The nation’s preeminent entertainment magazine has a rather sad piece out this week. In “10 Problematic films that could use warning labels,” Variety suggests films which “need disclaimers and discussions before and after a screening.”
To be clear, none of these movies actually need disclaimers — though, assuming they are pursued with an open mind, discussions don’t seem like such a bad idea. Unfortunately, that’s not what Variety is interested in here. As the article soon makes clear, it wants us to regard some great films with new disdain. It wants a quasi-book burning adventure.
There are three particularly absurd choices on the list.
First up, Dirty Harry. The Clint Eastwood epic comes top of the list because it “mocks liberal judges and do-gooders, and the villain claims police brutality, planting the seed that other such charges are fake moves to get sympathy.”
Actually, it doesn’t do these things. Dirty Harry is a film noir that draws out the moral contradictions of policing in a free society. And while we do see liberal officials who are idiots, we know such judges really do exist in society. At the same time, however, the film also presents the risks of Harry Callaghan’s flippant vigilantism. The memorable exchange below is the perfect antidote to the notion that Callaghan is without flaws or that Dirty Harry needs a disclaimer. The prosecutor has a perfect response when Harry indicates that he isn’t concerned “about that man’s rights.”
“You should be,” says the prosecutor, and then he explains why.
Next up, The Searchers.
One of the greatest movies ever, The Searchers follows the long search for two Texan female settlers kidnapped by a Comanche war party. While Variety rightly observes that the movie’s protagonist, played by John Wayne, is a complicated character, it laments “the fact that Native Americans are depicted as savage or comical.” This means that “whatever you think, ‘Searchers’ is the epitome of a problematic film.”
A couple of problems here.
First, not all of the Native Americans in the movie are presented to be savage or comical. More importantly, both critiques apply equally to Wayne’s character at times. And it is simply ahistorical to imply that the Native American engagement with settlers was purely peaceful. Yes, many, if not all tribes, were treated awfully — especially by the Republic of Texas. But tribal responses, Comanche included, against civilian settlers were also often very savage. Peter Cozens’s The Earth is Weeping documents this history. These complexities are encapsulated in the movie’s closing scene, where we see Wayne clutch his arm and walk away, perhaps still not convinced he’s made the right choice.
Finally, True Lies.
OK, True Lies isn’t exactly a cinematic masterpiece in the vein of the two previous films. Still, Variety’s lament that the movie’s “Arab characters are religious fanatics or terrorists, or both,” is unfair. Take the fact that one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s closest allies in the movie is his Arab team member, Faisal. Faisal ends up saving the day.
But Variety also attempts to make outrageous what is a legitimate story. Namely, that Salafi-Jihadist groups such as the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and the one in the movie bear significant membership from Arab populations. And that their interests are motivated by religious fanaticism and effected by terrorist conduct. This is not, as it were, controversial. Also, how can one put a warning label to a movie that has this gem of a scene?
In short, Variety should stop trying to find problems where they don’t exist. If social justice is its cause, it should support making a movie that all Americans would welcome.
