by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring

The Outlaw Josey Wales is, intentionally or not, a study in contradictions and somewhat perfectly timed in its original release during America’s bicentennial. The behind the scenes context for the movie has multiple stories that are the stuff of legend, the cultural contexts and the adaptation choices further muddy the work’s thematic waters. Watching it was kind of a struggle, because each act of the story offered even more directions pulling at how I felt about it. There is a lot to unpack here, so I will try to give an overview, as learning about the context behind it explained a lot of the feelings I experienced while watching it. 

The film opens during the Civil War, with the family of Missouri farmer Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood) being murdered by Redlegs, anti-slavery/pro-Union guerillas from Kansas. Working through his grief, Josey Wales joins pro-Confederate Bushwhackers as part of his revenge. At the end of the war, Wales refuses to surrender, and his pro-slavery compatriots are gunned down by men under Captain Terrill (Bill McKinney) while taking an oath of loyalty to the United States. Wales avoids this fate because he refuses to surrender, but springs into action from his observation point, and massacres Terrill’s men before escaping.

Based on a novel The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales (later retitled Gone to Texas) by Forrest Carter, it was no shock to me that the film’s screenwriter and original director, Philip Kaufman, described the novel this way:

"'Fascist' is an overworked word," says Kaufman from his California home, "but the first time I looked at that book that's what I thought: 'This was written by a crude fascist.' It was nutty. The man's hatred of government was insane. I felt that that element in the script needed to be severely toned down. But Clint didn't, and it was his movie." 

Putting aside the seeming contradiction of being a fascist who hates government–it is likely more apt to say that Carter’s hatred of government was specific to the United States government because it made segregation illegal–the politics of the first act are clearly abhorrent. The success of The Outlaw Josey Wales would lead to Forrest Cater being unmasked as the pen name for Asa Carter, one of the speechwriters behind George Wallace’s infamous 1963 “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” speech. Asa Carter is one of those people so tirelessly dedicated to white supremacy that even George Wallace denied knowing him personally. Carter was a Ku Klux Klan leader, and openly a white nationalist. He turned to fiction after losing the 1970 Democratic primary, only netting 1.5% of the votes. While he may have turned his back on white supremacist activism (seriosuly, this stuff is just the tip of the iceberg of awfulness), his new first name was a reference to Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate genral and original leader of the Ku Klux Klan. 

Obviously, there were bad actors on both sides in the Civil War. But starting off The Outlaw Josey Wales with two war crimes by the United States is a bold choice. Happy bicentennial, America! This also means the movie basically starts off on a back foot. While Wales is not depicted as a white nationalist like Carter, the film clearly draws on the Lost Cause narrative that was used to romanticize the South after the Civil War. More on this later.

The rest of the narrative softens Wales, taking him on a journey from a loner who literally spits tobacco on people and animals to a leader of a band of misfits…who occasionally still spits tobacco to show his displeasure with those around him. 

Most notable of these is Lone Watie (Chief Dan George), an older Cherokee who plays a foil for Josey. While the United States has robbed both men of their sovereignty (one due to unjust colonization, and the other because he fought to uphold slavery), they both retain their dignity. Chief Dan George brings a sense of humor and warmth to the screen that is purposefully lacking from Josey Wales, perfectly encapsulated by his line, “I didn't surrender, but they took my horse and made him surrender.” It says so much about his life without taking a lot of words or screen time. But there’s another, maybe insidious layer underneath. 

This western has been praised over the years for its portrayal of Lone Waite and other Native American characters. For example, Armando José Prats, writing in his book Invisible Natives, notes how Josey and Lone Watie’s removing themselves from civilization parallel each other, and the enemy for both is the U.S. government. While Prats notes that Josey Wales’ band of whites, Native Americans, Hispanics, prostitutes, outlaws, women, etc., is “appropriating the strategy of the Myth of Conquest while repudiating its ideology,” I can’t help but think that Carter, and by extension, the California-raised Eastwood, are camouflaging the Lost Cause message by wrapping it up alongside more legitimate claims to injustice from less powerful groups than southern whites. This places The Outlaw Josey Wales alongside Birth of a Nation, Gone With the Wind, and Song of the South as mainstream Hollywood entertainment that amplifies the Lost Cause narrative. 

It’s unclear if any of this was intentional for those involved with the film, and the Lost Cause narrative is so embedded into popular culture around the Civil War that it would be hard to parse. I don’t think Clint Eastwood necessarily even believes in that narrative, since he describes himself as a libertarian and not a conservative, even as far back as the 1990s. Eastwood has a history of being anti-war, and he states that is the cornerstone of The Outlaw Josey Wales. Alongside the Vietnam War, the second betrayal by the Union in the film could be a metaphorical stand-in for Watergate. Eastwood’s previously directed western, High Plains Drifter is a darker and pointed reaction to the Kitty Genovese murder, so there is also precedent for his use of this genre as an allegory for contemporary events. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt a little here, but the last decade of his work is pretty damning.

The contemporary reaction to The Outlaw Josey Wales was that of wide acclaim. As a Millennial, it is fascinating to try to piece all of this together as a cultural history. The story matches up with the disillusionment of the country at any point in history, and point of view is essential to unpacking where it falls. There is power in who is telling the story, and who is at the center of it. Maybe The Outlaw Josey Wales hits differently after watching so many Confederate monuments being toppled in the last few years. It’s a reminder that racism is embedded throughout American history, and many of us white people benefit from that system even if we don’t think we actively engage in it. All of this tinged my enjoyment of the film, and I do plan on revisiting someday after continuing to learn more about Native American culture and their depictions on screen, but this is not becoming a new favorite of mine.