Bad Guys Wear White Hats
Alejandro Ramirez
After Raphael Montañez Ortiz’s Cowboy and “Indian” Film, 1957-58, 16mm film
My mom’s uncle always told her to root for the Indians. “The cowboys are the bad guys,” he said. Uncle John was a priest who served out west on reservations. He even met Geronimo’s son. I like to think about my mom as a little girl, sitting next to her uncle while he broke it down for her: the white man stealing lands, massacring natives, disease and famine and impoverished reservations. I wonder what it was like watching westerns with him; they probably felt distorted, twisted, upside down, mixed up, the film trembling as if the camera had been held by an unsteady hand.
But for my mom’s brother, Les, Westerns are steady, clear, vivid, with witty quips, and choreographed shoot outs, and the good guys all wear white hats and ride off into the sunset with their scalps intact. At the age of sixty-five, he’ll show you a John Wayne impression after a few beers or some scotch. At the age of sixty-five, he signed up for a six shooter contest that required him to dress like a cowboy. At the age of sixty-five, I wonder if he remembers Uncle John the way my mom does. I wonder what Les and Uncle John talked about, if they ever watched Westerns together, if they ever saw the same story playing out on screen.