Culture: From Black and White to Technicolor 6 July 2014

Prelude: “El Paso” by Marty Robbins

Introduction, by Dave Cauffman

This morning we look at how we were shaped by all those cowboy movies and TV shows we grew up with. It should be fun, with nostalgic songs and ballads that celebrate the romance of the west: wide-open, starry skies, and love discovered and lost.

Preparing this took me way back, 60 years, to my childhood, when I was allowed to go watch Disney programs on our neighbor’s 11 inch black and white television. We would act out the roles we saw in the westerns, taking turns being the good guy, who always won, and the bad guy, who always died an elaborate and acrobatic death, from which he instantly recovered. We were all immortal then.

Rev. Dennis will trace our path from those innocent and formative years to our more nuanced current situation.

Song: “Home on the Range” by Brewster M. Higley

Story For All Ages: “First Grade Cowboy” from Tenggren’s Cowboys and Indians by Kathryn and Byrun Jackson, pictures by Gustaf Tenggren, read by Rev. Dennis Reynolds

Song: “Red River Valley”

Offertory: “Streets Of Laredo”

Sermon: Cowboy Culture: From Black and White to Technicolor, by Rev. Dennis Reynolds

When Dave and I first sat down to plan this service I told him excitedly that I would like to share with the children something from my much loved childhood Cowboy book. There it was in my boxes of as-yet unpacked books.

Opening it, I felt a warm connection to the visual images within. Yet, when I read the stories that had once been loved so dearly, I was appalled by how racist and sexist and violent most of them are. I had a hard time finding one to share here this morning. Much of the legacy of what was America in the 1950's, when I first encountered that book, are things I gladly throw on the rubbish heap of history. Most of the stories in this book are interesting and discomforting historical artifacts.

The book's very first tale is about how the young protagonist Little Jon's grandfather had “wupped the Injuns.” He then laid claim to a huge amount of rangeland as “his” home. The stories continue with more negative stereotypes about native people, including Little Jon's best friend Little Bear. Susie, Jon's little sister, and their mother have some heroic moments, but through much of the book “the little ladies” are kept in their place. The same is true for the Chinese ranch cook who is portrayed as a negative stereotypical, somewhat bumbling servant. Some of the animals are portrayed more sympathetically than are the minorities.

The good news is that we have come a long way since that book was published. In looking backward we can recognize how far we have travelled from those thrilling days of yesterday.

When Dave and I were young, you could see by our outfits that we were both Cowboys.

In those years I wanted, more than anything, to be a cowboy. As you notice from my slide, I had a hat and fancy cowboy outfit at an early age. I also had, like any good buckaroo, a toy six-gun. You may not have noticed it, for lacking a holster, I have my six-shooter in my pants pocket.

My first cowboy hero was , who I remember as kind of a cowboy father figure. That's because the actor William Boyd began to portray the character in 1935 and by the time he did the TV show, he had been doing the role for a couple of decades. Every Saturday morning Cassidy rode his white horse, Topper, into my living room.

William Boyd's duded-up character, unlike earlier cowboy heroes, traded the typical white hat for an all black wardrobe with a dramatic white neckerchief scarf and white-handled six guns.

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The cinema and TV Hopalong was a very different character than the fictional cowboy that the writer Clarence Mulford had created for his early 20th century novels. The original Hopalong got his name because a gunshot wound to the leg had left him with a permanent limp. He was a dirty, unkempt, rude character who would do whatever was needed to prevail over the bad guys.

By the 1950's the cinema and movie versions of good guys were impeccably clean. I always wondered how they could ride all day, ford rivers, tussle with bad guys in the dust and always emerge sparking clean, with well-pressed creases in their trousers. Good guys were always good guys. In post World War 2 Cold War America there was little room for ambiguity. Those with the wrong political leanings were blacklisted and writers were careful to keep their story lines positive.

The cowboy character was a perfect vehicle for the promotion of an idealized rugged and resourceful individual who upheld traditional values through prompt decisive action, often with guns a’ blazing.

The stories and situations in those black and white TV shows appearing on television portrayed values in Black and White dualistic morality tales.

Good guys and yes, the leads were almost always guys, were forces for good who would certainly prevail over the forces of evil, be they the natives who attacked them or the rustlers and outlaws, who were almost always dirty and unkempt, who stole their cattle or horses or were rude to their women.

The way to settle a dispute was often a six-gun, or even better, two six guns. Hopalong and characters like him could always draw faster and shoot straighter than the bad guys. They taught young Americans that best things one could be was quick on the draw and a straight shooter.

Fancy Easterner kinds of ways, including things like contemplation and reflection and too much book-learning were not given much value. Action is what won the day and usually, though from time to time our heroes said they regretted it, that meant there would be a shootout. This was true in battling the bad guys on TV and in battling those evil commies in Korea.

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The Hopalong films, serialized on Saturday TV, were just the beginning for me. I loved as much as Hoppy, especially when he didn't sing, but my hero amongst heroes was the Lone Ranger. This guy wore a white hat and had the same white pearl- handled guns. And Hopalong's horse Topper couldn't hold a candle to Silver.

At the beginning of each episode the television narrator would call out: “A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty 'Hi-ho, Silver, away!' The Lone Ranger!”

His mask gave the Ranger an air of mystery and by donning such a mask I could look just like him.

The Lone Ranger was not alone. Riding along side him was his trusted Indian companion Tonto on his paint horse, Scout. The appearance of Tonto was a step forward from previous portrayals of Native Americans. Yet, some Native Americans have seen Tonto as a derogatory stereotype. He was, at least, played by a real native, Jay Silverheels, who was an Ontario born Mohawk. Unfortunately though, many of us who were indoctrinated by years of episodes of the Lone Ranger had to deconstruct the image he created in order to build a more honest portrayal of Native Americans.

Though I played for hours at being the Lone Ranger, none of my friends would ever play Tonto, so I played Lone Ranger alone, with only an invisible sidekick.

There were truly some very negative messages about race and gender in those cowboy dramas. Most significant were the notions that categorized people into preconceived roles, including dualistic notions about who was good and who was evil, and notions of us vs. them. “We” are good; “they” are the evil enemy. Another repeated message was “Vengeance is mine, sayeth any man with a six-gun.”

Gun culture and cowboy culture were woven together. By the late 1950's the type of weaponry expanded with TVs the Rifleman and the Rebel, whose main character, Johnny Yuma, blasted his opponents with a sawed-off shotgun.

In the 1960's, the tale of lone riders gave way to family westerns, with Bonanza leading the way.

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This was a family drama more than a shoot-em-up and even though Ben and Hoss and Pa and Little Joe wore guns, they were seldom fired. The status of women and the Chinese cook were still shaped by narrow roles.

Notions of them vs. us prevailed.

At the end of that decade things got very very colorful and the dominant color was red, blood red.

Sam Peckinpah directed the epic “The Wild Bunch.” Its stars William Holden, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, and Warren Oates had appeared in many a western, but this one was different. It was much more violent and the violence was graphically depicted in slow motion.

The cold war had heated up and had burst into flames in Vietnam; real violence was reported on the nightly news and American boys were dying in the jungle. Here at home protests and exposés made it hard to accept that our government's motives were totally positive.

The critic Roger Ebert reported on a news conference about the “Wild Bunch.” Critical reviewers and reporters “let Peckinpah and his co-stars have it with both barrels.”

"I have only one question," said the lady from the Reader's Digest. "Why was this film ever made?"

"We wanted to show violence in real terms," Peckinpah said. "Dying is not fun and games. Movies make it look so detached.”

"Why did everyone bleed so much?" another lady asked.

"Lady," Borgnine said, "did you ever see anyone shot by a gun without bleeding?"

Real guns and real bullets cause real pain and real death from which no one steps up to play again another day.

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As that cowboy, encountered on the street of Laredo in the song Ken shared, reminded us, when shot in the chest, he knew he would die.

America had had enough of shootouts and gunfights. Westerns began to drift away from the American media scene. People seemed no longer ready to accept the dualistic battle between good and evil that they represented.

In the latter decades of the 20th century, toy gun sales dropped, as it was no longer every child's dream to win the gunfight at the backyard fence. Revolvers ceased to be seen as the way to rescue the distressed. Many parents stopped buying toys that encouraged their children to shoot it out with their opponents.

Sure, movies are still often violent. Sometimes we have simply moved violent play from the backyard to the newer media of video games. We have, at least, moved away from a time when every young boy was given the message that guns are the best way to solve problems.

Many began to advocate for limits to handguns and automatic weapons. In 1972 the Unitarian Universalist Association at General Assembly voted to recommended uniform gun legislation.

Then in 1976 the GA delegates passed a resolution that urged the government of the United States to pass legislation that would prohibit ownership or possession, with but few exceptions, of all handguns.

Many had begun to accept the reality that handguns existed primarily to shoot people, to kill people.

In 1991 our gathered delegates approved a General Resolution that read: BECAUSE Unitarian Universalists affirm the inherent worth of every human life; and BECAUSE safe coexistence within society requires reasonable compromise with the concept of absolute personal liberty; BE IT RESOLVED that the Unitarian Universalist Association, its member

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congregations, and individual Unitarian Universalists be encouraged to petition legislators to enact and support laws limiting fire arm purchases, especially hand guns and automatic assault rifles.

Pro-gun advocates have fought back: The National Rifle Association, which receives the bulk of its funding from the gun manufacturing and sales industry, is a major player in the American political scene.

Gun ownership is seen as a fundamental right. Second Amendment rights are claimed by many who have never read it. For candidates and elected officials, fighting even limited restrictions on those so-called “rights” can mean NRA funding for opponents’ election campaigns.

This past fall I went to Olympia on Interfaith Lobby Day. We met there with members of our legislative delegation. When we met with Representative Dave Hays he sported a tie clip that was a model of an assault rifle.

Our Quaker friend Tom Ewell, who had ridden down from Whidbey Island for Lobby Day with a number of us, had warned me about the Representative’s intentionally confrontational neckwear. Yet, when I saw it I was tempted to “call him out,” “take him on,” and engage in a verbal battle.

Then I remembered that phrase “inherent worth and dignity of every individual.” “Every individual,” even those whose views I am deeply opposed to - even those who might intentionally be seeking a fight. I looked within and held onto my foundational belief in the interconnection that exists between all people and all life - between me and the Representative.

So we sought common ground with Representative Hays and we found some. We talked about educational opportunities for prison inmates and job development. I intentionally looked him in the eye rather than at his tie clip.

Let me make one thing clear: though I recognize Representative Hays’ worth and dignity and his right to wear offensive jewelry, I treasure my right to vote against him, should I choose to do so, in the next election.

Last summer, in Hollywood, Disney films released a new Lone Ranger movie. Its Lone Ranger is a sharpshooting dude from the east. Tonto was played by Johnny Depp, whose character is a Comanche shaman made up in a macabre death mask.

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I have not seen it, as the reviews were bad. Rotten Tomato's reviewers gave it a lowly 30% approval. What I understand from reading about it and from the trailers is that it is kind of a Lone Ranger joins the Occupy Movement. The Ranger and his trusted companion do not merely shoot outlaws and rustlers, but rather they take on the corporations and the military industrial complex and blow up entire trains full of corrupt evildoers.

The film was a box office flop.

Disney's division has made several far more successful films that feature the younger generation’s favorite cowboy hero.

Yep, it’s Sheriff “Woody” Pride from “.” I want you to take a close look at this slide of Woody. Please take a look at his holster. That right pardner – it’s empty. He has no gun.

But you know, he doesn't seem to need one, for he and his sidekick and their friends are able, time and time again, to prevail over more violent toys.

How might we as citizens prevail? I suggest an important first step can be taken at the ballot box. This fall there's an initiative referred to the ballot here in Washington. It’s Initiative Measure 594, which calls for limited restrictions, primarily in the form of increased record keeping, on sales of guns. It’s an opportunity for us to take a stand.

You'll hear more about that in the weeks to follow. There’s a forum here July 20.

Decisions about congregational endorsement will come later in the summer.

It's a step we can take to begin the long journey away from violence and conflicts of the past towards the just and peaceful world we long for and pray for.

I am glad to report that GA 2014, which just finished up in Providence, Rhode Island, approved an Action of Immediate Witness on gun control. Again, we Unitarian Universalists have taken a stand against the uncontrolled availability of weapons.

In December 2012, after the horrific shootings in Sandy Hook, where 20 little children and 6 of their teachers were brutally shot and killed. Rev Peter Morales, President of our Association said,

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“We must rededicate ourselves to creating a society where differences are resolved without violence, where the mentally unstable do not have ready access to lethal force, where violence is not glorified and where we can live, love, and work in safe places. Our task as a religious people committed to compassion and to peace is to show another way.“

… To show another way ...

May we make it so.

Benediction Song: "Peaceful Trails", adapted from “Happy Trails” by Dale Evans Rogers

Postlude: “Sweet Baby James”

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Photo sources: bluesbite.com Hopalong Cassidy and the Haunted Gold Mine Hopalong Cassidy- Cowboy Hero and Franchise Empire | American Heritage Center (AHC) News Hopalong Cassidy Returns The Good Old Days- Bonanza | Lochgarry's Blog The Lone Ranger | Mel Rook & The 7 Deadly Sins The Lone Ranger- Justice from Outside the Law - NPR The Wild Bunch | Kritik | FILMERING.at THE WILD BUNCH REDUX | mardecortésbaja.com Woody - Pixar Wiki - Disney Pixar Animation Studios

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