On
September 25th, I went to see the Billy Jack screening in O’Leary
222. It turns out that it was a film I saw a long time ago at home as well, so
it was amazing to watch such a good film again! This film is about a half-breed
Native American fighter who tries to give justice to people that are harassing
Native American people. There is a lot of fighting and violence in this movie,
which I could relate to Townie as our common text is there. It was certainly a
fitting film considering how Andre Dubus III vividly describes the cruelty he
experienced as an adolescent, and how cruelty was just cruelty.
An
outstanding aspect of Billy Jack is its explicit display of violence and
cruelty. There is an alternative school in the film called “Freedom School”
which had hippie students and Native Americans. One day these students are
brought downtown, and are harassed in an ice cream store by locals by getting
white flour poured on them because it would cover them with white over their
darker skin. Billy Jack came in after to give the guy who poured the flour a beating,
Bernard Posner. Later, there is a scene where students from the school are in a
court room. One female student asked why the jury was so afraid of them, and
one man said something along the lines of her being a filthy girl. The students
presented logical arguments that questioned the validity of the jury’s
decisions and claims, while the jury gave biased responses that clearly showed
an opposition to the school and its people.
The
acting in the film also was comedic in certain parts. One scene, for instance,
has a hippie from the school playing a robber with an empty gun with a suitcase
for a businessman getting robbed. A police officer thinks they were trying to
legitimately rob a local, but then ends up getting into the act. They try to
rehearse a mock robbery of someone on the street. I’m not exactly sure what
message this was supposed to show, but it certainly gave a good laugh. Another
scene that was powerful and comedic was the scene where the hippie students
were singing “The Star Spangled Banner”. During the song, a person in the
acting group was not standing for it, and in the middle of the song the people
that were standing up started beating up the person that wouldn’t stand up. The
message here is interesting in that the United States of America claims to be
the land of the free, yet this one person that wasn’t standing up with the
others was beaten for not being “patriotic”. It was basically “you’re free to
do what you do, but if you don’t do what we please, we won’t hesitate to go
against you!” I vividly remembered this scene the first time I watched the
movie, and it was a pleasure seeing it again and noticing the hypocrisy of the
country in this aspect. The discrimination against the students in the school
even shows that this country isn’t as “free” as it claims to be.
Throughout
the film, there is a tremendous amount of suffering. There is rape, violence,
harassment, and vengeance. The ending was an inspiring scene in how Jean
convinced Billy Jack to stop his violence and instead solve this issue of
hatred with a trial. Billy was able to bring attention to the cruelty that
needed to be dealt with. Jean said to Billy “So easy for you to die
dramatically! It's a hell of a lot tougher for those of us who have to keep on
trying!” This is an excellent statement although painful, because it gives the
truth that violence wasn’t going to solve the situation anymore. This film shows
how violence should be avoided as much as possible, and that a closer step to
peace can be achieved simply by lowering discrimination, prejudice, and
societal tension. People were killed when it could’ve been avoided; there were stupid
actions that were impulsive and based on prejudice, and it caused more
tensions. Violence can be an inevitable choice in certain situations, and it
just makes things worse for everyone. I don’t find this film to be
controversial of its message about peace; I think it shows that all this
violence could be avoided simply by not being terrible to others, and solving
the underlying problems of an issue without violence (in Billy Jack’s case,
giving up his violence, getting handcuffed, and then driven off to trial at the
end of the movie).
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