Why invoking the "Western" motif is unbecoming of our President - Culture and Value

The moment that President Bush made the statement involving a poster from a Western with Osama bin Laden wanted "dead or alive," he made a grievous error. For his invocation of the Western calls along with it a host of other errors and problems that only compound the already tenuous situation in the international community. The image of the poster from a Western movie is inherently tied up in racist, sexist rhetoric and, on top of that, brings along with it connotations of martial law imposed upon settlements in the American West by sheriffs and outlaws alike (all of the John Wayne movies, plus all of the works of Clint Eastwood come to mind; as does the old Nintendo game Gunsmoke). So why, then, would the President want to call to mind such images?

It seems to me that the era of the Western movie has as much to do with international diplomacy as the works of John Woo have to do with psychoanalysis (that is to say: very little). Western movies involve more of the spirit of manifest destiny than anything else and this notion has no right to be in the same sphere as modern politics. Let's take a moment to recall some of the tropes involved in the Western:

The Star: white male; unshaven; thirty-odd years old; cowboy hat; has a horse which he named; has a sidekick who may have a crush on The Star; has a lady friend in each town he passes through; is a bit of a loner; has problems with authority.

The Harlot: prostitute with a heart of gold; usually saved from some violent conflict with a customer when The Star comes to town; does not enjoy her profession but it puts money on the table; usually helps The Star out by hitting an enemy over the head with a frying pan at one point; has long hair; speaks with a drawl.

The Horse: has some Biblical or otherwise mythological name; faster than the other horses; marked by something, whether it be a black coat, a birthmark or a distinctive neigh or whinny; leaps higher obstacles than the other horses; usually strategically placed near a window in case of an emergency exit by his rider, The Star.

The Villain: possibly of foreign descent (which is timely in our case); if otherwise, distinguished by an accent, a mustache, a love of power, a callous heart or some combination of the four; sometimes in love with The Harlot and sometimes kidnaps said girl; has a past history with The Star; has a gang of thugs who do his bidding.

The Sidekick: helps out The Star as much as possible; is usually younger than The Star; possibly of another race or of foreign descent; has his own horse inferior only to that of The Star's Horse; may be in love with The Star.

So let's fill in the blanks: For The Star we have President Bush - his accent gave him away. He is clean shaven, but we all could see him with a cowboy hat on, out on the dude ranch. The Horse: Air Force One. It's just a teched-up version of The Lone Ranger's Silver, with air-to-air missiles included. The Villain: Osama bin Laden, or so we suspect. The Sidekick: the American public, who seem to have fallen in love with a President who has executed more individuals prior to coming to office than any other (I believe). And the Harlot? Certainly not First Lady Laura Bush, she's too wholesome. I'm going to wager that that Harlot is also the American public. Come on: we have a spotty past, though we contest to have a heart of gold; we enjoy hitting the head of our enemies with pots and pans and we have been pimped out by many administrations in our history.

Thus there are problems with the model as I see it, because the Sidekick and the Harlot should not be the same person or group. There are also problems with the fact that our President wants to apply Western politics (in both the case of Western as in Western hemisphere and Western as in Western film, as they appear one and the same from time to time) to an international world. We are on shaky ground here and we certainly don't need statements like the one the President made to make things worse. What's next? Are we going to build up the gallows for after bin Laden's capture - or worse? I shudder to think.