Clint Eastwood defined the Western movie genre for many years, but when rewatching his classic films through the lens of modern-day conventions and expectations, some obvious issues come to light. This reality isn’t to say that his films should be panned and never watched again, but viewing them with a critical eye can open up the audience’s world and inform modern iterations of the genre. Revisiting Eastwood’s most iconic movies with an awareness of the problems doesn’t ruin the movies but makes them richer by having a contextual understanding of the Western genre.
After working in the Western arena for so long, Eastwood became intimately aware of the tropes and pitfalls of the beloved but sometimes problematic movies.
Clint Eastwood is a great actor and director, and his influence is felt across the Western genre despite it having been many years since he took on a project in the field. After working in the Western arena for so long, Eastwood became intimately aware of the tropes and pitfalls of the beloved but sometimes problematic movies. This experience allowed him to subvert the traditional formulas later in his career and reflect on what Westerns say about the United States and filmmaking as a whole.
5
Whitewashing Of The West
Paint Your Wagon (1969), The First Traveling Saleslady (1956)
Whitewashing and the centering of white stories is an essential problem with almost every movie of the Western genre during its heyday and peak in the 1940s-1960s. This failure can be attributed to the fact that it was not only Western movies that overlooked and silenced the voices of people of color but Hollywood as a whole. Before white colonial settlers occupied the North American continent, it was already a diverse and well-populated area, but Western films typically framed it as an untamed and empty land that needed to be conquered and settled.
Although Paint Your Wagon and The First Traveling Saleslady are vastly different movies within Eastwood’s Western oeuvre, they both illustrate similar problems with his films. They involve Eastwood and his compatriots going West to stake out an imagined claim in territory that wasn’t theirs to occupy. Additionally, they center the idea that society was nonexistent in the West until white settlers arrived, and it was their duty to build communities from scratch. This outlook is strongly challenged today and has been reflected upon in certain modern Westerns.
4
Nostalgia For Vigilante Justice
High Plains Drifter (1973), Pale Rider (1985)
This characterization of governmental law positions the vigilante as someone who must come and help him, playing the role of the masculine enforcer.
The law is something that’s played fast and loose in Western movies because the central idea is that the settlements were too far away from cities and society to be ruled by the government. If there is a lawman in town, he’s corrupt, acts as if he owns the town, and often is the villain who needs to be stopped by the righteous vigilante. In the rare cases that the sheriff is honorable and plays fair, he is frequently seen as soft or incapable of properly defending the frontier township.
This characterization of governmental law positions the vigilante as someone who must come and help him, playing the role of the masculine enforcer. Critiquing the systems of governmental law is not a new concept for cinema, and challenging existing power structures is a vital part of what art can do. However, within Westerns, the vigilante rarely takes a political stance, and his actions elevate violence and suggest that a personal moral code gives someone the right to deal out justice with impunity.
3
Violence Against Women
Unforgiven (1992), High Plains Drifter (1973)
The action in Unforgiven begins because a group of sex workers want revenge on the men who disfigured one of them and then burned down their place of business. In High Plains Drifter, it’s Eastwood’s The Stranger who consistently assaults and berates the women around him. Assault is a consistent and brutal theme throughout Western movies, and it often feels that the threat of harm is the defining characteristic of every female character in Eastwood’s Westerns.
While this was a reality of the time, the opportunity was rarely presented to women to fight back and have agency. This issue is apparent when considering that women are consistently victimized and used as a plot device and motivating factor for Eastwood’s male heroes to get revenge and excuse their actions. Pretending that the world wasn’t prejudiced toward women would have been a disservice as well, but the way that women are not only framed as without options but also as weak is what becomes most problematic in Eastwood’s films.
2
Inaccurate And Harmful Depictions Of Indigenous Communities
Ambush At Cimarron Pass (1958), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
In Western movies, Indigenous American peoples are depicted as either the antagonists, the sidekicks, or as mystical beings who help the white people in their journeys. All of these portrayals are wrong and offensive, completely overlooking the violence committed by white settlers and the U.S. government. For many years, Indigenous peoples did not have a voice in how they were portrayed onscreen, and the white perspective was all that was available in Hollywood. While this has begun to slowly change in recent years, it must not be forgotten about, especially with the Western genre.
While The Outlaw Josey Wales is less combative with Indigenous communities, the character representations are offensive and perpetuate stereotypes.
In Ambush at Cimarron Pass, one of Eastwood’s earliest Westerns revolves solely around a conflict with the Apache, as Eastwood’s character, Sergeant Matt Blake, and his group are trying to cross their territory. All the pitfalls of representing Indigenous people are present in Ambush at Cimarron Pass, as the Apache peoples are characterized as dangerous and combative. It’s unacknowledged that it’s their land Blake is passing through without their permission. While The Outlaw Josey Wales is less combative with Indigenous communities, the character representations are offensive and perpetuate stereotypes.
1
Celebration Of The Hyper-Masculine White Hero
Joe Kidd (1972), The Dollars Trilogy (1964 – 1966)
The Dollars Trilogy is notorious for its success but also for frequently portraying Mexican characters as villains and irredeemable. Too often, Eastwood’s white characters are considered justified in their violent actions despite placing people of color as the antagonists and celebrating an outdated form of hyper-masculinity. The individualism that’s so celebrated by the films also ties into both the racism and the toxic aspects of masculinity, as it’s white masculinity the movies center around and laud as the peak of personhood.
Eastwood’s films are not without nuance, but by today’s standards, they barely scratch the surface of the problems with a violent white male protagonist being praised for his inexcusable actions. Movies can have white male protagonists, and they should be nuanced characters that aren’t all good or all bad, as that would be one-dimensional. However, when capturing the complexities of the white male hero role in film history and humanity’s history, it’s important to be aware of the power these roles hold.