The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Navajo Joe are two films that fall under the "Spaghetti Westerns" genre. These types of films, which are made usually by Italians, provide European perspectives on the American culture. Violence and greed are emphasized in the Spaghetti Western films and the representation of the alpha male is different from the original Western films.
The European version of the Western is shown to be overly and unnecessarily violent, which gives an idea of how the Europeans are picking on the flaws of America. The extreme violence seems to be influenced by the Vietnam War which was exposed during the time the films were made in 1966. The citizens of America were accessible to the media that showed them such violence that derived from the Vietnam War. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Navajo Joe focus on greed and it is shown to be significant to the plot of the film. America was in a period of many equal rights movement in 1966, and Americans pushed and worked for equality, which is similar to the characters in the film who searched for gold. The effort to gain a fair and much better life for individuals in America was an important issue during the period.
Navajo Joe introduces the alpha male as Joe, who is a Native American. This is obviously different from the classic Western, in which the alpha male must be the white Anglo-Saxon male while the Native American is under the category of "the others". However, in the film Navajo Joe, the town is initially reluctant to ask for help, but they ultimately do. Then again, in the film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, cut out Native American figures are shot into pieces by a man. The Europeans had a sense that there was a bad relationship between the Native Americans and the settlers during the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment