‘The ghosts of the Confederacy will not die.’- Colonel Anderson (Kurt Smallwood); 1.1
One of the hallmarks of Western films—here meant in the sense of ‘Spaghetti’ rather than ‘the West’ —is the idea of the cowboy/gunslinger riding off into the sunset, either alone or possibly with one or more of his fellows. This works well for something self-contained like a film, even a film series, but the increasingly serialised format of television lends itself more to a cast of characters more or less staying put, as a budgetary concern if nothing else. While series like Deadwood (HBO, 2004-2006) or even Westworld (HBO, 2016-2022) are firmly in the quality TV mould, this quandary appears earlier on in broadcast media as well, particularly in the CBS series The Magnificent Seven (1998-2000; from now M7).
For those unfamiliar with the series (or the film it is loosely adapted from),[1] it features seven gunslingers from various backgrounds who are, in the pilot episode, hired by an Indigenous village to protect them against former Confederate soldiers who are threatening them. They eventually settle in a local town, employed as law enforcement officials with extremely limited judicial oversight. The Seven consist of the taciturn ‘man in black,’ Chris Larabee (Michael Biehn), quiet bounty hunter wrongfully accused of murder Vin Tanner (Eric Close), ladies’ man Buck Wilmington (Dale Midkiff), defrocked priest and (intermittently) recovering alcoholic Josiah Sanchez (Ron Perlman), young, adventure-seeking JD Dunne (Andrew Kavovit), escaped slave turned doctor Nathan Jackson (Rick Worthy) and Southern gambler, grifter and money-addict Ezra Standish (Anthony Starke). Rounding out the cast is journalist, niece of the local circuit judge and love interest for Chris, Mary Travis (Laurie Holden). The series does a number of things differently to the usual portrayals of gunslingers due to its regular setting, most notably through leveraging the homosociality of the seven leads to allow their characters to develop and discuss their feelings, relationships and traumas with each other. But the setting also allows for discourses related to settler colonialism which is what this blog will focus upon.
cstonline.netwww.youtube.com/watch?v=QGZgekU8dEI
Veracini (2014: 623) notes that, unlike other forms, ‘settler collectives attach to the land but generally do not need indigenous ‘Others’ for their reproduction and operation’ which can, though does not automatically, involve physical or cultural genocide (Wolfe, 2006). That said, forced displacement and so-called ‘residential schools’ which forced Indigenous children to leave their families and cultures behind under the pretence of ‘civilising’ them does fit the definition of attempted cultural genocide according to the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission who were tasked to investigate the schools that operated in Canada (Voce et al, 2021). The separation of Indigenous groups from their land was characterised in religious terms as part of ‘Manifest Destiny,’ an expansionist philosophy also associated with the fallacy of American exceptionalism which implied that ‘Americans’ (here meaning only white Protestants descended from European settlers) were divinely empowered to expand and control the entirety of the continent (Gann, 2014). This, coupled with the dehumanisation of Indigenous peoples encapsulated by the papal ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ (also used by non-Catholic nations like the UK) was used as a pretext to oppress Indigenous peoples and forcibly displace them so that European settlers could take over their land.
M7 subversively addresses this context in a number of ways. When attempting to bribe circuit-court judge Travis (Robert Vaughn) in 1.2, local wealthy rancher James (Sam Hennings) tells him that ‘Ranchers have a nation to feed. A destiny to fulfil.’ Given that James is clearly the villain of the piece (most wealthy elites are in the series), this positions Manifest Destiny as both a negative in general and a tool for wealthy elites to increase their wealth and power. In 2.12, when confronting a populist political operative, Mary comments that wealthy, politically powerful ranchers use a fallacious threat of attacks by Indigenous peoples as a way of scaring voters out of supporting their territory to become a state.[2] Mary has been stated to be pro-Indigenous rights throughout the series (e.g., 1.8). The other characters are more ambivalent about some elements of social progressiveness—Chris says he is ‘starting to feel out of place’ (1.4) because of ‘progress.’ Because, however, M7 is strongly heteroglossic, it allows for a multiplicity of perspectives which are then integrated with character development into an overall socially progressive series. Remaining with 1.8, this episode engages with and subverts the similar stereotype of a white woman being ‘kidnapped’ by an Indigenous man. In this episode, a missionary’s daughter is the ostensible victim, though it is ultimately revealed that she had consensually married an Indigenous man and was subsequently murdered by her father for doing so.
The episode follows two main strands; Vin, though assigned to track the man, has lived with multiple Indigenous peoples and has a high degree of cultural competency with regard to this specific amalgam/fictitious Indigenous nation. This allows him to not only recognise that the missionary was the murderer based upon an understanding of the Indigenous people’s belief system,[3] but it also allows him to recognise how racist discourses are being employed by the missionary and his son. Vin also notes that he had a friend from the same Indigenous culture as the fictitious one in the episode, but the friend was killed ‘when the army rounded them all up and sent them to the reservation.’ This explicit statement is coupled with Josiah’s plotline. Though a defrocked priest, Josiah has also studied multiple belief systems, including several Indigenous systems, and goes to the reservation in part to tell the Indigenous leader that his son is a fugitive but also because he wishes to learn from them. The missionary and his son both want to convert the Indigenous people whereas Josiah explicitly states he is not interested in conversion. Josiah and the chief get to know one another and build trust. That becomes the point at which the chief tells Josiah what Vin has already determined. Cultural competency, treating others as people and respecting their culture, is clearly being positioned as the correct way to engage with Indigenous peoples but it also, like with Manifest Destiny above, explicitly positions the actions taken historically by the US government as wrong.
This episode, as well as the pilot for which see more below, also features something often missing in Indigenous portrayals; not only are Indigenous people seen and heard but they also show agency (cf Tahmahkera, 2014). In the original film, the Seven were hired by a Mexican village to protect them against bandits. In the M7 pilot, however, the Seven are hired by a small village of Seminoles who are raided by a group of ex-Confederate soldiers (who are explicitly tied to white supremacy in their introduction). Their leader, Colonel Anderson, believes that ‘…there are many who’d join [the ex-Confederates] if not for being under the Yankees’ heel.’ Throughout the episode the Seminoles take an active role in their own defence, including making strategic decisions, and their discomfort with the majority white Seven is both acknowledged in dialogue and shown across nuanced, heteroglossic characters.
This premise illustrates and contextualises the series as a whole. Though in reality the Seminole were one of the few Indigenous nations to not be driven off their lands in what is now Florida and Oklahoma, here a village in the West (which does not seem to be under US government control like a reservation) has been established. The Seminole are also well-known for having welcomed Black people escaping enslavement into their nation (Tomlinson, 2022)[4] and to have fought wars with the US government to keep their land. In addition to seeing this—there are a handful of Black and mixed-race characters in the village—this choice of the Seminoles and the ex-Confederates allows for the series to directly address race from the outset in the context of both settler colonialism (elimination of Indigenous ties to land) and racial oppression.
Much of the series’ engagement with race is done through Nathan and Ezra’s interactions, something which begins in 1.1. Rather than making their friendship always acrimonious (though they have their moments) or having Ezra, as a Southerner, be explicitly racist, the series instead positions Ezra as someone who felt unable to directly fight against the institution of slavery because he was too afraid of being harmed by the Confederacy/Southern system of government for doing so. We see this here in the choice of adversary in the pilot; Ezra is fighting alongside the rest of the Seven plus the Indigenous villagers against explicitly white-supremacist-Confederate (ex-)soldiers, including working with (and entertaining) some of the village children. During the initial battle, Ezra suffers a dislocated shoulder in a fall (Nathan reduces the dislocation later) but the fear engendered by the battle, as well as his desire for wealth based upon a belief that there is gold nearby, (the same belief that the ex-Confederates hold and why they try and return to divest the villagers of their land),[5] lead Ezra to abandon his post while he is on watch. The ex-Confederates then attack and Ezra, after expressing shame over his own cowardice, flees. We see later, through both skilful performance and dialogue, that the shame and underlying desire to help leads him to return. Indeed, he attempts to release the other Seven who, by this point, have been captured. He fails to save them and/or the village on his own, but when working with the others, he is able to contribute to defeating the ex-Confederates, with Ezra being the one to knock down a Confederate flag with a cannonball, saluting its fall in satisfaction (though he later claims to have been aiming for Anderson).
What the metaphor involved in this episode (and, indeed, throughout the rest of the series) shows is two-fold. First, it shows the moral injury and learnt helplessness of those who recognise that systemic oppression of others (or Others) is wrong. This combination of factors leads to the belief that they are unable to fight against it alone and, if they tried, they would be harmed themselves. The series shows quite clearly that the ability to effectively resist oppression comes from alliances rather than individuals. In these effective alliances all parties, including those who represent the disempowered and dispossessed of land and of opportunities, are able to speak and collaborate to achieve their goals. Secondly, the ability to change and grow, as all of the characters in the series do, comes from emotional and cultural engagement rather than isolation. The ghosts of the Confederacy, of white supremacy, of settler colonialism and of attempted cultural genocide are still omnipresent in American culture. Unlike the gunfighter who rides off into the sunset, those who stay behind must begin to recognise past wrongs and make a concerted effort to change on both the personal and sociocultural levels in response to those past wrongs, something we see all of the characters do over the course of M7 as part of the series’ overall critique. And unlike the single gunfighter who takes on a group of adversaries and saves the day on their own, The Magnificent Seven explicitly shows that no one can stop continuing injustice alone.
Dr Melissa Beattie is a recovering Classicist who was awarded a PhD in Theatre, Film and TV Studies from Aberystwyth University where she studied Torchwood and national identity through fan/audience research as well as textual analysis. She has published and presented several papers relating to transnational television, audience research and/or national identity. She is currently an assistant professor of liberal arts at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. She is under contract with Lexington for an academic book on fictitious countries and Palgrave for a book on Canadian crime dramas. She has previously worked at universities in the US, Korea, Pakistan, Armenia, Ethiopia and for a brief time in Cambodia. She can be contacted at tritogeneia@aol.com.
Footnotes
[1] The original film from 1960 (dir. Sturges) was itself an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s Shichinin no Samurai, better known as The Seven Samurai (1954).
[2] The name of the town is never stated in the series but is ostensibly in the ‘Four Corners’ region, meaning that it could be part of Utah, Colorado, Arizona or New Mexico Territory, all of which existed during this general time period.
[3] Vin recognises that a fire made with wood from a lightning-struck tree had to be made by the missionary, not the fugitives, as the Indigenous culture would have viewed that as taboo.
[4] At the time of production there had been a series of court battles in the US over access by descendants of Seminole Freedmen in Oklahoma to reparations made by the US government; the series seems to have firmly positioned itself as supporting the Freedmen’s descendants’ claim by explicitly stating that escaped slaves are part of the Seminole nation during the episode (Tomlinson, 2022).
[5] Anderson wants the gold for supplies to carry on his war whereas Ezra is after money for personal gain (self-protection/status). The series repeatedly connects capitalist exploitation of workers to slavery (itself an economic institution), though Ezra’s entrepreneurial endeavours are often used as both part of his character development and to illustrate how thin the line between exploitation and business practices can be.
References
Gann R (2014) Cowboys, six-guns, and horses: Manifest Destiny and empire in the American Western. Quarterly Review of Film and Video 32: 216–239.
Tahmahkera D (2014) Tribal television: Viewing Native people in sitcoms. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press.
Tomlinson J (2022) The long fight for Freedmen citizenship continues in Oklahoma tribal nations. Non-Doc (4 March) https://nondoc.com/2022/03/04/freedmen-citizenship-fight-continues/ (accessed 9/8/24).
Veracini L (2014) Understanding colonialism and settler colonialism as distinct formations. Interventions 16(5): 615-633.
Voce A Cecco L and Michael C (2021). ‘Cultural genocide’: the shameful history of Canada’s residential schools – mapped. The Guardian, (6 September). cstonline.netwww.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/sep/06/canada-residential-schools-indigenous-children-cultural-genocide-map . Accessed 12/10/24.
Wolfe P (2006) Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research 8(4): 387-409.
