Study Questions: Week Two

Seeing Red:Defending Freedom and the American Way

Big Jim McClain (1952)

Fort Apache (1948).

1. Big Jim McLain tries both to entertain audiences and to win support for the crusade against communist subversion. How successful do you believe the film was in achieving these ends?

2. What is the political significance of casting John Wayne as the chief communist hunter? What values does his screen persona exemplify that suit him to the role?

3. What is the thematic significance of the references to Daniel Webster and the use of the quote "How goes the nation"? What answer might the film offer?

4. In view of the fact that the House UnAmerican Activities Committee was instrumental in jailing people with communist associations and driving suspected communists from their jobs, why, in your opinion, does the film portray communists going free by claiming their constitutional rights?

5. What are the communist agents portrayed as prosperous professionals (mainly physicians) and members of "the country-club set," while ordinary Americans and members of labor unions depicted as staunch anti-communists? How does this significant distortion of the historical record reflect the anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism which Stephen Whitfield sees as fuelling the anti-communist sentiments of the early cold War years?

6. What is the significance of setting the action in Hawaii? Why is the war memorial at Pearl Harbor singled out for special attention? Why does the film, like The Big Lift, emphasize the parallels between the Cold War and World War II?

7. How does the film manage to make self-accusation and informing patriotic virtues? Think of the comments made by the ex-communists interviewed by McLain, of the way they denounce friends and relatives (even their oen children)?

8. How does the soundtrack, which includes "Dixie," "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," and melodies assiciated with western films. How does the music reinforce the same values as those embodied in the image of John Wayne?

9. Why does the film's epilogue claim that it was based on actual events. How does it perform a thematic function similar to the epigraph which introduced The Big Lift?

10. The influence of the Cold War is less immediately obvious in John Ford's Fort Apache, but the film's emphasis on loyalty to the Regiment, despite its flaws, echoes a major strain of Cold War ideology: the need for patriotic loyalty. How does Kirby Yorke's speech to reporters in the film's concluding sequence forground the issue of loyalty?

11. Both Col. Thursday and Yorke are professional soldiers, but they reflect very different ideas of the term "professional." What are some of the important contrasts?

12. In what ways does the O'Rourke family embody both family values and America as a land of opportunity? In what ways does the romance between Lt. O'Rourke and Philadelphia Thursday point up the ideal of America as a classless, democratic society? How is the same theme evident in the grand march which opens the sergeants' ball?

13. How does the transformation of Ford's western hero from the self-sufficient loner (Stagecoach, 1939) to a loyal organization man?

14. How does Thursday's snobbery and arrogance, his sense of social superiority, his racism diminish his authority and lead to disaster? What parallels do you see between Fort Apache and the arguments that America must live up to its ideals if it is to prevail in the Cold War?

15. In what ways does Ford's film suggest that he shared an ideological common ground with the Cold War liberals (those who defended the social reforms of the New Deal while condemning communism). How might the political message of Ford Apache be contrasted to that of The Fountainhead?

16. And now for the BIG question: how many John Waynes does it take to win a Cold War?