Appendix 3.2: Sample films - synopses and character lists
THE SEARCHERS US 56
are largely to be found in the lighter parts of the film, in
the comic interludes as it were, there are often opportunities
for an ironic reading of the subservient position allotted to
women. In addition to this the central importance of women to
social stability is acknowledged, it is, after all, a woman
who is the object of the search and it is her restoration to
the family of settlers which marks the ending of the film.
The problem of savagery versus civility, of inhumanity versus
humanity, is articulated around the possession of a woman.
When vengeance is discussed by the 'civilised' white
protagonists it is in respect of women.
Marty: We go chargin' in, they'll kill her and you
know it.
Ethan: That's what I'm countin' on
Marty: I know you are. Well it aint gonna be that way.
She's alive and she's gonna stay alive.
Ethan: Livin' with Comanches aint bein' alive.
Marty: Better she's alive and livin' with Comanches
than her brains bashed out.
Clayton: Now son, I know this is a bitter thing to say
but there's more at stake here than your
sister.
Ethan: There sure is. I'm gonna tell you somethin'. I
didn't mean to speak of it but I'm goin' to
tell you now. You remember that scalp strung on
Scar's lance, long and wavy? It was your
mother's.
Marty: But that don't make no difference. That don't
change nothin'.
Ethan assumes revenge, Marty questions it insofar as it
privileges the dead over the living. Mrs Jorgensen, earlier
in the film, takes a more radical position than Marty:
I know that Martha'd want you to take care of her boys as
well as her girls and if the girls are dead - don't let
the boys waste their lives in vengeance.
But we must note that the deaths of the male members of the
Edwards family do not appear to come into the discussion: this
is in marked contrast to the motive Scar gives for his savage
attacks on the settlers which are in revenge for the deaths of
his sons:
Two sons, killed by white men. For each son, I take many
scalps.
Valuing and protecting women, then, is a 'civilised' trait;
yet women are only human, hence worth valuing, if they are
white.
US Officer: It's hard to believe they're white.
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