Neocons love Westerns
Like most art, film can be interpreted any which way you please. All you have to do is make the case. So I’m relatively sympathetic to James’s argument that the Western genre doesn’t led itself to neoconservative allegory. “There’s trouble,” he writes, “in the contention that the moral duties of political action that exist in a Wild West village are basically interchangeable with those that exist in the international state system.” Well, yeah. But to say that you can’t make the argument, however–to argue that “neoconservatism as we know it only make sense as a global project and High Noon is a story about a town“–is kind of silly. It’s like arguing that Gulliver’s Travels is a story about little people and talking horses, whereas the problems facing 18th Century Brits were both complex and about humans of average stature.
I don’t really think it’s troublesome at all to shove neoconservative foreign policy into the paradigm of the Wild West. I like the example of High Noon, obviously–of the individual bucking the system and unilaterally resorting to violence to do what’s right even though his fellows wish he’d just quietly go away and let the bad guys have their way–but there are others as well. Think about Shane, the story of a drifter who comes to the aid of peaceful residents in a lawless town being terrorized by a wealthy land baron. Shane must pacify the region, otherwise the forces of evil will overrun the peaceful farmers looking for nothing more than commerce and a chance to live their life. Or Tombstone, in which the Earp brothers (The US/Israel) defy the county’s corrupt sheriff (the UN) in order to unilaterally disarm the bandidos (Iran) flagrantly amassing/carrying weapons (nukes) at the OK Corral in clear violation of town ordinances (the NPT).
Obviously none of these are perfect allegories. In some cases they’re even quite silly. That doesn’t change the fact that, for me at least, High Noon (and other Westerns, almost all of which are rooted in basic “good vs. bad” plots where John Wayne wears the white hat and Powers Boothe wears the black) has taken on a deeper significance in the last seven years. And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone…