….and the horse you rode in on

Posted on August 28, 2002 in Adolescence Scoundrels

My older brother loved Clint Eastwood. You know those studies that show that children who watch violence on television attack their playmates more? I believe them. Robbie would watch Clint Eastwood films and beat on me. He loved the spaghetti westerns, Dirty Harry, and, most of all, The Outlaw Josey Wales. One title he chanted like a mantra: Hang ‘Em High. Every time Clint Eastwood made a movie, it was a work of genius. He urged me to see them all as they came out, even Pink Cadillac which may be the dog of all Eastwood dogs. His detailed descriptions of scenes bemused me. I made a point to avoid Eastwood films if I could; and, if I couldn’t, I watched them only under duress.

You can’t watch an Eastwood film with a die hard fan. Unless, of course, you like the continuous narrative that every confounded Eastwood fan feels obliged to provide; those raves they use to insist that what you are watching is the greatest of art. I prefer to let his films, like all others, stand alone. And, frankly, I am not impressed.

Am I the only person who was bored by Unforgiven? It just seems like a cleverly strung together series of cliches with a little political correctness thrown in to show that Clint was a good guy. Can nobody see that Josey Wales is a terrorist? That Dirty Harry may have inspired the beating of Rodney King? I don’t think Clint’s a good guy. Not after seeing his stuff. And even less now that I have read the new book by Patrick McGilligan that I review at Ganesha’s Library. Actually, I never did buy his schtick. He pretended to be all good while glorifying some of the greatest wickedness I have ever seen on film.

Clint Eastwood, you see, had a part in making my life a living hell. It started with my brother who tortured me with his incessant regurgitation of the flimsy Eastwood plots and his bullying accompanied by liberal quotes from the Dirty Harry series. Bullies loved Clint Eastwood, I discovered. They cornered you, pressed their mugs close, put a loaded finger to your head, and then rasped “Are you feeling lucky, punk?” Or “Go ahead: make my day.” I have heard that line alone used and revised so many times as to make it a carrier of disease.

America changed, I think, from a place where we respected our community to one where each of us saw ourselves as an outlaw. In my lifetime, I have seen community institutions crumble under ridicule, the violent extolled, the shallow treated as deep. This isn’t, of course, all Clint Eastwood’s fault, but he rode the wave and directed it as he sold himself as an everyman who could both be for peace and kick his enemies in the nuts. Clint Eastwood taught many people that it was perfectly fine to be schizoid and hypocritical, to speak of love and act in a bellicose fashion; to promote yourself as honorable and cheat your way to the top. I see him as one of the principle hallmarks of the moral decline I have seen elsewhere, one of the architects of a culture without honor and overburdened with hypocrisy.

I link Clint Eastwood to the bullies who tormented me, the voters who thought it was just fine that George Bush stole the presidency, and all those who were afflicted by general mean-spiritedness. I count my bruises and those hidden scars – the memories of terror – spawned from imitations of Eastwood’s celluloid life. I read McGilligan’s biography and I am not surprised. Eastwood, it seems, is a jerk. He appeals to jerks. He fobs off banal hatreds as high culture. He teaches men, in particular, to make no compromises, to pretend as if they don’t have to live with other people at all; that they can eliminate those who annoy them.

Fuck you, Clint Eastwood. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.