MovieChat Forums > The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) Discussion > Is this film anti-American?

Is this film anti-American?

posted 8 years ago by YellowManReanimated
17 replies | jump to latest

Josey, the hero, is a separatist fighting against the unionists.

The unionists are generally portrayed as being wild, vicious animals/opportunists or both, whereas the courage and conviction of the separatist fighters, or at least some of them, is strongly emphasised.

And Josey's greatest ally, and fellow hero, is a Native American who feels cheated and exploited by the "white man".

So is there more than a tinge of anti-Americanism, as in anti-union sentiment, going on here?

Against the faint background of reality, imagination spins out and weaves new patterns

[–] lordbishop34 (1442) 6 years ago

[deleted]

[–] HarlemEagle42 (16135) 4 years ago

More like an anti-establishment slant if anything.

[–] TheAdlerian (2092) 4 years ago

I don't know why but many westerns in the 40s and 50s were anti-union for some odd reason. The theme was that when the south lost something "fine" died, which makes no sense to us.

Many of the people who started the US were obsessed with Greece. It's why they wore the wigs even, they were dressing up like they thought ancient Greeks looked, lol. Anyway, Athens had democracy that was based on slavery, which made it so that citizens could relax, think, and participate in government. If you had to work all day, you are tired, can't be very intellectual, and can't participate in government.

So, citizens were obviously viewed as intelligent and capable people.

Maybe that's the idea that when the south lost people were reduced to working class people again and not advanced humans.

It's hard to watch films like that today.