JE #1B: The Lone Indian

JE #1B: The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger in comparison to Speedy Gonzalez has similar messages, but the Lone Ranger has a larger target audience. Although, Speedy Gonzalez is a cartoon and his audience is geared more towards children, the leap between fiction and reality is won by the Lone Ranger. The very first clip of the episodes depicts him riding a large white horse through wild terrain. I believe the white horse symbolizes again, the belief of Manifest Destiny. An Anglo belief that the expansion West was a god-given right to “save” the “savages” from their “uncivilized” and “destructive ways”; saving one red man at a time.  The way he is portrayed and the title of the show say that he is the one running the show. The “faithful Indian", Tonto (stupid) is not even his sidekick like Batman and Robin. Tonto portrayed as a ignorant second-hand who followers through with the white mans order and ideas. A very submissive relationship between two men that is descriptive of the relationship between Native Americans and Angle settlers. A coerced trap of power set by the Anglo settlers, the Church and Military power. I dislike the Lone Ranger, who I rarely see alone as he is always depending on Tonto. While at the same time I am left wanting to know how Tonto ended up in that situation. I dislike his subservient ways and predict that in some other dimension he is friends with La Malinche. But, just like the misinterpretations and misunderstandings of La Malinches role in the colonization of the Americas. Tontos coined role in the Lone Ranger is not of any value, much the way the stories of brown bodies is not of significant value in mainstream America.