RT Navajo Joe and The Good the Bad and the Ugly

"Spaghetti westerns" such as Navajo Joe and The Good the Bad and the Ugly reflect European ideas of what makes a typical Western film and the European view of America as a whole. Such films fixate on the current American society and greed, as well as the relationship to the U.S. wars and relations with minorities. The dominate male in such films also has few followers and must prove himself, unlike a typical Western where their reputation is known.

Both Navajo Joe and The Good the Bad and the Ugly fixate on greed and allow it to be essential to the plot of the film. The fixation on greed is a direct expression of the capitalist American mentality at the time. The European films mimic the undesirable traits of the United States through the plots of the films. Both plots focus around stealing a large sum of gold from others and highlight this undesirable level of greed.

Additionally, both films have a large amount of civil war characters whom obtain a much larger influence in these films then in a typical western. In The Good the Bad and the Ugly the Confederate captain is a drunk who lets "the good" and "the bad" simply walk through his base before he eventually dies. In Navajo Joe troops are stationed to protect a train of money but are later easily killed by a group of thieves. The films depict the troops as foolish men, perhaps implying the foolishness of the Vietnam War as a whole. The troops within both films are easily convinced and never shown as glorified or respectable individuals. The way the audience views these men is quite similar as to how many Americans and Europeans viewed the Vietnam War.

The dominate male in Navajo Joe is a Native American, something that is far from typical in the average western film. Although the town is hesitant to ask for his help, they eventually allow it. Nevertheless, the town finds it very difficult to trust this man, since he is Native American and is surprised that he actually sticks to his word. While in The Good the Bad and the Ugly, a man tests out a gun on cut out Native American figures, eventually shooting them to pieces. The films express the hostility towards minorities that was currently going on in America with the Civil Rights movement and the woman's rights movement through such characters as the Native Americans. In addition, in The Good the Bad and the Ugly, "the ugly" is played by a Mexican character, further promoting the idea of distaste for minorities. The fact that a character played by a man of Mexican ethnicity is the one looked at as "ugly" represents hostility for minorities within the film.

In both films, the dominate male's reputation is unknown to those around him and the alpha male does not act based on a duty based system of ethics. The character must prove to the town, or his enemies, that he is to be respected. Also, the alpha male role in The Good the Bad and the Ugly does not act based on a system of duty based ethics as is traditional for the alpha male in a Western, rather he acts out of greed for the gold. In Navajo Joe the dominate male acts based on revenge and expects a reward for his actions. The lack of duty based ethics further promotes the negative view on the American mindset at the time. The European view of America places the U.S. as a country that is unable to act based on duty or a strong form of ethics. This view is so strong that the alpha male character is totally revised to match this type of mentality.