Why do so many people hate this film?

Just re-watched. The worst things i see are the casualties Hollywood typical, when the guy from the army disconnects the micro when Forrest is talking in front of the Washington monument, thats surreal and pretty fake, we have 3 or 4 like this. But man, not everybody can make personal films in Hollywood, not everyone is Scorsese!
also it’s so optimistic that gets ridiculous sometimes.. I don’t like the Nike advice either.

Good stuff i find:
-it resumes 3 decades of a country in a short time which i consider a positive thing more than a negative.
-The first 20 minutes are probably the best and touching, when he remembers his days with Jenny both being childs.
-I want to believe the film is about main character innocence and his impossibility to understand the cynical world he lives in.

If we want to talk about movies which may hurt children let’s talk about The Pursuit of Happyness or Amelie. Or sitcoms like Friends or How i met your mother, those are really pathetic and toxic.

@Matt Parks: I know I’ve posted these pictures on other MUBI threads before but as long as the issue of so-called “apolitical” films has come up, as well as Ronald Reagan, take a gander at these two shots from two separate Paramount movies:

BTW, RAIDERS was released in 1981, the year of Reagan’s inauguration, and took place in South America and the Middle East, two international hot spots in 1981. It also involved a titanic battle between the forces of Good (the U.S.) and the forces of Evil (Nazi Germany aka the Soveit Union) for an ark that exploded like a nuclear weapon and that could “level mountains and destroy entire regions.” Apolitical?

Frank: Now Raiders is a conservative movie?
Also I’ve never seen Apocalypse Now, I just always heard it described as anti-war, or at least anti-vietnam war, so I’m sorry if I assumed something that wasn’t true.

Wu Yong: I don’t know how to respond to your compiling cherrypicked sentences and nouns I have said to make me appear a certain way except that I feel kind of insulted by it and it’s the only comment in the thread that I felt was ugly and detrimental to a good discussion. Of course since it was directed at me, I’m biased ;). I have stated repeatedly that I have no political leanings and don’t know much about politics at all, all my statements that may have seemed political were simply examples trying to defend Forrest Gump, not liberals or conservatives, and I can’t help but feel slightly offended that you don’t think I have defended the film at all.

But anyway, this comment has convinced me that I should leave the thread before it gets ugly (or I get ugly) but I would like to say I think it has been a good and civil discussion and I hope everyone feels the same.

EDIT: I know I said I wasn’t going to respond again, but does editing count? Anyway, I just want to say that I strongly dislike movies with a clear message like the ones you seem to be describing so maybe that’s why I like Forrest Gump.

You’re not understanding my point.

The film is too ambiguous. It’s propaganda because it delivers a ‘feeling’, not a message. Hence why both those defending and those railing against can connect the dots between the film and any sociopolitical issue (hippies and counterculture, the Patriot Act, republican congressional elections in 1994, et. al.) they could imagine.

The film’s message is:

“So if the author of the book the movie is based on is a conservative, the film is conservative propaganda?”

No, but the political conservatism of the film has been amply demostrated in earlier posts. The assertion made was that people were reading into the films things that weren’t actually there, or were there but not intended to mean what they mean. What I was saying is that if the politics of the film are someone accidental, it’s sort of an odd coincidence in that the novel (have you read it?) is self-consciously conservative and the author of the novel is politically conservative.

Defintion of conservative: one who “promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society.”

@ Frank

Yes, I remember you offering a similar reading of Raiders here awhile back, and I was skeptical at the time, but upon further consideration it makes sense, particularly in light of Crystal Skull recasting the whole character mythology explicitly in Cold War terms.

“Maybe we need to define conservatism?

Not a definition, but my understanding of conservative thought is that there are very few structural barriers in life. There is only you, the individual, making decisions…. and of course, some luck.
If that^ is a correct understanding, the conservative interpretations of the film jump out from the prior pages."

I wouldn’t agree with that understanding of conservatism if we’re talking about what it means to be a conservative in the United States, esp. the South. My understanding of conservatism values in the U.S. would mean you have a strong devotion to Protestant values, believe the Earth is 5000 years old and that the first humans were Adam and Eve and that sort of thing. You favor small government for economic reasons: low taxes, limited federal regulations, capitalism. You favor government to limit social issues you oppose: same-sex marriage, abortion, marijuana use. You oppose anything communist or socialist (suppose you have to hate on public libraries, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, fire departments, roads, parks, welfare…anything you pay taxes for) you have a strong military support, generally favor Republicans, buy in the USA.

@ Q*bert …strong devotion to Protestant values….Adam and Eve
Okay, so some of those things you listed are actually in the film. Nothing negative though – if Gump did the right thing, luck would prevail upon him.

Then maybe we should define the subset of conservative values we consider bad?

-Social intolerance
-Conformity to authority

Okay, the film is guilty of the second. But it’s not the focus of the film. The focus of the film is to make you love Forrest Gump.

“Every film is political”. Sure, in one sense of the word, you could say that. But any idea that the entertainment world is just a political battleground where every item is intended as influence toward an agenda, that’s just plain silly. Entertainment films like Forrest Gump try hard not to make you think too much. Can’t influence somebody without hitting their brain’s on switch.

We must remember, the protagonist is mentally handicapped, and literally incapable of conceptualizing beyond the concrete. He’s just a nice person, and that’s the point.

I’m 65 years-old and lived through the period the film depicts. To put it as simply as I can “Forrest Gump” is a complete and very deliberate lie.

It asks us to view a “simpleton” (really the best way to pue it) as a hero because he stumbled through life doing “as best he could” and surviving though sheer luck. The politically committed character, Jenny does not.

The film’s message is simple: protest the Vietnam war and you’ll get AIDS and die.

Joseph Goebbels would have loved “Forrest Gump.”

I actually agree with Jirin’s comments above. In fact, I rarely talk about artist’s intentions but rather what they put on screen. I also agree that commercial filmmakers do not want us to think too much about the political implications of their movies—it could damage the box office receipts.

Over the course of time, though, movies may have a slow effect on public attitudes. For instance, the rather subtle ideological messages in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981, the first year of the Reagan “Revolution”) morphed into more blatant displays of America-First, “USA, USA!” rhetoric in SUPERMAN II, RED DAWN, the RAMBO movies, Star Trek II, Return of the Jedi, Terminator, Robocop, and, of course Rocky IV, in which Stallone beats the Russian techno-boxer and “Gorbachev” applauds. Not too subtle there.

Three of the subtleties in RAIDERS:

1. After starting out as a strong woman in Nepal—beating men at their own games of drinking, gambling, and fighting— Marion quickly becomes a damsel in distress (Maid Marion?) who instead of killing bad guys with guns (which she does early on) hits them over the head with a frying pan (back to the kitchen!); she squirms over the snakes and pleads for Indy’s help throughout—a far cry from the independent agent established at the outset. Remember that the Equal Rights Amendment was still in play at about this time period, until Reagan’s election put a stop to that initiative.

2. The storyboards for the film reveal that the magic medallion—the way to God—was modeled on the Great Seal of the United States, the Masonic symbol found on the back of the $1 bill: the pyramid radiating light. The other part of theGreat Seal is the eagle, which IS reproduced on the medallion in the film, suggesting that the way to God is through U.S. currency.

3. The famous “duel” in the streets of Cairo between the scimitar-wielding Arab and Indy Jones (don’t tell me about Harrison Ford’s dysentary story about how it ended up getting filmed that way. Trust the tale and not the teller!) is a “happy ending” to reverse the actual Jimmy Carter “rescue mission,” which was a complete military fiasco. America’s superior firepower and technology diod NOT win the day in real life but the U.S.A. did win the day in RAIDERS with Indy’s superior weaponry…and smarts.

….

“any idea that the entertainment world is just a political battleground where every item is intended as influence toward an agenda, that’s just plain silly.”

Agreed . . . though unless I missed something in this thread, no one said the film was JUST this. Remember the original question “why do [people] hate this film?”, so we were being asked to isolate a single aspect (or cluster of aspects) of the film.

>>For instance, the rather subtle ideological messages in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981, the first year of the Reagan “Revolution”) morphed into more blatant displays of America-First, “USA, USA!” rhetoric in SUPERMAN II, RED DAWN, the RAMBO movies, Star Trek II, Return of the Jedi, Terminator, Robocop, and, of course Rocky IV,<<

Most of these movies a pretty damn great (excepting the Stalone vehicles and Red Dawn). They’re also meant as escapist fantasies rather than serious political statements, so if pro-American patriotism is a subtext (which is news to me in the case of Jedi, Terminator and Trek II – and Robocop is outright critical), more power to them.

> Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote:
Zemeckis banks on the innocence of two parties, Gump and the spectator, homogenizing culture and politics into a safe, sweet, palatable nugget. Judging by the the movie’s enduring popularity, the message that stupidity is redemption is clearly what a lot of Americans want to hear.

> Richard Corliss wrote:
Social tragedy sanitized for a Saturday Evening Post cover.

> Newt Gingrich incorporated a view of the film into his Congress campaign speeches; he argued that it represented the evils of the counterculture and directly associated its picture of the sixties’ mores with Bill Clinton.

> Pat Robertson saw Forrest Gump as evidence of a “tiny cell of conservatism burrowing deep inside the Hollywood elite.

Interesting, however that the film’s screenwriter, Eric Roth, is a liberal and protested the Vietnam war. Why he embraced a film that seeminlgy punishes the woman character with AIDS for being a feminist and a war protester is a bit of a puzzle. The novel was written by Winston Groom who wrote a glowing kids book on Reagan.

Brad S.: Well then, as you say, more power to them!

Unfortunately, the notion of “escapist fantasy” is no longer fully accepted as an explanation for the influence (or lack thereof) that movies have on our attitudes and culture. Certainly, these films take great pains to avoid being taken seriously; they thus become the Muzak of our lives, always surrrounding us with no opposition because they are not taken seriously.

Incidentally, I never said that any of these filmmakers set out to make “serious politiocal statements.” I’m not a mind reader, so I “don’t go there.” What I can say is that many of these films contain characters, narratives, situations, themes, and even stylistic elements (i.e., action-packed editing, patriotic music, etc.) that are pro-American and that they address in fictional form many of the self-same issues that society worries about in a given era.

If there is an “escapist” element in any of this, it is that these movies offer imaginary solutions to the nation’s problems—i.e., that a hero figure will emerge who will vanquish the Soviets, Arabs, Vietnamese (Rambo went back and WON the Vietnam War for the U.S.), and other foreigners. And that women will return to their place in the kitchen and the bedroom.

Remember that the Terminator comes back as a good guy, helping J.C. (this in the era of the Religious Right) and for most of ROBOCOP, the robocop seems like a perfect solution to the problem of crime. In fact, Reagan’s inaugural speech explicates a take on law and order that is very similar to the rationale provided in the movie. Cf. Susan Jeffords, Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era.

Entertainment films are designed to make people as little unhappy as possible.

Anything different from what people already believe makes them unhappy, as proven by some of the posts in this thread.

It is not the film influencing people toward conservatism, it is conservatism influencing the movie.

@ Dr. Frank

Here are two things I believe:

1) Escapism can be a healthy goal for well made films. This does not mean that it should be the only goal and I’d agree that if one relies solely on escapist entertainment, they will be missing more than their gaining. But, as part of a balanced “diet,” many of the films you mentioned are ones I wouldn’t want to be without. I don’t think people go into Raiders of the Lost Ark believing, “this is how WWII was fought.” As a tale told in alternate reality that bears little resemblance to our own, Raiders is an amazingly effective, funny and smart thrill ride.

2) There is a difference between confrontational jingoism and healthy patriotism. Rambo and Red Dawn cross the line a bit, but the others (in the small amount of political content they contain) are pretty well the later category. Do I cringe in Superman II when he returns the American flag to the White House? Hell no. I like moments like that. I like rooting for my country in films like Raiders. That doesn’t mean I’m not appalled when the U.S. commits war crimes or law enforcement goes rogue, but (back to point one) those are issues for serious films to discuss, not so much the ones that have been brought up here.

It is not the film influencing people toward conservatism…

How about reaffirming conservative values?

The violence in these films is redemptive – here’s how redemptive violence works:

“If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with!” Gov. Ronald Reagan April 7, 1970
Several weeks later, four Kent State students were shot to death on May 4, 1970.

Zemeckis can not be blamed entirely for this insipid movie. Winston Groom deserves a lot of credit for writing this piece of nonsense in the first place. The only real difference is that Groom imagined Gump like Benjy from Sound and the Fury, at least in terms of size. I believe Gump was a lineman for Alabama in the book, not a running back, but then I suppose Zemeckis had to tailor the character a bit to suit Hanks. The whole thing is Civil Rights History made easy and digestible, kind of a dumbed down Faulkner, with plenty of “bite-sized quotes” like Whitman’s chocolate samplers. I suppose it was perfect for Hollywood and an all too gullible audience.

I wouldn’t say it is a politically conservative book or movie per se. I think a lot of conservatives seized on the movie, because it suited their lack of conscience. But, Hanks is not conservative, and I don’t think Zemeckis is for that matter. Zemeckis comes from the Spielberg school. I think he made this film mostly for entertainment purposes. I think he and Hanks should have known better, but then who could have guessed the Republicans would take over Congress in 1994. It was a film that garnered momentum during the 1994 election midterms and seemed to sweep the political campaign trail with Gumpisms.

The whole thing is Civil Rights History made easy and digestible,

There is a scene in the film where Gump cuts through the racist crowd and hands the black student her book.
Obviously, Gump knows right from wrong. The conservative message is that one-on-one help is okay. What is implied is that structural change is unnecessary i.e. it took the government to change the structure of society and put that student where she was.
That is the kind of subtext being missed in the feel-good nature of the film. It is the power dynamic that the status quo likes: I can help you because I am morally superior.

I was appalled when I saw this film. What was worse was that I couldn’t tell anyone.

Why is Gump a simpleton?

“Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?” —Ronald Reagan, campaign speech, 1980

I remember visiting my Southern relatives at the time, and they all loved this movie. Like you said, Robert, it reduces the CR movement down to a one-on-one moral choice. Of course, what is missing is the one with the choice is the white guy. But, Groom wasn’t content to leave it at that. He literally injects Gump into pivotal historical situations, which Zemeckis in turn does through morphing Gump into B&W footage. Everyone seemed to think this was so cool, like anyone could become part of history.

@BRAD: 1) Escapism can be a healthy goal for well made films. This does not mean that it should be the only goal and I’d agree that if one relies solely on escapist entertainment, they will be missing more than their gaining. But, as part of a balanced “diet,” many of the films you mentioned are ones I wouldn’t want to be without. I don’t think people go into Raiders of the Lost Ark believing, “this is how WWII was fought.” As a tale told in alternate reality that bears little resemblance to our own, Raiders is an amazingly effective, funny and smart thrill ride.

I would say that “escapism” (if movie spectatoship really works that way) has little effect on the individual viewer. You leave the theater and go about yor life and you’ve “escaped” for two hours into some fantasy narrative. Collectively, however, when millions of people are exposed to an epic story that features an America hero cutting a swath through the Middle East (or South America) to return God’s word to its rightful home, the U.S.A. — and when that ark (which is desired for its military power, not its religious significance) is “stockpiled” in a warehouse — that a more subtle influence may be at work within the populace: they are conditioned to accept a more aggressive foreign policy (and a nuclear arms race) because the Nazis (read communists in 1981) and other foreign enemies of the U.S. are just so evil. (Remember THE DEER HUNTER and its Russian Roulette scenes, torture that was NEVER used by the Viet Cong in real life, or the “natives” in APOCALYPSE NOW shooting arrows and spears at the American troops (something that also never happened in the real conflict) but which portray the Vietnamese as primitive. These all contribute, in my humble opinion, to a xenophobia that “enables” policymakers to have their way with the electorate. BTW, although I mention these factual inaccuracies about the Vietnam War films, I never mentioned that RAIDERS was saying “this is how WWII was fought.” It’s certainly not a documentary. My concern is that fictional films have even MORE impact on the culture precisely BECAUSE they also satisfy those unconscious “escapist” needs for victory and hegemony. Does that inspire patriotism? Maybe, in some cases. Can it inspire jingoism? Even you seem to concede that it can “in some cases” …

2) There is a difference between confrontational jingoism and healthy patriotism. Rambo and Red Dawn cross the line a bit, but the others (in the small amount of political content they contain) are pretty well the latter category. Do I cringe in Superman II when he returns the American flag to the White House? Hell no. I like moments like that. I like rooting for my country in films like Raiders. That doesn’t mean I’m not appalled when the U.S. commits war crimes or law enforcement goes rogue, but (back to point one) those are issues for serious films to discuss, not so much the ones that have been brought up here.

I agree that there is “a difference between confrontational jingoism and healthy patriotism.” I’m glad that you concede that some popular films “cross the line.” My concern with SUPERMAN II is that it suggests, on an allegorical level, that America needed a “superman” (Reagan) in the White House because a recent occupant (Jimmy Carter) was ineffectual and did not stand up to the enemies (space men? the USSR? Iran?)

Some of my ideas about the political subtext of entertainment come from a conversation I once had with, of all people, Rod Serling. I asked him how it was that his work wasn’t censored more often by sponsors and networks. He said that he injected his (liberal) political views surreptitiously by setting his TWILIGHT ZONE episodes in the historical past or in a fictional future, or by having the villains be aliens or by focusing attention away from the real issue (in the case of the infamous Mr. Beemis, it was his desire to read all the books in the world, even though thermonuclear war had destroyed civilization in the background in “Time Enough at Last”).

Finally, as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert others have proved, Americans don’t only get their information from serious sources. People take in lots of ideological stimulus from fictional films and fictional news shows. These films are certainly not “eat your vegetables” movies but that doesn’t mean that some people don’t extract political ideas and attitudes from them.

This film, as me and my uncle put it, got old as soon as it was released in the theater.

@ Dr. Frank

It’s possible that most of our disagreement lies in how we’re interpreting these films. And, yes, I’m pretty much avoiding any defense of Gump as I find that movie a holy mess on many levels and would agree that it’s message is problematic (although, if it were a better film, I wouldn’t completely dismiss it on the grounds of being conservative.)

>>to return God’s word to its rightful home, the U.S.A. — and when that ark (which is desired for its military power, not its religious significance) is “stockpiled” in a warehouse<<

I read the ending of Raiders very differently. My sense was the ark was hidden in the giant warehouse among the many thousand similar looking boxes, not so that it could be used at some point in the future by the U.S., but so it would never be found by anyone. (and to provide a visual shout out to the ending of Citizen Kane)

>>the Nazis (read communists in 1981)<<

I see nothing in the film to support this comparison. At the time, during the height of the cold war, Soviets and Chinese were occasionally called on to be villains in U.S. action films. Had Lucas wanted them to be the villains, he could have used them. Instead, they were looking to represent pure evil and Nazis pretty much fit the bill without being allegorical.

>>My concern with SUPERMAN II is that it suggests, on an allegorical level, that America needed a “superman” (Reagan) in the White House because a recent occupant (Jimmy Carter) was ineffectual and did not stand up to the enemies<<

I don’t know. Superman seemed to function in pretty much the same way in the 1978 film when Carter was President. Both films were conceived and plotted out at the same time. I suppose since Luthor was using nukes in the first movie, one could say he could be an allegory for the Soviets as easily as the criminals from Superman’s home planet. Is this a case of, if you’’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail?

Brad: Thanks for your challenging reply — and for keeping the discussion civil. (This has not always been the case on MUBI when “passions” get involved.)

I’m glad to hear that you’re not a complete fan of GUMP, on aesthetic grounds (“a holy mess”) and acknowledge that its message is “problematic” (which means that you’re at least in the camp that believes that popular films may actually HAVE a message). We can “agree to disagree” on just how conservative its message is — and I will concede that, like any Hollywood product of the culture industry, it conveys mixed_ messages - so as to not alienate segments of the mass audience. That’s the basis of my theory of commercial “calcuilated ambivalence.”

Your analysis of the warehouse scene in RAIDERS is not completely incompatible with mine. I rely on earlier scenes in the film in which the ark’s military significance is emphasized and the later scene when it “goes off” creating a mushroom cloud to compare it to modern-day nuclear weapons. The “minor,” “throwaway” fact that Abner Ravenwood taught at the University of Chicago did not go unnoticed by me; the U. of Chicago was where the Manhattan Project was developed, resulting in the first atomic bombs. Coincidence? They could have picked ANY university. (And, yes, the reference to CITIZEN KANE is striking, especially considering that Spielberg purchased the Rosebud sled for $60,000. BTW, I tried to bid on that sled when it was estimated to go for $1500 but S.S. had it removed from auction. Of course, as we all know, THEY BURNED THE SLED in CITIZEN KANE.)

As for the other 1981 parallels, I didn’t want to retrace my entire article on the film but the comparison between the 1930s Nazis and the 1981 Soviets is part of a larger pattern of geopolitical analogues in RAIDERS. For instance, there’s Sallah, the Egyptian who is “smiling, gregarious, and friendly & cooperative to American interests in the Middle East” who is comparable to Anwar Sadat; likewise, Belloq, the French rival of Indy and a “dupe” of the Nazis, can be compared to the then-president of France, Francois Mitterand, who happened to be (guess what?) a Socialist, hence in the film’s rhetoric, a “dupe” of the Soviet Union.

The question often is raised, though, how is it that Spielberg, a well-known liberal in his personal politics, could direct this supposedly right-wing apologia for the incoming Reagan administration? I have several answers. Here are two: 1. Box office almost always trumps personal political conviction in Hollywood. The Zeitgeist was moving right and so did the American films of that era; 2. the film’s narrative structure was based on Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth (via George Lucas), which is an inherently conservative mythological construct, and 3. there was a lawsuit over the RAIDERS script. A right-wing minister named Rev. Raider (!), one of those guys who read the Bible as a literal road map to the contemporary politics in the Holy Land, claimed that he wrote the story. The matter was settled out of court for something like $25,000.

Finally, I almost like your interpretation of the first SUPERMAN movie better than my own: Lex Luther as the nuclear threat posed by the USSR! Yes, maybe in this case alone we’re both “hammers” looking for a “nail” on which to hang an ideological reading!

For me it’s a good film. However it leaves a bad taste in the mouth solely because of it robbing either ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ or ‘Pulp Fiction’ of a much more deserving Oscar win!

Something I find interesting is that nobody has made a topic like this about No Country For Old Men. That has way more an explicitly conservative message than Forrest Gump, and it is meant as a political statement.

Maybe it’s because people like the movie more than they do this one?

I was on a white water rafting trip this weekend in a town called West Forks in Maine. The rafting guide said the town only has 30 people living in it, and that ten years ago it was a fully populated town. Then, the logging industry got shut down because environmentalists got new laws passed preventing the kind of logging they were doing.

On the drive back, one of the very left leaning other people in the group repeated it:

“There are only 30 people living here now, but ten years ago it was a thriving town.”
“What happened, why did everybody move out?”
“Hmm, I don’t know.”

She wasn’t conveniently leaving out that part, she legitimately did not remember that detail. Her mind cherry-picked the bits of information that made her happy.

“Such are promises — all lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest” – Paul Simon

(Disclaimer: I am in no way advocating destructive logging, merely remarking on the cognitive dissonance that occurs when stopping it has unintended side effects.)

First of all, I would be hesitant to say a film questioning the inherent meaning contained in the mere act of the search for truth and justice would clash with mainstream conservative values. I would also say the idea that the driving force of all human action is surrounded by the evil of money (as opposed to the inherent good of open markets) clashes.

But if we accept that the structural aspect of No Country for Old Men is conservative, not just in implications, but in direct message, then…

The film is constructed by three masters of their art; the Coens and McCarthy. The message is not as important as the craft, obviously. The “what” matters less than the “how,” as it were.
Forrest Gump is crafted by ad executives parading as filmmakers and comes off as muddled, pandering and poorly crafted as almost all commercials tend to.

That’s why you don’t see the pushing back. It’s also why Make Way for Tomorrow tends to be beloved, despite being as melodramatic and “schmaltzy” (not to mention ten times as conservative) as Forrest Gump.

Artists make art. Marketing experts don’t.

As an addendum, I would say the structural aspect of life is conservative, for the vast majority of people, so a film that mirrors that structure doesn’t seem as egregious as a film that literally twists history (which isn’t necessarily conservative or liberal in structure) to fit a completely incomprehensible ideological disarray.

I’d argue “No Country for Old Men” is not a conservative film in and of itself. Sheriff Bell is certainly conservative, ever idealizing a past that may very well never have existed, but the film questions the validity of his viewpoint quite severely in the final two (and key) scenes.