Our Country/Whose Country?

The concept of settler colonialism offers an invaluable lens to reframe early westerns and travel pictures as re-enactments of the United States' repressed past. Westerns in particular propose a remarkable vision of white settlers' westward expansion that reveals a transformation in what &quote;American Progress&quote; came to mean. Initially, these films tracked settlers moving westward across the Appalachians, Great Plains, and Rockies. Their seizure of &quote;empty land&quote; provoked continual resistance from Indigenous peoples and Mexicans; &quote;pioneers&quote; suffered extreme hardships, but heroic male figures usually scattered or wiped out those &quote;aliens.&quote; Some films indulged in nostalgic empathy for the Indian as a &quote;Vanishing American.&quote; In the early 1910s, westerns became increasingly popular. In Indian pictures, Native Americans ranged from devious savages, victims of white violence, and &quote;Noble Savages&quote; to &quote;in-between&quote; figures caught between cultures and &quote;mixed-descent peoples&quote; partnered for security or advantage. Mexicans took positions across a similar spectrum. In cowboy and cowgirl films, &quote;ordinary&quote; whites became heroes and heroines fighting outlaws; and bandits like Broncho Billy underwent transformation into &quote;good badmen.&quote; The mid to late 1910s saw a shift, as Indian pictures and cowgirl films faded and male figures, embodied by movie stars, dominated popular series. In different ways, William S. Hart and Harry Carey reinvented the &quote;good badman&quote; as a stoic, if troubled, figure of white masculinity. In cowboy films of comic romance, Tom Mix engaged in dangerous stunts and donned costumes that made him a fashionable icon. In parodies, Douglas Fairbanks subverted the myth of &quote;American Progress,&quote; sporting a nonchalant grin of effortless self-confidence. Nearly all of their films assumed firmly settled white communities, rarely threatened by Indians or Mexicans. Masked as &quote;Manifest Destiny,&quote; the expropriation of the West seemed settled once and for all. Our Country/Whose Country? offers a rich and expansive examination of the significance of early westerns and travel pictures in the ideological foundations of &quote;our country.&quote;