High Noon as neocon allegory

No, seriously. I’m glad Kyle Smith wrote this essay, because it’s something that has bothered me for a while but I’ve never been able to put into words. As a student of film, you’re always taught that High Noon is a brilliant allegory for McCarthyism and the evils of the blacklist. But I’ve never been able to see it in that light; as a member of the first post-9/11 generation*, I’ve always seen High Noon as an indictment of cowardice in the face of unwarranted aggression–as a treatise against appeasement. Regardless of what the masses want, High Noon teaches, right is right and wrong is wrong, and pretending that those who wish to do you wrong just want to live and let live is no way to go through life.

*Which raises kind of an interesting side-question about exactly which historical development I should most closely identify with: I was a second year in college when 9/11 happened; most of my studies and all of my professional life have been informed by 9/11. I think it’s fair for me to describe myself as part of the post-9/11 generation, even though, in my lifetime, I’ve seen the fall of communism, the 90s economic boom, and the rise of the Internet.