Coyote Kills John Wayne

1
Coyote Kills John Wayne

• James Clifton gives a pretty good rundown of what
  sorts of ideas Hollywood has transmitted about
  cowboys, Indians, and Manifest Destiny (as
  Stephanie Dowdle puts it in Hollywood Westerns,
  the Native Americans were generally the bad guys
  who lost to the brave white heroes of the
  West)and of how GGRW turns those ideas on their
  ear.

2
John Wayne Lives

• Adds Stephanie the fact that some of the
  white people in the story still watched and
  enjoyed stories of their ancestors conquering
  natives shows that many of the same attitudes
  regarding manifest destiny still exist.

3
Truth is stranger?

• But what GGRW also reminds us, Stephanie
  concludes, is that history books are written by
  the victor.
•  

4
Truth is stranger?

• But what GGRW also reminds us, Stephanie
  concludes, is that history books are written by
  the victor.
•  
• Even more than that, implies Olivia Smith, it
  implies that the traditional distinction between
  history and fiction iswell, fiction
•  
• No, no, says Coyote. Its the truth.
• There are no truths, Coyote, I says. Only
  stories. (432)
•  

5
Truth is stranger?

• But what GGRW also reminds us, Stephanie
  concludes, is that history books are written by
  the victor.
•  
• Even more than that, implies Olivia Smith, it
  implies that the traditional distinction between
  history and fiction iswell, fiction
•  
• No, no, says Coyote. Its the truth.
• There are no truths, Coyote, I says. Only
  stories. (432)
•  
• And whats comical about GOD, we remember, is
  that while he thinks got a corner on original
  Truth, hes forgetting that hes just somebody
  elses dream, somebody elses fiction.

6
Truth is stranger?

• Reese Layton elaborates
• In Green Grass, Running Water history is
  confusing even to the characters. Everyone is
  trying to find out where they came from, they all
  have different reasons for seeking out their
  origins, and all of their stories seem to lead
  back to when the earth was nothing but water
  before the Dog God came along and messed
  everything up with his crazy white-man ideas of
  how things should be.

7
Dances with Coyoteser, Wolves

• Andy Zask points out that one of the crazy
  white-man ideas that King lampoons is the
  tendency for white writers and filmmakers to
  idealize Indians. This was true even before
  Cooper wrote about Hawkeye, the white man who
  went savage and lived with the last of the
  Mohicans. Early on, Europeans were fascinated by
  John Smiths accounts of the natives and the
  story of Pocahontas, and Enlightenment
  philosophers used their conceptions of Indian
  life as a basis for their concept of a natural
  state.  In these situations and the stories of
  Hawkeye, Indians were romanticized and even to
  some degree envied, but they were never really
  understood. 

8
Dances with Coyoteser, Wolves

• These writers, artists and philosophers upheld a
  version of Indian thatnever really existed. 
  They revered Indians as wild people or
  savages. Even as they placed Indian culture on a
  pedestal, they never acknowledged Indians as
  being civilized. This is what comes through in
  the Western stories in GGRW. The Indian chief is
  shown as proud, noble and honorable. He isnt
  out-and-out evil. Hes just a simple frontier
  Indian who wants to help his people but happens
  to be standing in the way of Progress. The
  (white) audience is invited to sympathize with
  the Indians plight, but not so much that they
  cant cheer on John Wayne.

9
Dances with Coyoteser, Wolves

• I think King wants to show the absurdity of this
  sort of romanticism, Andy argues. Since the
  beginning of European colonialism, one segment of
  white society has admired and respected Indians
  from afar, while other segments, settlers, armies
  and governments, have committed atrocity after
  atrocity. Hawkeye, Robinson Crusoe, Ishmael and
  The Lone Ranger all represent white men who left
  white society and became wild to some degree
  something both Ken and Zachary also pointed out
  in last weeks discussion forum.  In the cases
  of Hawkeye and The Lone Ranger, and possibly
  Robinson Crusoe, their creators probably thought
  their characters and stories would be a good way
  to show sympathy to Indians. Again, their way of
  exalting Indian culture relied on the assumption
  that Indians were more wild than white people.
  But Indians needed more than this patronizing
  brand of sympathy and understanding. Thats why
  in the novel the only way the four Old Indians
  can fix the western is by having the Indians
  win and kill John Wayne. Rather than explain and
  complain about the negative history between the
  peoples, King ridicules it, and in doing so
  allows the reader to arrive at his or her own
  conclusions about the history and Hollywoods
  interpretation of it.

10
And if an Indian dances with John Wayne?

• But meanwhile, says Kathryn Winbigler, a
  character like Lionel is left stranded in the
  middle Lionelcannot seem to be accepted (at
  least by Aunt Norma) within his Native culture
  because of the heavy influence that American
  culture has had on his life. Even though Lionel
  idealized John Wayne, the cowboy jacket didnt
  fit, says Olivia. Both groups that he
  identifies with shun him and because of that he
  cannot find a place where he feels that he
  belongs.