{"id":1162,"date":"2013-07-04T20:07:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-05T02:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=1162"},"modified":"2013-07-04T20:07:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-05T02:07:38","slug":"the-lone-ranger-telling-it-like-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2013\/07\/the-lone-ranger-telling-it-like-it-is.html","title":{"rendered":"The Lone Ranger \u2013 Telling It Like It Is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>I liked The Lone Ranger<\/em>.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t leave feeling immensely entertained, much less inspired.\u00a0 But I liked it, because it presented an accurate assessment of the way things are.<\/p>\n

I seem to be the only person on the internet who did like it.\u00a0 Reviewers from the Right complain about trashing American institutions and the lack of an unambiguously good hero for kids to emulate.\u00a0 Reviewers from the Left complain about racial stereotyping, the lack of female characters, and the choice of a white man with one Indian far back in his ancestry to play one of the most famous Native American characters in Hollywood history.\u00a0 Both sides complain about excessive violence and inaccuracies in history, culture, and geography.\u00a0 If you go expecting to see the world presented as you think it should be, you\u2019re going to be disappointed.<\/p>\n

Those who criticize The Lone Ranger<\/em> for its filmmaking also have a valid complaint.\u00a0 It recycles shots, scenes and gimmicks from The Pirates of the Caribbean<\/em> movies, The Mummy<\/em> movies, and countless Westerns from the 1930s forward.\u00a0 The story development is slow, making the 2\u00bd hour running time seem even longer.\u00a0 It could have \u2013 and should have \u2013 been better.<\/p>\n

With all those negatives, why do I say I liked it?<\/p>\n

Unlike many recent theatrical remakes and reboots, I have no emotional attachment to The Lone Ranger<\/em>.\u00a0 My parents grew up listening to it on the radio, but it was gone from TV before I was born.\u00a0 I saw it in reruns occasionally, but I was never a big Western fan anyway, so it was just another TV show.\u00a0 I went into the theater with no expectations other than those created by Johnny Depp in the odd makeup and costume.<\/p>\n

I seriously doubt the screenwriters approached The Lone Ranger<\/em> with any intentions other than to bring the characters of Tonto and the Lone Ranger into the 21st<\/sup> century and create some new adventures for them.\u00a0 But screenwriters live in the same world we do \u2013 it\u2019s inevitable that current affairs and societal trends will make their way into the scripts.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t watch villain Latham Cole for long before you start thinking of Rupert Murdoch or the Koch brothers.\u00a0 John Reid is the idealistic liberal na\u00efve to the harsh realities of life.\u00a0 \u00a0Substitute oil for silver and the misuse of the military by powerful civilians looks a lot like Iraq.<\/p>\n

And Tonto?\u00a0 Fellow Pagans, Tonto is us, dressing funny, talking to animals and chasing spirits while some very evil but still very human men rape the land and pillage the commonwealth.<\/p>\n

The idealistic liberal and the damaged pagan manage to do some good in their adventures.\u00a0 The villains receive justice, the damsel in distress is rescued, and the Lone Ranger and Tonto set themselves up to right more wrongs in the future\u2026 though if the early box office results hold up, they won\u2019t be doing it any time soon.<\/p>\n

The problem \u2013 and the reason why there was no way to end the movie feeling good \u2013 is that we know how it turns out.\u00a0 Whatever good Tonto and the Lone Ranger accomplished ultimately wasn\u2019t enough.\u00a0 The treaties with the Native tribes were broken.\u00a0 Real industrialists and financiers built real empires using the sweat and blood of the poor, empires that continue to pull political strings to this day.\u00a0 The train of \u201cprogress\u201d has never been stopped, no matter how many lives have been ruined, no matter that we know \u201cprogress\u201d can\u2019t go on forever<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I liked The Lone Ranger<\/em>:\u00a0 it accurately portrays modern America as it really is.<\/p>\n

And what of us? \u00a0Is righting a few small wrongs all we\u2019re capable of achieving?\u00a0 Are we ultimately powerless to alter the course of \u201cprogress\u201d?\u00a0 Will we end up as museum exhibits, forever out of place in a changing world?<\/p>\n

The Lone Ranger<\/em> is a Tarot reading with The Devil and The Tower in conjunction.\u00a0 Bad things are coming.\u00a0 Big bad things.<\/p>\n

Divination reveals what will be, not what must be<\/a>.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t like what the oracles tell us, it\u2019s up to us to take action to create a different outcome.\u00a0 And this is where The Lone Ranger<\/em> ultimately falls short:\u00a0 it shows us how we\u2019re headed for trouble, but it doesn\u2019t show us how to make things better.\u00a0 I suppose that\u2019s too much to expect from a bunch of movie makers who specialize in entertainment spectacles.<\/p>\n

Showing the world a better way to live?\u00a0 That\u2019s our job<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lone Ranger is a flawed film and much of what the negative reviews complain about is true. But I still liked it, and if you\u2019re on the fence I encourage you to see it. For all its inaccuracies, it tells it like it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":1163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[81,116,4,5,117],"class_list":["post-1162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-divination","tag-lone-ranger","tag-pagan","tag-paganism","tag-tonto"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Lone Ranger \u2013 Telling It Like It Is<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Lone Ranger is a flawed film and much of what the negative reviews complain about is true. But I still liked it, and if you\u2019re on the fence I encourage you to see it. 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