's and became a successful force all over the world.
I don't know ANYONE who went to see "Billy Jack" for the "message". We all went to see it because of the "butt kicking", as you put it.
As a matter of fact, I re-watched it recently and wondered how the hell I sat through it the first time. lol
"An armed man is a citizen; An unarmed man is a subject.".
In reality, people took many things away from Billy Jack. The butt-kicking helped propel it, but if that was all it was about, it would have made as much of an impression as a Steven Segal movie. Instead it made a huge impression, and still is the most successful non-studio production of all time. ;-)
shareIt was successful because
1. It was the 1st of it's kind (note the complete and utter failure of the sequals),
2. Drive-in movies were still popular at the time
Keep up.
"An armed man is a citizen; An unarmed man is a subject.".
Comment number two surprises me. You are right that this is a "Drive-In Special" but I remember this movie played a lot of "in-door" movie theaters. Especially after the ad campaigns the producer mounted in '72 and '73.
shareI wouldn't call it merely a "drive-in special" that also played in a lot of indoor theaters -- Billy Jack had the highest gross in the US among 1971 releases, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_in_film#Highest-grossing_films_.28U .S..29.
shareYou are an idiot with an annoying signature.
Few share your fetish for guns.
Well said.
shareWhat would've made the movie more interesting and raised it more up to its potential would've been if Billy Jack had used his talents and offered Self-defense classes for the kids at the Freedom School, thus providing them with a little more confidence, and therefore rendering these kids less vulnerable to having their asses handed to them just simply for being different and out of the so-called mainstream of our society, if one gets the drift.
shareI want to see a reboot of Attenborough's Gandhi in the style of Billy Jack.
sharemstanley-1, I never thought of the movie in that light before. Before last month, I hadn't seen it since the 70's, and as you can imagine, me and my teenage buddies at the time only focused on the butt-kicking parts, (especially the ice cream shop scene: "when Jean and the kids at the school...". We play-acted that scene many times!).
You could also say that Billy actually hates violence, but is very aware of the real world, and the bad people who occupy it. He reveres what Jean and the school stand for and is willing to defend it with his life.
However, I still think there is an element of self-righteousness on the part of the hippies. And, I'm sorry, but at the height of the counterculture, they could be pretty damn arrogant and obnoxious. After all, they were young.
Unc John "We makin' trouble?"
Stacy "Yeah"
Unc John "What kind?"
Stacy "...The forever kind"
I saw it in a theater full of high school students, of which I was one at the time. We enjoyed every aspect of it, and were outraged at the injustices, which we saw in our own lives and knew existed all over as well. This is the theme, quite frankly, so I don't think it was self righteous or arrogant at all, other than the youthful view of knowing you're right - and that is pretty universal no matter what time period you live in. If you mean the broader aspect of human behavior, of course, there is arrogance and obnoxiousness in every group of humans on the face of the planet, but some more than others. I remember hippies well, and even though I approved of their ideal, I knew some (including friends of mine) who were jerks. On the other hand, I have and had conservative friends as well who are the best people in the world as long as we don't discuss politics. ;-) Again, this is the human condition - as old as the species itself. There are "good guys" and "bad guys" in every group, But most of the hippies I knew weren't out-and-out misanthropes, the way many in the extreme right were and are. The key word is extreme.
share[deleted]
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EXACTLY!!!..looking back at the film now I believe Billy to be just as big of a bully as the townspeople..he knew Bernard would never fight back but he still beat on him anyway...
shareIt's easy to mock the film's inconsistent views regarding nonviolence. However, what makes this film so appealing for many is that it lets viewers have it both ways. It appeals to our wistful, idealistic side that wishes that love and gentleness were enough to change the world, and it also appeals to that frustrated rage that just wants to lash out at smug, stupid cruelty and bigotry (that all the kindness and tolarence in the world may never change anyway). This conundrum is expressed rather well in Billy Jack's monologue in the icecream parlour.
There's a light (Over at the Frankenstein place)--The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Here's an opinion that was posted by another poster on another part of this board, but it bears repeating here: While the movie Billy jack does convey the message of non-violence, it also portrays the message that sometimes, one needs to defend him or herself physically, if and when the need arises.
shareTrue, but can you blame them? The towns people were hardly tolerant, armed, racist and extremely violent. Even the Sheriff seems to go easy on them. Why didn't he do his job and nullify the threat of Posner and his thugs? Once they've finished with the school and Billy Jack and can imagine they'd turn on the "decent" people in the town.
But I agree that Billy is too handy with his fists and his gun, but I read this film as a modern day Western.
All of the people in the town were armed, racist and extremely violent? While it's true that lots of the townspeople were like that, one has to take into account that there were more than likely a lot of the townspeople who were decent human beings, who were not like that.
As I pointed out in a much earlier post, however, the film Bill Jack would've been much more interesting overall if Billy Jack had offered self-defense courses to the kids at the Freedom School, so that they'd have more confidence, and not be so vulnerable to having their asses handed to them just simply for being different, and every time they went into town.