There are few movies as iconic as the John Ford western classic, The Searchers. Its influence can be seen on everything from Star Wars to Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, to just about every Martin Scorsese movie. The story follows Ethan’s, played by John Wayne, five-year journey to find his niece, Debbie, played by a young Natalie Wood after his brother’s family is killed by Comanches and his niece is kidnapped. It is, perhaps, John Wayne’s signature performance, and the story of his protagonist Ethan’s quest for vengeance will be familiar to anyone who has seen a Hollywood movie. Despite its impressive reputation, I believe the true brilliance of The Searchers remains under-discussed. The Searchers, at its core, is an intelligent and nuanced story about race. This is not your typical Hollywood movie about race where the white racists are shown to be bad actors who are fundamentally different from the kind, well-meaning, whites we are supposed to identify with. These kinds of simplified caricatures can be found in anything from, To Kill a Mockingbird, to The Help. What makes The Searchers unique in this space is that the racism is placed not with a straw man obstacle to be defeated but, with our main character. Even more importantly, our main character is the most iconic symbol of masculinity in American history in John Wayne. The Searchers shows the audience how racism is an essential part of our American society.
The film turns on a climax where we learn that Ethan has been searching for Debbie for five years, not to rescue her, but to kill her because she has become a part of the Comanche tribe. He views this kind of integration as a fate worse than death and to Ethan killing Debbie would be the humane thing to do. When his traveling partner Martin Pawley, played by Jeffrey Hunter, realizes this he is horrified but the audience understands. The only reason Ethan has been able to pursue Debbie for five years is that he was fueled by his racial hatred. In the end, Ethan does not kill Debbie. Despite his intentions, he decides not to shoot Debbie. He brings her home and rides off into the sunset. Debbie’s rescue was achieved only because of Ethan’s racism. In much the same way, the American society that we now live in could only be achieved because of the racial oppression that we instituted. Racism and racial exploitation are tools that we used to build this country and are the tools used by the plot of The Searchers. The allegory employed by John Ford and his screenwriter Frank Nugent is both brilliant and completely radical for the time period. The film shows that racism isn’t something that can be saddled on a cartoonish villain. In fact, it’s as fundamental to America as the national anthem, or apple pie, or John Wayne.
The ultimate irony of this is that John Ford was incredibly conservative in his personal life. He was known to be racially prejudiced and was a major supporter of the Communist witch hunts that devastated the film industry in the late 40s and early 50s. Despite this John Ford directed films that are liberal-minded even by today’s standards. In addition to The Searchers, John Ford also made the 1940 adaptation of Grapes of Wrath, which is about as critical of capitalism as a film can be. John Ford also directed the landmark western Stagecoach which gives far more depth and compassion to its protagonist, a prostitute played by Claire Trevor, than was normal at the time. I don’t have a clever explanation of the seeming disconnect between John Ford’s personal politics and the ideology displayed in some of his best-remembered works. I choose to believe that if you are making truly great art you can’t help but tell the truth. Whatever his intentions were, John Ford continually made notably progressive movies under a staunchly conservative Hollywood studio system.