Fascism - Propaganda and Subordination To The Duce
(Image by Daniel Arrhakis - Visual Arts from flickr) Details DMCA
In Stephen Kinzer's The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, there's an aside conversation intended to describe the brothers, Cold-War hawks, John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles. In 1953, when John Foster served as Secretary of State and John as Director of the CIA, many Americans, Kinzer argues, would have considered the two heroes the way many were drawn to see the "hero" in Shane. It's no accident that Shane is a 1953 film intended to reinforce "a cultural consensus that steadied America's self-image during the disorientating early years of the Cold War." And the necessary consensus is simple: there are "thugs" out there for the US, the good guys, to kill!
America, consequently, had to save countries seen as "frontiers" because, as America's powerful leaders perceived, thugs "are threatening peaceable people." Until a "good" man arrives on the scene, these threatened people are in danger. This hero isn't "invited," yet the threatened people recognize a hero when they see one.
The man playing the hero in the film is Alan Ladd, playing a "brooding" but a "noble" gunman, Shane, in the old West. After Shane kills the thugs, "he rides away." Kinzer adds, "the hero acts precisely, as many Americans believe their country acts in the world." He "risks his life" to rid the world of "wrongdoers."
But that's not the end.
I've seen Shane several times. The first time, as an undergraduate in a film class. There's an issue of class, "squatters" versus landlords, in which the homesteaders are so innocent and the landowners, in white hats, have a point about folks squatting on their land.
A former Confederate Southerner, however, takes up with the homesteaders. He's a neighbor to these folks in Wyoming. His history is never mentioned. Neither is the history of the gunman hired by the landowners. He is also a former Confederate soldier, but he now works for the landowners.
The two meet up outside the saloon where the hired gunman shots and kills the Southern homesteader. In short, the good guy, Shane, kills the hired gunman, and supposedly, that's the end of the story. The homesteaders are free to keep the land. In the meantime, Shane is seen riding off with his right arm dangling. He's damaged. Perhaps, permanently. He's a professional gunman without the use of his right hand.
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