Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Political Musings from Pseudo-Bachelorhood, Part XIII

Alternate Title: Embrace Your Mythology, America!

So let me get this straight, again: In The Magnificent Seven, Americans ride in to save a Mexican villiage from bandits, who happen to also be Mexican, and they ride out with fewer than the advertised seven. What propoganda! Forty-some years later, "sophisticated" Americans would appreciate no such venture.

Meanwhile, leftists diminish the sacrifice contained within this American myth by saying that:

White men oppressed red men
Of course, ignore the fact that some white men and one partially brown man (Bernardo) saved brown men (and women and children) from oppression from other brown men.
Americans fight for their own interests
Well, these seven Americans got twenty dollars, a low sum by the standards indicated within the film, to protect oppressed Mexican farmers.
Americans always win, and their heroes never run out of bullets.
I know it's out of fashion, but let's run the numbers through this little bit of reality we call arithematic. Seven gunslingers, including those portraued by Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, Steve McQueen, and Yul Brenner ride in. Three ride almost out, but one decides he likes a Mexican babe and stays. Frankly, a less than fifty percent survival ratio is pretty low, even for realism circa the late 1800s that a Western embraces. Particularly that 22.2% returns to America, after defending the foreigners.

Pah, you all can guess what point I am trying to make. I am no Edith Hamilton or Joseph Campbell, but I understand the power of the stories we tell each other about our common heritage, and brothers, Abu Ghraib ain't it.

P.S. In the arithematic of American mythology, the The Dirty Dozen (-11) and The Magnificent Seven (-4) do not yield the same actor in the role of survivor. Just in case you damn kids watched one, I wanted to inspire you to watch the other.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:45 AM