Fuck My Ass, What Else?

Damn it, I had a nice, long post written, and was embellishing it with links, etc, when I clicked on the compose tab in blogger to try and do some fucky cross-out font stuff when I lost all the goodness. Sumbitch. I was on a role too, posting some pithy, high-falutin' on the discussion board for my Film Studies class. So, as a temporary measure until I can reconstitute the literary goodness I had about how Lethbridge is a shitburg, etc, please read the following paragraph written in response to commentary on the movie Shane (1953). For background, it's a really boring, unintentional laughter producing, archetypal Western.

Posted by Mark Jess on Wednesday, October 13, 2004 11:32am

I'm going to have to jump on the band wagon and agree. This movie was way too slow. I think a large part of that was to cover up for the lack of dialogue and action. Really, there are very few (sixish) main plot elements: Shane meets the family and joins them, Shane goes to town and antagonizes the cowboys, the farmers decide to resist, Shane gets in a fight, the southerner is shot, Shane goes into town and fights. Everything else, like the scene where he teaches Joey how to quick-draw, don't really move the plot along, but just amplify one of the main elements, in this case Shane joining the family. A lot of this could have been resolved, faster, with a better script. But, a lot of this is a function of when the film was produced. Westerns were not only intended to entertain and relay the plot, but were also meant to perpetuate the myths of the Old West, Manifest Destiny, and (White) American Superiority. So, having a slow moving film, with emphasis on the landscape, reflects and reinforces the societal mythology that the audience had already absorbed.

I could have written more, but it was just supposed to be a general discussion, not a full-blown critique. Also, todays title provide by Jack Black, from Tenacious D - Track 19 - Drive Thru, which really captured what I felt when I lost the killer post I had already written. Honest, it was great. Anything I try now to re-make it will only be a pale echo of its grandeur.