To understand Newt Gingrich, you need to rent a copy of “The Searchers”, John Ford’s 1954 classic starring John Wayne as Ethan Edwards, a world-weary civil war veteran– and possible thief– coming home to his brother’s farm for a spell. It is hinted that the real love of his life is Martha, his brother Aaron’s wife, and it is implied that Aaron and Martha’s daughter Debbie– born shortly after Ethan left to fight for the Confederacy– might be Ethan’s daughter.
Someone steals the cattle one day and the men set off in pursuit. They shortly come to the realization that the cattle theft was a diversion: the Comanche waited for the men to leave and then burned down their houses and killed Aaron and Martha and their son, Ben, and kidnapped their two girls: Debbie and Lucy.
When they first catch up to the Comanche, Ethan/Newt wants to charge head-on into the camp slaughtering everybody. They are all pretty sure that Debbie and Lucy would die in the assault so the militia commander, Clayton, insists they sneak into the camp first to try to rescue the girls. This leads them into a trap. which they barely escape with their lives. They find Lucy’s body shortly afterwards: she had been raped and murdered. Newt was right. Only Newt was right. All of the other men, we later learn, are either weak or foolish or greedy. Only Newt can really save the girl, and he just wants to kill her.
The militia give up and go home, but Ethan does not. He rides on, searching.
A long time passes.
You see, Newt/Ethan believes that once Debbie has adapted herself to Comanche culture, she will be “no good” any more for any white family. So it becomes clear that he now intends to just kill her, if he finds her.
I don’t know for sure what “no good” means. Clearly, she won’t be a virgin. And it is utterly of a piece with Conservative “character” that demands are made of other people’s virtue that obviously are not made of oneself. But does it also mean that she might have become more like Newt: ruthless and capable of slitting someone’s throat if there was a necessity for it? So you wouldn’t want someone like that in your house. She’s “no good”. But then, why would he want to kill her? Why not leave her with the Comanche?
And let them have her? Are you mad?
They don’t deserve her. They are not entitled to her. They are– hoo boy! Different, damnit!
Unlike Newt, John Wayne’s Ethan actually fought in a war. That makes him someone Conservatives admire deeply but never emulate. War is for other people to fight, and for me to start.
I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t mean that she had become a lesbian, though — hey, this was the 50’s– you never know. It might have been part of that richly textured and nuanced meaning of “no good”.
When they next find Debbie– after about 2 years of hunting for her– Ethan gets set to kill her. He chases her on his horse, catches her, but then decides to take her home instead. That is because even though Newt is ruthless and brutal and convinced he knows exactly what is best for everyone, he always does the right thing. But are they grateful? No they are not. After delivering Debbie back to the white folk, the door of the cabin famously closes on the receding image of Ethan walking away. They just don’t appreciate him. They don’t realize that without people like Ethan, those Comanche would be snatching up all of our sons and daughters and enslaving them with excessive regulations and onerous taxes.
In real life, a woman who was held by the Comanche for several years was, in fact, rescued (she was returned as part of a deal) to her family and community.
She could not adjust and eventually returned to the Comanche.
“The Searchers” in consistently ranked way up there with the best of American film, and is often listed as the best Western of them all. Is it really? If it is, it must be the sweep and grandeur of it’s vision, because the acting is awful, and the story is absolute melodrama at times.
Just one example: when Ethan finally catches up with Debbie for the final time, she rejects him and flees, and he chases her on horseback– I assume this is a stuntman, not Natalie Wood– and catches up to her, and she tries to slash him at first. Then he says, I’m taking you home. She looks into his manly John Wayne eyes and immediately melts and hugs him.
John Ford couldn’t be bothered to take even 30 seconds for the most important dramatic transition in the entire movie? This is apex upon which the entire narrative drive pivots! It’s all over in about 10 seconds.
Even worse: the famous last scene, of John Wayne marching off into the sunset, is far shorter than I bet you think you remember it. Check it out. It’s a fart of an ending. The audiences are already out in the lobby before they “get” that Ethan just not the kind of man who could settle for a first or even a second wife.
So it’s a classic of the epic Hollywood genre, which means, a film that is all surfaces and check-marks: close up, wide shot, pan shot, lighting, make-up, hair, costume. The story isn’t trivial: it’s actually quite rich and complex. Characters are developed. There’s even a bit of grit, an edge, some rawness to the drama. But that was all in the script. What showed up on the screen was a lot of spectacle, and then actors standing on their marks reading their lines.
And please don’t give me that shit that all the movies of this era were like that: they were not! Check “The Third Man” or “Marty”. Or “Seven Samurai” or “Rashomon” or “All about Eve” or “Tokyo Story” or “Wild Strawberries” or “La Strada” or “On the Waterfront”, and so on.
And please don’t tell me that John Wayne was a great actor. He always only played himself: a mediocre actor playing his own illusion about manliness.