In the movie The Searchers, the portrayal of the main character, Ethan, is done in such a cliched way that it almost hurts. He is the epitome of the lonely cowboy that is driven by one, simple-minded, and violent desire to reap revenge upon the elusive villain that represents the cowboy's deeply seeded and mysterious reasons for being so withdrawn all the time. Outside of Ethan, the white people in the movie are largely represented as a minority group that is struggling to live in peace what with all of the Native Americans terrorizing the surrounding areas. The women and children in 1956 Hollywood's representation of the Wild West are especially delicate and easy to prey upon. Debbie is a little girl that wants a piece of her uncle to have with her. (Clearly this is a ploy to try to ratchet up the sentiment before an Indian raid happens.) Laurie is entirely defined by her romances with first Martin and then with Charlie McCorry.
Uncle Ethan shows his soft side to Debbie.
Every white person, besides men, are represented as easy prey so that the white men can contrast sharply with them as the protectors of a helpless bunch of innocent souls that could be scalped at any minute by Native American savages. The white man is a symbol of civilization and predictable and rational morality within The Searchers. Martin is the character through with which we are expected to relate. His moral compass points easily in the right directions and his motivations are simple. Ethan, on the other hand, wants to kill the Comanches and the little girl that he no longer views as the one the Native Americans kidnapped all those years ago. While Ethan is has more extreme motivations, the audience is still supposed to understand him and the reasons why he is willing to subject himself to barbarism in the name of ridding the world of Native American scum. Through Ethan, Hollywood created an exercise in empathy because Ethan wants to kill Native Americans on the principle that they are Native Americans whereas we are given no more rationale for why the Comanche want so badly to kill white settlers except when we turn to Ethan, his blood lust is excusable. White people in this movie are more so considered humans in that their rationale for stooping to violence in order to preserve their way of life is understandable whereas the Native Americans are a force that is as unpredictable and reckless as a force of nature- something distinctly animal.
Film's Portrayal of Non-Whites
The representation of the Native Americans in The Searchers as animalistic, non-talking, anonymous savages is probably on par with sentiments of the time. In the days of "Feel Good" Western films, this rendering of Native Americans was probably very typical. Portraying Native Americans as almost sub-human made their deaths and the white man's victories very easy to celebrate. These Native Americans were capable of great and pointless barbarism. They engaged in violence for the sake of engaging violence, or so that was how they were represented. They never spoke to one another on screen, choosing instead, to yodel and screech in a way that evoked the imagery of animals preparing for a hunt. During the scene where the Native Americans were pursuing the searchers through a river, the searchers shot easily into the crowd of Comanches and quickly forced them to retreat. When they made signs of retreating, one of the searchers tells his comrades to cease firing because the Native Americans need to carry off their dead and wounded. The continual over humanization of the white man only underscores even further how distant from humanity Hollywood wanted to portray the Native American.
Another interesting element of the representation of the Native American is Martin's unsuspecting and ill-fated wife, Look. She is so different from the other Native Americans that make their debut in the movie. She and the main antagonist, Scar, are the only named Native Americans in the entire movie, and this, I would argue, is very telling. She is not aggressive and enters the movie for a scene or two in order to life the mood as the element of comedic relief. Besides the fact that she is hilariously helpless in communicating with Ethan and Martin, she proves her worth when she vanishes one morning leaving a sign for Ethan and Martin to follow. She tries to find Scar and does perhaps too good a job. She finds him too early and is killed in the village along with other Native Americans. Look is the only humanized part of the Native American community that is represented in the movie, and while Hollywood totally gets diversity points for Look, Hollywood almost immediately loses those points because Look is only sympathized with because she attempts to help Martin and Ethan on their search for Debbie. She is a means to an end, and she doesn't even end up being successful in leading the men to Scar; rather, it is another white man that ends up holding the key to where Scar and his band of scalping Comanches are hiding.
The visual representation of "The West"
The West that we see the searchers trying to navigate is home to a harsh and ruthless terrain that cares not for race or ideology. It is indiscriminately harsh. The terrain is barren and works marvelously well in that it highlights the loneliness of the men that are straying farther and farther from home.
The Film's Message
The film directly juxtaposed the two races that were fighting for dominance in The West. The Searchers boldly introduces the theme of racism and the mentality that would have excused Andrew Jackson's policies of Native American extermination. The film only further strengthens the racist justification for blindly hating Native Americans and pinning them as animalistic sub-humans. The film brings back to life the image of white women and children being slaughtered by barbaric Native Americans in the West just as they were in Jackson's time.