Once upon a time in a land far, far away: Far and Away, a romance movie that stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. . . I saw these names and immediately stopped munching on my sour cream potato chips. This was a turn off. I could tell immediately what was in store for me as a hunched in disappointment. I could foretell that this American made movie would be some sort of attempt to provide some sort of crappy understanding of oppression in the beginning of America’s greatness by showing the hardships experienced by some sappy romantic couple. Geez my cynicism is disgusting.
Ron Howard did, however, show that oppression existed even in the Irish communities. The relationship between the Irish peasants such as the Donnellys and the privileged land owner, Stephen Chase played by Thomas Gibson, represented the power conflict that existed between the two classes. However, it was hard for me to look deeper to relate to the power struggle because the characters in the film are all white! This even got a little confusing. I began to lose confidence once again.
It was after the introduction of Shannon Christie that regained a little of my attention. Yes she was hot, but there was more. It was how she packed and saved her future lover from a high class gun fight, her ability to grow and prosper in a new environment in her determination for survival and to attain her dream of getting some of that Oklahoma territory. Intrigued, I gained more hope for a great movie experience.
It was when a bout of masculinity was displayed by the great, one and only, Tom Cruise that regained my demise. Though it was a Hollywood type movie, I couldn’t help but feel that great masculinity was glorified. The rippling of Tom Cruises muscles gleaming as his face jeered with power only left me with that same old feeling. With my own consumerist cynicism I couldn’t help but view this scene as a boost for Cruise’s star power. This, I thought, was a distraction. Howard, however, still did a decent job of showing how the oppressed oppress each other in order to climb the ladder. He also shows this in the beginning when Mr. McGuire fools a naïve Shannon by taking her prized spoons for his own prosperity and then in return, is shot to death by some of the desperate oppressed. Afterward, more oppressed people pick off almost all of Shannon’s valuables as she is turned upside down in the swarm of confusion.
The film, over all, did a mediocre job of expressing the hardships of Irish immigrants coming to America. Interactions changed only because of an identifiable community. Oppression still existed in the homeland but changed and formed when it came to the disparity of being placed in a new environment. But, uh-oh, that cynicism kicks back into gear when there is no noted diversity of oppressed peoples, when there is no memberable mention of how that dreamland was attained for the United States to get for free. I knew there was classism, but I was still confused on how there was racism if the people looked the same. Was it all about classism? The way they spoke? The stereotype of red hair?
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I agree with you that it would have been nice to see some of the oppression of the Native Americans in this movie. After all, the Oklahoma land everyone was fighting for used to be Native American land. However, I liked how this movie pointed out that oppression can occur between people of the same race. Most of the time, we think of oppression as occurring between people of different races. This type of oppression is definitely a problem, but there are many other forms of oppression as well, such as gender, age, and class oppression. Some of these types of oppression have nothing to do with race. During the scenes which took place in Ireland, class oppression was occurring between the landlords and the poor farmers. Once they moved to America, the Irish experienced ethnic oppression. Many people of other ethnicities refused to hire the Irish. Today, we see European Americans as one group but that wasn't always the case. During peak immigration from Europe, the different ethnicites were definitely seen and treated as separate groups.
ReplyDeleteYes, when I think about what you said earlier in the paragraph, about oppression occurring in the same race, I think about: oppression occurring in the same race, those oppressed still go on to oppress other races (slaves), and how really it looks like a bunch of squabbling apes trying to get up that ladder we define as the "American dream" or as "the right way" to prosperity.
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