Friday, August 14, 2009

Whoa There Little Lady   [Jonah Goldberg]

Kathryn — Is it really so terrible that women like the Jimmy Stewart character? The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is one of my favorite movies (The Fair Jessica made me watch it for the first time when we were still dating). Ransom Stoddard (Stewart) is honest, heroic, compassionate and principled. No, he's not as well-suited to frontier life as John Wayne, but John Wayne is not as well-suited to the rule of law and civilization. That is one of the great tensions of the film and that is what the story is ultimately about, to me: the rule of law and civilization versus the state-of-nature of the frontier. Stewart represents progress and ordered liberty, Lee Marvin (Liberty Valance) represents the arbitrary power of bullying force, the false freedom of might-makes-right. John Wayne, meanwhile, is the pivotal character precisely because he's necessary for the transition to civilization, but he is ill-suited to find a place in it, sort of like Moses not being able to go into the promised land (or maybe not).

It seems to me right — and dare I say it, natural — than women would admire Ransom. I'm not saying they shouldn't dig The Duke, of course. That would be ludicrous! But, again, is a rise in Ransom's stock a reason to fret that all hope is lost?

08/14 01:46 PMShare