Coyote Kills John Wayne

1. Coyote Kills John Wayne James Clifton gives a pretty good rundown of what sorts of ideas Hollywood has transmitted about cowboys, Indians, and “Manifest Destiny” (as Stephanie Dowdle puts it: in Hollywood Westerns, “the Native Americans were generally the bad guys who lost to the brave white heroes of the West”)—and of how GGRW turns those ideas on their ear.

2. John Wayne Lives Adds Stephanie: the fact that “some of the ‘white’ people in the story still watched and enjoyed stories of their ancestors conquering natives shows that many of the same attitudes regarding manifest destiny still exist.”

3. Truth is stranger…? But what GGRW also reminds us, Stephanie concludes, is “that history books are written by the victor.”

4. Truth is stranger…? But what GGRW also reminds us, Stephanie concludes, is “that history books are written by the victor.” Even more than that, implies Olivia Smith, it implies that the traditional distinction between history and fiction is…well, fiction: “No, no,” says Coyote. “It’s the truth.” “There are no truths, Coyote,” I says. “Only stories.” (432)

5. Truth is stranger…? But what GGRW also reminds us, Stephanie concludes, is “that history books are written by the victor.” Even more than that, implies Olivia Smith, it implies that the traditional distinction between history and fiction is…well, fiction: “No, no,” says Coyote. “It’s the truth.” “There are no truths, Coyote,” I says. “Only stories.” (432) And what’s comical about GOD, we remember, is that while he thinks got a corner on original Truth, he’s forgetting that he’s just somebody else’s dream, somebody else’s fiction.

6. Truth is stranger…? Reese Layton elaborates: “In Green Grass, Running Water history is confusing even to the characters. Everyone is trying to find out where they came from, they all have different reasons for seeking out their origins, and all of their stories seem to lead back to when the earth was nothing but water – before the Dog God came along and messed everything up with his crazy white-man ideas of how things should be.”

7. Dances with Coyotes—er, Wolves Andy Zask points out that one of the crazy white-man ideas “that King lampoons is the tendency for white writers and filmmakers to idealize Indians. This was true even before Cooper wrote about Hawkeye, the white man who went savage and lived with the last of the Mohicans. Early on, Europeans were fascinated by John Smith’s accounts of the natives and the story of Pocahontas, and Enlightenment philosophers used their conceptions of Indian life as a basis for their concept of a ‘natural state.’  In these situations and the stories of Hawkeye, Indians were romanticized and even to some degree envied, but they were never really understood. 

8. Dances with Coyotes—er, Wolves “These writers, artists and philosophers upheld a version of Indians that…never really existed.  They revered Indians as wild people or savages. Even as they placed Indian culture on a pedestal, they never acknowledged Indians as being civilized. This is what comes through in the Western stories in GGRW. The Indian chief is shown as proud, noble and honorable. He isn’t out-and-out evil. He’s just a simple frontier Indian who wants to help his people but happens to be standing in the way of Progress. The (white) audience is invited to sympathize with the Indians’ plight, but not so much that they can’t cheer on John Wayne.

9. Dances with Coyotes—er, Wolves “I think King wants to show the absurdity of this sort of romanticism,” Andy argues. “Since the beginning of European colonialism, one segment of white society has admired and respected Indians from afar, while other segments, settlers, armies and governments, have committed atrocity after atrocity. Hawkeye, Robinson Crusoe, Ishmael and The Lone Ranger all represent white men who left white society and became wild to some degree [something both Ken and Zachary also pointed out in last week’s discussion forum].  In the cases of Hawkeye and The Lone Ranger, and possibly Robinson Crusoe, their creators probably thought their characters and stories would be a good way to show sympathy to Indians. Again, their way of exalting Indian culture relied on the assumption that Indians were more wild than white people. [But] Indians needed more than [this patronizing brand of] sympathy and understanding. That’s why in the novel the only way the four Old Indians can “fix” the western is by having the Indians win and kill John Wayne. Rather than explain and complain about the negative history between the peoples, King ridicules it, and in doing so allows the reader to arrive at his or her own conclusions about the history and Hollywood’s interpretation of it.”

10. And if an Indian dances with John Wayne? But meanwhile, says Kathryn Winbigler, a character like Lionel is left stranded in the middle: “Lionel…cannot seem to be accepted (at least by Aunt Norma) within his Native culture because of the heavy influence that American culture has had on his life. [“Even though Lionel idealized John Wayne, the cowboy jacket didn’t fit,” says Olivia.] Both groups that he identifies with shun him and because of that he cannot find a place where he feels that he belongs.”