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| 75 Dear Diary, Wow,thoseIndianssureareacrankylot.Ingrates,too.Whatwehaven’tdoneforthem!Imean, really, where would they be without us? And so bitchy to the Johns. I’d like to see them make TheSearchers.WhowouldtheycastasEthan—Geronimo?That’llbetheday.Ha!Islayme. Note to Self: we should make a movie of this: us talking to ourselves about Indians. Hey, Diary, how do you make a hundred Indians say “shit?” Answer: Yell BINGO! No, I didn’t write that myself, but who does in Hollywoodland? That’s really not the point. The point is this: It seems like nowadays a hundred Indians yell even louder at the word “Western.” Let me tell you a little story, Diary: We’ve been working our asses off trying to do right by them, and all we get is flack. You know how many crappy little towns want to be in the pictures? And there we are putting all of those Navajos up on the screen, and all they can do is say, “Uh, those aren’t Comanches.” Well, guess what, you didn’t hear Texas complaining aboutMonumentValleynotbeinginTexas.Or,thatactorwhoplayedMoseinTheSearchers complain about not being crazy. You see where I’m coming from? And now there is Broken Arrow. Slap my bottom and call me Debbie. What’s next? “All along the Reservation”? “How Green Was My Pueblo”? “Citizen Sitting Bull”? Note to Self: look into Citizen Sitting Bull. See if Mitchum is available. Anyway, Diary, I am so sleepy. Good thing there is rest for the wicked! So glad we made Broken Arrow. Get them off my ass for a while. More tomorrow! Love, your best friend forever, Hollywood Broken Arrow f f f Dean Rader Ofallthemoviesinthisbook,BrokenArrow remainsoneofthemostproblematic.Noonereally knows what to do with it, how to read it, how to teach it, or even where it should sit among the pantheon of Westerns. Neither an Indian film nor a typical Western, it straddles the bucking 76| Dean Rader horse that is the un-PC movie. Will Broken Arrow get thrown off? Or, will it ride out its eight metaphorical seconds? And, if it does fall to the ground, what clowns will come to its rescue? Alongwiththenon-sympatheticallytitledRedskin(see the review in chapter 1), Broken Arrow is considered by mostinthemoviebusinesstobea“sympatheticWestern.” ThismeansitlooksuponIndianswithsympathy.Sympathy, fromtheGreeksympathia,meansto“shareafellowfeeling with”or,more accurately,“tosuffer with.” Allindications are that Hollywood was pretty pleased with itself for Broken Arrow’s ability to suffer with Indians. The first of its kind in the post-studio 1950s, Broken Arrow is a project probably meant to make up for all of the other insultingWesternsthatcamebeforeit,andalsoforallthe onesHollywoodknewwouldcomeafterit.Thisgestureis little bit like the scholarship to the Negro college the narrator of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man receives after he’s been forced to fight a bunch of other African American boys in a makeshift boxing ring to the delight of cigar-smoking, prostitute-fondling businessmen. Here you go, kid. No hard feelings, okay? The synopsis: White people are taking Apache land in Arizona. Apaches don’t like this. White people start killing Apaches. Apaches retaliate. White people really don’t like this. They call in the U.S. Cavalry. But, the Apaches are smarter. Not just because they defeat the cavalry, but because blue wool uniforms are hot in Arizona. Plus, the whites are unorganized. The Apaches are organized. They’re led by Cochise. He unites all the clans. Think: finely tuned resistance machine. Enter Jimmy Stewart, one actor who knows how to play a white man. He is a former military scout and sensitive kind of guy. He saves a wounded Apache boy shot by an insensitive white guy. In turn, the Apaches let Jimmy go free. Jimmy gets an idea. Let’s make a dealwiththeApaches.Haha!Funnysensitivewhiteman.He nearlygetshanged.The insolence! The nerve! The very idea! Somehow, he convinces the military and the other white people to let him visit Cochise. He thinks Cochise might let the mail go through. Jimmy is ridiculed. He learns to speak Apache. He visits Cochise, who is played by a white man. They laugh. They talk. They bond, as two white men in movies often will. Jimmy gets his palm read by an Apache maiden named Sonseeahray or White Painted Lady. She is played by a white lady. They fall in love as white men and women often do in movies. Think: Dances with Wolves. (See the review in this chapter.) Cochise lets the white people’s mail go through. White people rejoice. Jimmy is accused of being an Indian lover...

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