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American Masculinity in Crisis:
Cordell Walker and the Indianized
White Hero
Michael Ray FitzGerald
The white man will never let go of the Indian image because he thinks that by some
clever manipulation he can achieve an authenticity which can never be his.
—Vine Deloria Jr., The Pretend Indians: Images of Native Americans in the Movies
A
nglo-Americans have long had a love-hate relationship with American
Indians, vacillating from one extreme to the other, often embracing both
simultaneously. e earliest English settlers in Massachusetts, Puritans,
defined themselves by comparisons with the Pequots, whom they touted as
everything the Puritans were not, yet at the same time the Puritans admired
the Pequots and in some ways wanted to be like them.
1
After the settlers
broke from England, however, they needed a new identity. Suddenly it became
important for Anglo-Americans to differentiate themselves from imperialist
Europeans.
2
e answer was the so-called “New Man”: neither European nor
American Indian, but an amalgam of both.
3
Philip Deloria documents this process in his classic work of scholarship,
Playing Indian. For example, the instigators of the Boston Tea Party found
it advantageous—for whatever reasons—to dress up as Mohawks.
4
The
Revolutionary War–era exploits of Colonel Daniel Boone provided a template
for many “Indianized” white heroes who would follow. Boone’s adventures,
M R FG is a freelance journalist and media scholar who holds a PhD
from University of Reading (UK). He teaches communication at Jacksonville University in
Florida and at College of Coastal Georgia in Kingsland. His book-length historical study Native
Americans on Network Television was recently published by Scarecrow Press.
AmericAn indiAn culture And reseArch JournAl 38:2 (2014)
68
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including his adoption by Shawnee chief Black Fish, were outlined in a 1784
tract written by real estate speculator John Filson.
5
Subsequently, several char-
acters with American Indian characteristics, many very much like Boone, began
appearing in novels such as those comprising James Fenimore Cooper’s popular
series The Leatherstocking Tales (1828–1841), which featured Indianized char-
acter Nathaniel (Natty) Bumppo, also known as Leatherstocking or Deerslayer.
6
Many more Indianized white heroes would follow, including Tom Jeffords in a
1947 novel titled Blood Brother (retitled Broken Arrow for a 1950 film and a 1956
television show) and Cheyenne Bodie in television’s Cheyenne, 1955–1963.
7
On the other hand, these fictions also included Natives in various stages of
becoming Europeanized, indicating their endorsement of European norms. In
television, there were characters such as Tonto (The Lone Ranger, 1949–1957),
Cheyenne leader Brave Eagle (Brave Eagle, 1955), Chiracahua Apache leader
Cochise (Broken Arrow, 1956–1958), Apache federal marshal Sam Buckhart
(Law of the Plainsman, 1959–1960), Iroquois police detective John Hawk
(Hawk, 1966), and Navajo deputy sheriff Nakia Parker (Nakia, 1974).
8
What
do these figures have in common? ey are “good Indians” who help enforce
Anglo-American norms. Like the Indianized white heroes, these figures were
cultural hybrids, physically Native but intellectually and spiritually “apprentice
white men.”
9
Most crucially there were the so-called “half-breeds” who literally embodied
the best of both races: Mingo (The Adventures of Daniel Boone, 1964–1968),
Hondo Lane (Hondo, 1967) and Cordell Walker (Walker: Texas Ranger,
1993–2001).
10
is study examines the current stage in the amalgamation
of the white man and the Native: the white man who can become Native at
will. Cordell Walker is a half-Cherokee lawman. His Indianness is usually
kept in the background or rather bubbling under the surface: most of the
time he is Anglo-American, but he can become a Cherokee any time it serves
his purposes. Indianness becomes his secret identity that emerges whenever
superhuman or spiritual qualities are needed—whenever the Euro-American
intellect is not enough. Walker can shapeshift when the need arises, and,
unlike Nakia Parker, rarely, if ever, agonizes over his identity. For Walker, iden-
tity is fluid in that he can switch back and forth from white to Native almost
at will. All it takes is some ritualistic or emotional trigger.
is study also examines issues of masculinity, especially the construct of a
specifically “American” masculinity that borrows from stereotypical ideas about
Native physicality. Walker: Texas Ranger happened to appear at the same time
American masculinity and patriarchy faced cultural and political challenges
from the women’s movement, and Walker responded to these challenges. is
study will also examine some of the reactionary political as well as religious
ramifications of the series.
FitzGerald | Cordell Walker and the indianized White hero 69
BaCkGround oF the SerieS
e star of Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris, was instrumental in devel-
oping the series and brought a good deal of star power and intertextual
meaning(s) to it, including his background in martial arts movies. Norris
had earlier planned to become a police officer, and he served a short period
in the US Air Force as a military policeman. He began studying martial arts
while stationed in South Korea.
11
After winning several titles, he met Bruce
Lee and landed a small role as Lee’s nemesis in Return of the Dragon (1972).
Norris became a cult figure in the hypermasculine action movie genre, starring
as Colonel James Braddock in a series of military films produced by Cannon
Films, including Missing in Action (1984), in which he operates behind enemy
lines in North Vietnam to rescue US prisoners of war, and in Delta Force as
Major Scott McCoy, a military commando battling Middle Eastern terrorists
(1986).
12
Norris told an interviewer that Cordell Walker was a combination
of characters he had played in his movies.
13
In 1983 he portrayed a somewhat
similar character in his film Lone Wolf McQuade, in which he plays an inde-
fatigable Texas Ranger who counts martial arts among his law enforcement
techniques.
14
Norris authored three books in which he explains his martial-
arts philosophy as well as his religious and political beliefs, some of which are
manifest in the program.
15
Walker: Texas Ranger made its debut on CBS and enjoyed a remark-
ably long run of 196 episodes, airing from 1993 to 2001. Cannon Films, an
Israeli production company with which Norris had enjoyed a long and fruitful
relationship, went bankrupt during Walker’s first season, so CBS stepped in
with funding to keep the series in production. Columbia Pictures Television,
the company that produced both Nakia and Hawk—both of which featured
Native police officers—was assigned the production contract. Norris, who
at this point held a good deal of negotiating leverage, was made executive
producer and given profit participation.
16
Making its debut three years after the movie Dances with Wolves (1990)
stirred a renewal of interest in Native Americana, Walker is the only successful,
long-running network program to feature a Native (half-Cherokee) lawman
in a starring role. Norris himself purports to be half-Cherokee; according
to his autobiography, both his mother and father are half-Cherokee.
17
e
Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma (not too far from Ryan, where Norris is from)
is about 200 miles from Dallas, where Walker: Texas Ranger is set. e series
includes a “full-blood” Cherokee character, Cordell Walker’s uncle, Ray Fire
Walker, played by Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman, a Lakota actor and former
US Marine prominent in Dances with Wolves. Walker’s Uncle Ray is a former
US Marine who raised him and calls him Washoe, or “Lone Eagle.”
18
He lives
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in Walker’s household as a sort of combination ranch hand/manservant. us
Walker has his own Native companion who serves as a sort of man Friday.
19
In fact, Walker has two ethnic sidekicks. Like the 1966 character Iroquois
Detective John Hawk, Walker has a black partner, Ranger James Trivette, who
escaped the Baltimore ghetto playing professional football (actor Clarence
Gilyard Jr. himself played college football). In that he serves as a humorous
foil for Walker, Trivette is similar to Hawk’s African-American detective Dan
Carter; however, Trivette is more assertive than Carter and is given far more
screen time. George Gerbner has found that in 1993, the year Walker made its
debut, “the world of television [was still] frozen in a time warp of obsolete and
damaging representations.”
20
is was particularly true of Wal k e r: the social
scenery in Texas seems not to have changed much since The Lone Ranger.
ere are few minority characters in the program other than Trivette, some of
Trivette’s African-American friends, and some Mexican criminals.
Early episodes inserted ironic intertextual references to The Lone Ranger,
which gave the program a tone of pastiche. Both Walker and The Lone Ranger
feature Texas Rangers, both are set in Texas, both have a recurring American
Indian character who is subservient, and both heroes are saintly and refuse to
kill. Just as the Ranger rarely shot to kill but merely to injure, Walker aims
to disarm his enemies, or if possible, give them a martial-arts-style beating.
21
As was true of The Lone Ranger, Walker’s villains are most likely to be white.
e villains on Walker are often Establishment figures gone bad: in the first
four episodes, villains included a mentally ill former CIA operative, a mentally
ill former sheriff, a mentally ill parole officer, and a mentally ill Christian
cultleader.
22
In the introductory sequence, in an almost exact duplication of The Lone
Ranger, there is a brief truck shot of Walker on horseback racing from left to
right at a full gallop (see figures 1 and 2). Both characters are framed against
Figure 1 (above left): e Lone Ranger and Silver galloping (the rider is Clayton Moore).
Figure 2 (above right): Walker and horse at full gallop (the rider is a stunt double).
FitzGerald | Cordell Walker and the indianized White hero 71
the sky, but Walker even more so, his black hat contrasting starkly. e Lone
Ranger is associated with mountains, suggesting strength.
23
e sky is a recur-
ring visual motif in Walker (above) as it was in The Lone Ranger as well as in
Nakia and many other westerns. e sky of course is where the gods live, the
implication being that Walker is one of them—if not a god himself, then sent
by God. Establishing shots of the Texas landscape immediately situate the
program in the tradition of the western.
Like Nakia, the earlier 1974 Native policeman series, Walker could be
described as a contemporary—as opposed to a quasi-historical—western.
However, whereas sheriff ’s deputy Nakia Parker wrestled with issues of iden-
tity, being caught between two worlds, Anglo-American and Navajo, Walker
is comfortably ensconced in the white world but can and does call on his
Cherokee identity whenever it seems propitious. Walker’s identity is rarely
an issue.
24
His Indianness is always lurking just under the surface and can be
summoned at will, like Clark Kent’s Superman, or triggered by rage, like Dr.
David Banner’s alter ego, the Hulk.
25
narrative and viSual analySeS
References to Native American concerns are relatively rare in the series but
do occur. Walker’s first episode, “One Riot, One Ranger,” a two-hour, made-
for-TV movie that served as the program’s pilot, offered a bit of backstory
about Walker’s parents. His father, a Cherokee rodeo rider (a combination
cowboy and Indian), was beaten to death by racists angered at his being with
a white woman. Both parents were murdered. Walker explains, “ey started
saying all these crude things to my mom, like how could she be with a dirty,
rotten Indian and bring a half-breed into this world. My dad was a very proud
man, and he confronted these guys.”
26
is device seems to have originated in
Detective Comics, in which Bruce Wayne, Batman’s alter-ego, swears to avenge
his parents’ deaths at the hands of robbers.
27
Indeed, Walker is very much a
comic-book character, as was the Lone Ranger, who also seems to have a lot in
common with Batman. Walker is also remarkably similar to a 1980s animated
television character named Bravestarr, a combination cowboy/Indian who
served as an intergalactic federal marshal of the future.
28
Episode 11, “e Legend of Running Bear,” is devoted to Native issues and
could have come from the writers of Nakia. e plot of this episode concerns
two corrupt FBI agents who are working for a mining operator who has discov-
ered uranium on Cherokee land and bribed a county official to have property
lines redrawn. e actual issue of uranium that is located on Native land is an
important one.
29
ese murderous FBI agents aim to eliminate local Cherokees
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who have uncovered their plot. It is highly irregular for a network television
series to defame officers of the federal government (the series later features a
rogue CIA agent). Walker takes pains, however, to explain to coworkers that
“any organization as large as the FBI is bound to have one or two bad apples.”
References to Cherokee spirituality include Walker and Uncle Ray taking
part in a sweat lodge and Cherokee men meeting and smoking tobacco in a
tipi. However, sweat lodges are not part of Cherokee culture and Cherokees
never lived in tipis.
30
Although he participates in Native rituals when it suits
his need to become Native, Walker seems skeptical of Native religion to the
point where Uncle Ray deems it necessary to admonish him not to “make fun
of the spirits.” Walker visits his Cherokee cousin David Little Eagle, who lives
on a nearby Cherokee reservation and is in some sort of trouble.
31
Walker’s
presence on the reservation seems unremarkable; he is treated like an ordinary
white man who happens to have a friend on the reservation and is largely
ignored. On the other hand, several Cherokee toughs give cousin Little Eagle a
hard time about being a “traitor” because he has left the reservation to become
a “city boy” and study medicine (much as the character of Nakia Parker left
the Navajo reservation to become a police officer). is paints these Cherokee
youths as anti-intellectual and disdainful of education. Oddly, however, none
direct any ill will toward Walker for doing the same thing. Perhaps this is
because they see him as white, not one of their own. American Indian scholar
Duane Champagne notes that “light-skinned, blue-eyed individuals [claiming
to be Native] are viewed as white” by other Natives.
32
Like Nakia, Walker often dresses entirely in blue denim, as does Uncle Ray.
is signifies his working class roots—denim being the fabric of the hard-
working cowboy, a figure who harks back to simpler times when frontier justice
was swift. Like Nakia, Walker rides a horse for recreation, further embellishing
his image as a cowboy. However, his horse’s multicolored coat, brown with
large white patches (“paint” or “pinto”), is a common film trope associated with
Native Americans. Uncle Ray also rides a paint horse and dresses entirely
in denim. Like Walker, he is both cowboy and Indian. e term cowboy also
suggests a lone operator, a maverick, someone who refuses to be a team player
(as in the term lone ranger). What is more, as noted earlier, Walker’s Cherokee
name Washoe means “Lone Eagle.” is is crucial because, like many other
vigilante figures, Walker acts unilaterally when he feels he needs to, bending
the law. However, unlike the Lone Ranger, who is an illegal vigilante, Walker,
as an officer of the law, must work within the system. As with the Lone Ranger
series, many visual clichés suggest that as an avenging angel Walker is either
quasi-divine or that he is a messenger of God. ese include backlighting, halo
effects, being shot from low angles or framed against the sky, and the like.
FitzGerald | Cordell Walker and the indianized White hero 73
Walker aS “indian-at-Will”
As Edward Said points out, the colonialist trope of a white man passing as
native was a prominent theme in T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom
(1922) and Rudyard Kipling’s Kim (1901).
33
In colonialist fantasies it is easy
for a talented white man to pass or even be accepted by natives, yet it is diffi-
cult if not impossible for a native to be accepted as white. Indeed, as Cedric
Clark argued in 1969, this theme of the assimilated native having to constantly
prove his loyalty by becoming an enforcer of the dominant group’s norms
is nearly universal in the mass media of colonialist countries, including the
United States.
34
Episode 58, “Evil in the Night,” illustrates how Walker can become an
Indian—a very powerful one—whenever it suits him.
35
An urban construc-
tion project unearths a Comanche gravesite containing the remains of women
and children from the battle at Bandera Pass in 1841. Two white teenagers
sneak into the excavation and disturb the remains. A shape-shifting Comanche
named Running Wolf appears and summons the dead, and the boys are liter-
ally scared to death. Running Wolf has also played a role in the killing of some
officials involved in the construction project, including a city councilman. e
project is put on hold indefinitely. is is a common theme related to manifest
destiny: Natives are obstacles who impede progress by their very presence,
even though these Natives are already dead. Walker seeks counsel from White
Eagle, a medicine man at the Cherokee reservation, who explains that Running
Wolf is a skinwalker who must avenge the death of his ancestors. White
Eagle cautions Walker not to tangle with Running Wolf because Walker has
been living too long among whites: “You would have no chance against him;
you have forgotten the tribal ways.” Walker overconfidently responds that
his father’s Cherokee blood still runs through his veins. White Eagle agrees
to tutor Walker. Walker takes on Running Wolf and eventually kills him
(this is notable, for Walker rarely if ever kills an adversary). is is redolent
of Delmer Daves’s film Broken Arrow (1950), in which Tom Jeffords takes a
crash course on Apache culture, quickly learning how to fight Apache style. As
Ward Churchill notes in a television documentary, the white hero is “better at
being an Indian than they are.”
36
Walker’s atypical killing of Running Wolf in
this episode is similar to an episode of Law of the Plainsman in which Apache
deputy marshal Sam Buckhart must kill a “renegade” Apache named Gray
Wolf, who happened to be a childhood friend of Buckhart’s.
37
Sometimes it
becomes necessary for these characters to kill one of their own in order to
demonstrate their depth of their dedication to the dominant order.
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Walker aS “White Shaman”
“Cop shows” have long been standard on US television, but by the late 1960s,
typical cop shows such as Dragnet had begun to seem stiff and perhaps even
ridiculous to modern tastes. If cop shows were to survive, they needed more
interesting, “relevant” characters. us police dramas began incorporating
outsiders: women and minorities, even “hipster” white youths, as in The Mod
Squad.
38
Besides making him an outsider, Cordell Walker’s Native identity
may have been a way of deepening the psychology of the character, just as it
did for Nakia Parker.
39
Inner turmoil added psychological complexity to the
often-formulaic police/crime genre. At the same time, these characters’ double
identities distinguished these programs from stock crime series: Walker is no
ordinary cop. His Indianness helped make him unique.
Walker incorporated ostensibly Native religious rituals in order to deepen
the psychology of the character, as well as to make him appear more committed
as a Native and to supply him with supernatural powers. e incorporation of
these quasi-religious rituals into the series would create difficulties for Norris,
however. On one hand, they offended Cherokees because they were entirely
fake; on the other, they also offended some of Norris’ born-again constituents
who harbored deep hostility to New Age religion.
40
Walker’s writers freely
invented “religious rituals” that have no analogue in Native culture; some
Cherokee scholars have found this insulting, especially in view of the fact
that Norris himself claims to be half Cherokee.
41
For example, in the second
episode, titled “Borderline,” Walker performs a spurious Cherokee ritual at his
fallen partner’s grave.
Walker dons a red serape that looks very much like Superman’s cape (see
fig. 3). e camera angle could scarcely get any lower; he is framed against the
Figure 3 (above left): Walker tranforms himself into shaman by donning a red serape that is the equiva-
lent of Superman’s cape.
Figure 4 (above right): Walker addresses the animal spirits.
FitzGerald | Cordell Walker and the indianized White hero 75
sky in a godlike pose, with flute music in background. Suddenly, the camera
shifts to a very high angle, a “God’s-eye-view.” e viewer is now positioned as
God, looking down on his messenger. God hears his prayer:
WALKER: (Holding up a feather, looking like a priest holding a crucifix) My
friend, go with the spirit of the owl. He will see all things for you (above right).
WALKER: (Holding up a second feather): Go with the spirit of the hawk. He will
protect you on your final journey. (Holding up a third feather) Go with the spirit
of the eagle. He will soar you [sic] to your father. Your father awaits you.
e coloring of the feather suggests Walker’s hybrid character: he too is mostly
white with a bit of brown; his Indianness emerges only when hypermasculinity
is required. Walker gazes up at the feather intently. Crouching down, Walker
silently places all three feathers on the grave. His black hat is in a direct line
with the other gravestones, almost as if it were one too (see fig. 5).
WALKER: Payback time.
Now it is time for some old-fashioned “frontier justice,” meaning no arrests,
no reading of rights, no courts—the vigilante becomes judge, jury, and execu-
tioner. Of course, being a legitimate lawman, Walker can do no such thing,
but he may go berserk and beat the perpetrator within an inch of his life.
42
us vengeance, a popular theme in westerns, is dignified through ritual.
What transpires in this ritual is more or less what occurs when Clark Kent
steps into a phone booth, when stripping off his shirt and tie—symbols of
his Anglo-American identity—the mild-mannered Kent transforms himself
into a hypermasculine avenger. Walker’s red serape serves the same function as
Superman’s red cape: like Cochise or Sam Buckhart, Walker becomes a super-
human Indian enforcer of Anglo-American norms. Calling on his half-Native
Figure 5: Close-up of Walker’s earnest facial
expression.
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side, he allows himself to go berserk, like the Hulk or Rambo. His half-white
side is no longer responsible for his actions; all culpability for his overzealous
(and extralegal) behavior is displaced onto his Indian alter ego.
Had Norris bothered to research his purported Cherokee heritage, or hired
a Cherokee consultant, he might have discovered that an observant Cherokee
would not perform a Native ritual on a non-Cherokee’s grave. Cherokee
scholar Richard Allen explains, “traditional Cherokees believe the owl to be
a harbinger of death or ill-omen and would find the owl’s feather repulsive.”
43
Robert Conley, professor of Cherokee studies at Western Carolina University,
adds, “e owl is usually thought to be a sgili (a witch) in disguise.”
44
White ShamaniSm: BaCkGround and hiStory
White shamanism, a term coined by Geary Hobson, is the practice of whites
adopting and synthesizing Native and Eastern spiritual principles. According
to Hobson, white shamanism began in 1970s US literature with a group of
poets who felt they had achieved a sort of Native spirituality through the
use of peyote. ese practices were later agglomerated into a hodgepodge of
Eastern and American Indian philosophies that came to be called New Age
spiritualism.
45
is sounds innocent enough at first and may even seem to pay
homage to American Indians; however, it has more insidious implications for
Native peoples.
Walker can become a Native anytime he likes by performing a quasi-Native
ritual or simply by putting himself in a trance. In episode 20 (“On Sacred
Ground”), he becomes a shaman.
46
Walker, deep in the forest, dons an Apache-
style bandanna like the one worn by Sam Buckhart in Law of the Plainsman
(see fig. 6). His face is lit mostly on one side by the fire he contemplates. His
Figure 6: Walker, focusing on the fire, goes into
a trance.
FitzGerald | Cordell Walker and the indianized White hero 77
head is backlit by moonlight, creating a halo effect. A montage takes shape as
three images fade into one another: first Walker’s face, then the fire, and then
flashbacks of some unspecified American Indians (probably Plains Indians)
doing a sacred dance to traditional music. Colors become increasingly hotter
as the camera (the viewer) draws closer to the fire. e viewer now sees inside
Walker’s head, witnessing visions of his Native ancestors. is transforma-
tive ritual again is analogous to Clark Kent stepping into a telephone booth.
Walker continues to meditate by the fire, putting himself in a trancelike state,
like a yogi. His eyeline does not match the previous shots: when the camera
violates the 180-degree rule, it suggests a godlike point of view, since a human
being cannot be in two places at once. Faux Native music in the background
becomes progressively louder, building to a booming crescendo.
e backlighting simulates rays of moonlight and indicates Walker’s now-
supernatural state (see fig. 7). e display of Walker’s torso correlates with
his Native phase; he is rarely if ever seen bare-chested otherwise. e issue of
male bodily display is too extensive to address here, but suffice it to say that
semi-naked nonwhite males in film and television are relatively common while
it is irregular for white males to indulge in bodily display, generally considered
a feminine attribute.
47
e unsaddled horse in the background on the right
confirms Walker’s Native state—Hollywood Indians generally ride bareback.
After achieving the proper mental state, Walker proceeds to walk on
hot coals. is is not and never has been a Native practice.
48
e program’s
producers here have conflated Native culture with Hindu culture in a sort of
New Age stew—one could say they literally got their Indians mixed up. e
issue here is not lack of verisimilitude or that television writers do not conduct
proper research but that they simply make Native Americans into anything
Figure 7 (above left): Rays of moonlight illuminate Walker from behind. e backlighting indicates his
godlike stature; his horse too is backlit by moonlight.
Figure 8 (above right): Walker prepares to “firewalk.”
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they want them to be. In the 1990s, firewalking, promoted by Robert Bly in his
book Iron John, was a ritual used to bolster men’s sense of masculine prowess.
49
New York Times reporter Richard Shweder asserts that this movement was a
backlash, a reaction to a crisis of masculinity triggered by the threat of femi-
nism.
50
A contemporaneous article in Newsweek also noted that white males
felt their formerly secure identities threatened by “feminists, multiculturalists,
affirmative-action employers, rap artists, Native Americans.”
51
As stated earlier, white shamanism might at first seem like a tribute to
American Indians, but the implications go much deeper than what Cherokee
scholar Richard Allen calls Hollywood’s “made-up mumbo-jumbo” and cultural
ignorance regarding Native spiritual practices.
52
is is a serious issue among
Native scholars, many of whom view it as cultural theft and worse. Jimmy
Durham writes,
ere is in the United States . . . a curious phenomenon that is seldom given intel-
lectual consideration: whites claiming to be part Indian and, even more, whites who
claim to be Indian. Surely there is not another part of the world wherein members
of the racist oppressor society claim to be members of the oppressed group.
53
Evidently it is not enough for Euro-Americans to colonize Native land and
resources—they must also appropriate their culture, thereby naturalizing their
claim to the land and its bounties. In the words of Margo underbird,
ey came for our land, for what grew or could be grown on it, for the resources in
it, and for our clean air and pure water. ey stole these things from us. . . . Now
they want our pride, our history, our spiritual traditions. ey want to rewrite and
remake these things, to claim them for themselves.
54
John Lavelle, director of the Center for Support and Protection of Indian
Religious and Indigenous Traditions, adds:
is is the final phase of genocide. . . . First whites took the land and all that was
physical. Now they’re going after what is intangible. . . It’s the conqueror fanta-
sizing about who he has conquered.
55
Apparently Anglo-American men subconsciously (or even perhaps consciously)
realize they lack authenticity as rulers of the land. By pretending to be Native,
the colonizers might be able to convince themselves they are the rightful and
true possessors of the land and its heritage. What is more, they may feel
insecure in their masculinity, so they appropriate the masculine prowess and
superhuman powers they have traditionally attributed to American Indians.
us they (mis)appropriate attributes of Natives in forging their own myth;
then they reiterate this myth to each other in films and television, where it takes
on an aura of quasi-authenticity, or what Jacques Aumont called “plausibility.”
56
FitzGerald | Cordell Walker and the indianized White hero 79
Wal k e r’s America, like Disneyland,
is a simulacrum in which white males
not only reign supreme but also are better at being Indians than Indians
themselves.
57
“ese are non-Indians who think they can be better Indians
than we are,” said Carol Standing Elk of the American Indian Movement.
58
If
white men can become Natives easily enough, and it is extremely difficult if
not impossible for Natives such as Sam Buckhart or Nakia Parker to become
white, Walker overrides this difficulty by being both white and Native.
the Walker/norriS interFaCe and iSSueS oF indianneSS
ere is a good deal of spillage between character Cordell Walker and the
public persona of Chuck Norris; in fact, it is sometimes unclear where one
ends and the other begins. As mentioned earlier, Norris brought his own expe-
riences and views to the series. In the first instance, both Norris and Walker
take pains to assert they are half-Cherokee. In both his 1998 and 2006 auto-
biographies Norris makes an issue of being biracial as does the character he
plays in Walker.
59
In season three, episode 6 (“Rainbow Warrior”) Walker calls
himself “a member of this tribe,” the Oklahoma Cherokees.
60
In the made-for-
TV movie that served as the pilot for the series, Walker, in flashback, is seen
as a towheaded child being bullied by a gang of Native children. is is taken
from Norris’s childhood experience of attending school with Native children in
Arizona who bullied him.
61
Reading Norris’s autobiographies, one can’t help noticing his ambivalence
toward American Indians. Despite his own and his character’s repeated claims
to Indianness, Norris works hard to distance himself from his Cherokee
roots—and from his father. Norris was appalled by his father’s erratic behavior
and tended to disassociate himself not only from his father, but even from
his father’s side of the family. According to Norris, his father had dark skin,
“coal-black” eyes, and black hair.
62
In other words, he looked Native. Norris
writes that his “most difficult and confusing relationship” was with his father
and refers to his father as “a negative role model.”
63
Complicating matters,
Norris’s father was an abusive alcoholic who apparently fit the drunken-Indian
stereotype.
64
It is evident that the role of Uncle Ray is partly based on Norris’s
father, whose name was Ray (Norris’s middle name is Ray as well). Uncle Ray,
a “full-blood” Cherokee, is often made to appear silly and ineffectual in Walker.
Like Tonto in The Lone Ranger, he is emasculated, feminized. What is more,
he is trivialized. Ray sometimes hangs out in the neighborhood bar acting
tipsy and telling inane jokes.
Ray is frequently the butt of ridicule. For example, while Walker is viewing
a videotape of a bank robbery from a closed-circuit camera, Ray asks, “What’s
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80
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on? I missed People’s Court last night” (see fig. 9). is comment makes Ray
sound silly and uneducated, having extremely pedestrian tastes in television.
Ray is in the background, out of focus. He is nearly invisible, both literally
and figuratively. Like Norris himself, Walker tries to distance himself from his
Cherokee heritage, but Ray will not let him.
Ray (see fig. 10) is framed against a tree and the sky, symbolizing his connection
to nature, while Walker (see fig. 11) stands in front of his house, symbolizing
civilization and the comforts of modernity.
UNCLE RAY: Washoe, you forgot to say good morning to the sun.
WALKER: (looking up, reluctantly) Morning. . . .
Walker egregiously misrepresents Cherokee culture. Cherokee scholars
have expressed displeasure with Walker and hold Norris responsible. Richard
Allen asserts, “Norris distorts not only Cherokee but the broad sweep of
Figure 9 (above left): Uncle Ray, wearing denim,
is marginalized in the background. Note Navajo
patterns on Walker’s shirt.
Figure 10 (above left): Ray is associated with nature.
Figure 11 (above right): Walker is associated with the comforts of “home.”
FitzGerald | Cordell Walker and the indianized White hero 81
Indian culture,” while Robert Conley calls Walker’s portrayals of Cherokee
culture “absurd and insulting,” adding, “Norris seems to know nothing about
Cherokee culture. Furthermore, he does not seem to give a damn enough to
try to find out.”
65
Ultimately, Cordell Walker deploys his Indianness when it helps him solve
crimes but otherwise tries to distance himself from it. is could be said of
Norris himself, who employed his (ostensible) Indianness to advance his career
but generally distances himself from it. In fact, Norris’s professed hero is John
Wayne, who portrayed Hollywood’s most vehement (and violent) Indian-hater
in John Ford’s The Searchers.
66
In what could be deemed a Freudian slip,
Norris, who now styles himself a political commentator, explains what the US
founders had in mind when “we came over from England.”
67
His use of the
pronoun “we” with reference to the English settlers clearly negates his claims
of Indianness, indicating that he sees himself as thoroughly Anglo-American.
FundamentaliSt reliGiouS overtoneS and Gender roleS
As noted previously, Norris is one of the program’s executive producers and
brings his experiences and views to the series. Norris is a born-again Southern
Baptist and self-described “conservative Christian.”
68
is statement is worth
examination because of the conflicts that arose between Walker’s New-Age
“mumbo-jumbo” and conservative Christianity. Although many Cherokees
have been raised as Southern Baptists and have managed to reconcile their
traditional beliefs with Christianity, this transfer does not work both ways.
69
Some conservative Christians took offense to Walker’s depiction of New Age
spiritual practices.
70
By season four these were abandoned in favor of refer-
ences to Christianity because Norris himself was uncomfortable with them.
71
At this point Norris had recommitted himself to evangelical Christianity.
72
Religion is also germane to this discussion because fundamentalist
Protestants tend to embrace strict gender roles and espouse rigid ideas about
masculinity and what it means. For example, many conservative Christians
subscribe to the biblical view that women should accept subservient roles.
73
Some of these strictures are embedded in Walker: for one, there are no women
police officers until season seven. Conservative Christians also tend to oppose
civil rights for gays.
74
is attitude is connected to recurrent images about
American masculinity and reflect an ongoing cultural struggle over what such
images mean with regard to gender roles and how men should—or should
not—behave, ideas that have been recurrently played out in western tales,
whether in literature, film, or television.
75
What is more, some conservative
Christians label themselves “pro-life” while celebrating militarism and war and
AmericAn indiAn culture And reseArch JournAl 38:2 (2014)
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fail to see any contradiction in the use of this term. is is true of Norris
himself, as demonstrated by his earlier career choices to play the militaristic
roles of Colonel Braddock and Major McCoy. Both Braddock and McCoy
prefer violence, sometimes on a mass scale, to negotiation.
76
e observation that fundamentalist Protestant longings are at the heart
of the western has been made by such scholars as J. Fred MacDonald, Peter
Homans, and Michael T. Marsden.
77
Marsden writes that the western—in all
its formats, whether in novels, film or television—is at base a variation of a
Puritan morality play. However, the western tale’s religious overtones are no
longer overt, although these may be apparent to fundamentalists who recog-
nize them. As Marsden explains:
For the Puritans, the wilderness of their “Chosen Land” was inhabited by devils
[Pequots], and these devils could be driven out only by the strongest and worthiest
of men. . . . It is of this challenge that the American hero, beginning with Daniel
Boone, was born. And Boone’s cultural descendant, the western hero, became
America’s permanent heroic creation, serving as Redeemer for generations of
Americans.
78
Finally, conservative Christians take a biblical view of the land and how it
should be used, which is antithetical to the way most Natives feel about the
land. Anne Coulter, a conservative author and a fundamentalist Protestant,
explained this dominionist view on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program in 2001:
COULTER: I take the biblical idea. . . . God gave us the earth. . . . God says,
“Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it.”
PETER FENN: Terrific. We’re Americans, so we should consume as much of the
earth’s resources—as fast as we possibly can.
COULTER: As opposed to living like the Indians.
79
Norris clearly identifies with conservative Christian views, and by season
four he began actively incorporating them into Walker: Texas Ranger. Norris
himself wrote in his 2006 autobiography that the series indeed contained
an evangelical tone and went on to boast that it was voted “Best Christian
Program” at the 1998 Epiphany awards.
80
PolitiCal imPliCationS
Along with subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) religious themes, Norris
brought his conservative political stance to the series. Walker had clear political
implications: like the Lone Ranger, this “fabulous individual” set the tone for
how US leaders should behave, with cowboy justice as the ideal.
81
Walker may
have been part of a swing to the right that transpired in the late 1990s and
FitzGerald | Cordell Walker and the indianized White hero 83
early 2000s. Washington Post columnist Paula Span writes that Walker: Texas
Ranger “helped land George W. Bush in the White House” in 2000 (Bush ran
for governor of Texas one year after Walker’s debut). “Is it so far-fetched that
last November a significant proportion of [voters] looked at George W. and
thought, ‘Hey, we know this guy?’”
82
Walker and Bush have several character-
istics in common: both are from Texas, both affect a cowboy image, both style
themselves as “compassionate conservatives” and conspicuous Christians, and
both portray themselves as tough but fair.
83
is image of a tough, no-nonsense,
western hero, exemplified by Cordell Walker, is so embedded in US culture that
many voters think of this character as a prototype and how their country’s
president should behave: a hero “who cites Scripture about forgiveness while
unremorsefully thwacking away at enemies foreign and domestic.”
84
the indianized White man and anGlo-ameriCan
maSCulinity
Tropes of Anglo-American masculinity thrive not only in westerns but in
police dramas. Like its protagonist, Walker: Texas Ranger is a hybrid, both
a crime series and a western. As in most westerns, issues of masculinity, and
challenges to it, abound. As Will Wright has argued, the New Man’s strength
is visually derived from his connection with the wilderness.
85
is is apparent
not only in television programs but also in advertisements.
Walker’s resemblance to the Marlboro Man can hardly be coincidence (see
fig. 12). Note the denim jacket symbolizing the workingman. e Marlboro
Man’s head is carefully framed against the mountains, lending the strength of
the wilderness to the character, and his hat is connected to the sky. In the metro-
politan variation, the cityscape substitutes for mountains in the urban frontier
(see fig. 13). However, Walker is standing outside the city: though he works to
clean up crime in the city, he is not of the city. His shirt, with its Navajo designs,
connotes his Indianness beneath his cowboy garb. Again, Walker is shot from an
extremely low angle, framed against the sky, making him appear godlike.
ConCluSion
Cordell Walker embodies a highly evolved fusion of European and American
Indian masculinities, refining a process that began in US literature in the 1820s,
if not earlier. His Indianness is unobtrusive, covert: he can don his Native
secret identity, like a superhero’s cape, any time he needs superhuman powers
(that is, hypermasculinity). Like Cherokee chief Mingo on Daniel Boone,
Walker is both white and Native; he is the best of either world at any given
AmericAn indiAn culture And reseArch JournAl 38:2 (2014)
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moment, as it suits him. His white side makes him serious, patient, linear-
thinking, analytical. However, the New Man is not locked into Enlightenment
rationality or logic.
86
Like John Rambo, who was later revealed to be half-
Native, Walker’s Native side makes him stronger, more spiritual, more natural,
as well as impetuous, apt to go berserk when and if the need arises.
87
Walk er,
then, is the perfect Good Indian: a temporary one. He does not overstay his
welcome, or make demands, or remind Anglo-Americans that he is the Native
and they are not. When Walker’s inner Native is no longer useful, it goes back
into hibernation until, like a genie, it is summoned again. us “the only good
Indian” is one who appears on command—to help enforce Anglo-American
law and order—and recedes when not needed.
noteS
1.
Richard Drinnon, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building
(Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1980), 46–57.
2. Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 106.
3. Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region,
1650–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), xxv.
4. Philip S. Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 2.
5. John Filson, Life and Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon [sic]: The First White Settler of The
State of Kentucky (1784; Reprint, Lexington, KY: Filiquarian Publishing Company, 2011).
6. James Fenimore Cooper, The Leatherstocking Tales (New York: Library of America, 1984).
7. Elliott Arnold, Blood Brother (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1947); Broken Arrow (film),
directed by Delmer Daves (original release 1950; Los Angeles: 20
th
Century Fox Films), DVD;
Broken Arrow (TV series), producers Mel Epstein and Alan A. Armer (Los Angeles: 20
th
Century
Figure 12 (above left): e Marlboro Man, from a 1974 advertisement. Cigarettes were
coded as masculine.
Figure 13 (above right): Cordell Walker stands guard outside Dallas.
FitzGerald | Cordell Walker and the indianized White hero 85
Fox Television; aired on ABC-Television 1956–1958), DVD; Cheyenne: The Complete First Season,
produced by Roy Huggins (Los Angeles: Warner Bros. Television; aired on ABC-TV 1955), Warner
Home Video, 2006, DVD.
8.
The Lone Ranger, producer George W. Trendle (Los Angeles: Apex Films; aired on ABC
Television, 1949–1957; Brave Eagle, producer Arthur Rush (Los Angeles: Frontier Productions; aired
on CBS Television, 1955–1956); Broken Arrow, producers Mel Epstein and Alan A. Armer (Los
Angeles: 20th Century Fox Television; aired on ABC Television, 1956–1958); Law of the Plainsman,
producers Jules V. Levy, Arthur Gardner, and Arnold Laven (Los Angeles: Cardiff Productions/
Four Star Television; aired on NBC Television, 1959–1960); Hawk, producer Allan E. Sloane (Los
Angeles: Columbia Pictures Television; aired on ABC Television 1966–1967); Nakia, producer
David Gerber (Los Angeles: David Gerber Productions/Columbia Pictures Television; aired on ABC
Television, 1974).
9.
e terms “apprentice white man” and “ethnic sidekick” come from Frederick Zackel,
describing the Carib character Friday in Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe and many more
like him. Frederick Zackel, “Robinson Crusoe and the Ethnic Sidekick,” Bright Lights Film Journal 58,
November 2007; http://brightlightsfilm.com/58/index.php.
10.
Daniel Boone: The Best of Mingo (Los Angeles: Arcola Pictures/Fespar Productions/20th
Century Fox Pictures; aired on NBC-TV, 1964–1970 (Los Angeles: Liberation Entertainment, 2009),
DVD; Hondo (Los Angeles: Andrew J. Fenady Productions/Batjac Productions/MGM Television;
aired on ABC-TV, 1967); Walker: Texas Ranger (Los Angeles: Cannon Television/Amadea Film
Productions/Norris Brothers Entertainment/Rudy Greif Company/CBS Entertainment/Columbia
TriStar Television; aired on CBS Television 1993–2001).
11.
Chuck Norris with Ken Abraham, Against All Odds: My Story (Nashville: Broadman &
Holman, 2006), 35–36.
12.
Delta Force, directed by Menahem Golan (Los Angeles: Golan-Globus Productions/MGM
Pictures, original release 1986); MGM/UA 2000, DVD. Rescuing missing prisoners of war in North
Vietnam had been the premise of the film Rambo: First Blood, Part II. Rambo: First Blood, Part II,
directed by George Cosmatos (Los Angeles, Anabasis NV/Orion Pictures, original release 1985);
Lionsgate, 2004, DVD.
13. Ira Berkow, “At Dinner with Chuck Norris,” New York Times, May 12, 1993, C1.
14. Cordell Walker appeared in two other series: Martial Law (CBS, 1998–2000), a short-lived
police drama in which the protagonist practices martial arts; and Sons of Thunder (1999), a spinoff of
Walker, produced by Norris and his brother Aaron. Walker returned in a 2005 made-for-television
movie, Walker, Texas Ranger: Trial by Fire. e original Walker: Texas Ranger series still appears in
reruns on the USA Network. Norris is also featured in a video game called Chuck Norris Superkicks.
15.
Norris, Against All Odds, 181, 226; Chuck Norris with Joe Hyams, The Secret of Inner
Strength: My Story (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1988); The Secret Power Within: Zen Solutions to
Everyday Problems (New York: Broadway Books, 1996).
16. Ann Hodges, “Money Woes May Sideline Norris Series,” Houston Chronicle April 14, 1993, 1.
17.
Norris, Against All Odds, 8, 15. Norris claims his maternal grandfather was “full-blood”
Cherokee (15). However, according to the website Carlos Ray Norris a.k.a. “Chuck” Norris’ Family
History, his maternal grandfather, John Porter Scarberry, had blue eyes. e chances of a “full blood”
Cherokee having blue eyes are miniscule. e most likely explanation is that Norris is not well
informed about his Cherokee heritage and tends to exaggerate, wittingly or unwittingly. Richard
Allen, policy analyst for the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, reports that Norris is not a registered
member of the Cherokee Nation (or the United Keetoowah Band), although Norris, if he is indeed
half-Cherokee as he claims, would be fully eligible for membership. Richard Allen, email to author,
May 6, 2010.
AmericAn indiAn culture And reseArch JournAl 38:2 (2014)
86
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18.
e motif of American Indian characters with military backgrounds is fairly common in
films and television and includes “Chief ” in Garrison’s Gorillas (ABC, 1967), Billy Jack, and Rambo,
as well as Walker himself, who is depicted in flashbacks as a former special-forces operative (“green
beret”) in Vietnam. Garrison’s Gorillas, produced by Richard Caffey, Georg Fenady, Selig J. Seligman
and Leon Mirell (Los Angeles: Selmur Productions; aired on ABC-TV, 1967–1968), DVD. In real
life, American Indians have served in inordinately high proportions in the US military, especially in
commando units. Tom Holm, “Patriots and Pawns: State Use of American Indians in the Military
and the Process of Nativization of the United States,” in The State of Native America: Genocide,
Colonization, and Resistance, ed. M. Annette Jaimes (Boston: South End Press, 1992), 345–70.
19. Even as a token character, Uncle Ray doesn’t last long: he dies after fourteen episodes.
20.
George Gerbner, Women and Minorities on Television Drama: A Study in Casting and Fate,
Screen Actors Guild report, 1993; http://www.asc.upenn.edu/gerbner/Asset.aspx?assetID=333, 11.
21. Other American Indian characters associated with martial arts are Billy Jack and Rambo.
22.
is is yet another stereotype. According to Gerbner, “Characters with mental disabilities
were 4-1/2 times more likely to be criminals or villains and three times more likely to commit
violence.” George Gerbner, Casting the American Scene: A Look at the Characters on Prime-time and
Daytime Television from 1994–1997, Screen Actors Guild, December 1998, Appendix 2, np, fn. 2.
23. Will Wright, Six Guns and Society: A Structural Study of the Western (University of California
Press, 1975), 52, 80.
24. Ward Churchill remarks “the only thing observably ‘Indian’ about Walker is that he stops in
every episode to visit with his Uncle Ray.” Ward Churchill, Fantasies of the Master Race (San Francisco,
City Lights Books, 1998), 221, n. 179. is, however, is not entirely the case, as will be demonstrated.
25. The Adventures of Superman, produced by Whitney Ellsworth, Robert Maxwell, and Bernard
Luber (Los Angeles: Motion Pictures for Television; aired on ABC Television, 1952–1958); The
Incredible Hulk, producers Kenneth Johnson and Robert Bennett Steinhauer (Los Angeles: Universal
Television; aired on CBS Television, 1978–1982). Banner’s given name in the original Marvel comic
book was Bruce Banner; television producers changed it to David.
26.
Walker: Texas Ranger, The Complete First Season, producers Chuck Norris, Aaron Norris,
Leslie Greif, Albert S. Ruddy, et al. (Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures/CBS Home Video, 2006, DVD.
27.
Bob Kane, “Origins of the Bat Man,” Detective Comics 27 (New York: National Periodical
Publications, May 1939), np.
28. Matthew A. Stern, “Review: the Best of Bravestarr,” PopMatters, July 18, 2007, http://www
.popmatters.com/pm/review/the-best-of-bravestar.
29. Ward Churchill, Struggle for the Land: Native North American Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide,
and Colonization (San Francisco: City Lights Publishers), 274–79.
30.
Museum of the Cherokee Indian website, “Museum Archives: FAQ’s,” nd, http://www
.cherokeemuseum.org/html/archives_FAQb.html.
31.
e Cherokee reservation near Dallas comprises land granted by Spain to the Cherokee
Nation in 1807. See “About Sovereign Cherokee Nation Tejas,” http://www.texascherokeenation.org
/about.php.
32. Duane Champagne, Contemporary Native American Cultural Issues (Lanham, MD: Rowman
and Littlefield, 1999), 27.
33. Said, Culture and Imperialism, 161.
34. Cedric C. Clark (Syed M. Khatib), “Television and Social Control: Some Observations on the
Portrayals of Ethnic Minorities,” Television Quarterly, Spring 1969, 18–22.
35. Walker: Texas Ranger, “Evil in the Night” (Episode 58), writer-producer Tom Blomquist, air
date November 4, 1995.
FitzGerald | Cordell Walker and the indianized White hero 87
36. Ward Churchill interview, Images of Indians: How Hollywood Stereotyped the Native American,
directed by Chris O’Brien and Jason Witmer (Englewood, CO: Starz Encore Entertainment, aired
July 15, 2003), DVD.
37. Law of the Plainsman, “Blood Trails,” Episode 6 (Los Angeles: Cardiff Productions/Four Star
Television, aired on NBC-TV, Nov. 5, 1959), DVD.
38. Mod Squad, producers Aaron Spelling and Danny omas (Los Angeles: omas/Spelling
Productions/Paramount Pictures Television); aired on ABC-TV, 1968–1973.
39. Nakia, 1974, DVD.
40. Sheila Overturf, “Program Reviews: Walker, Texas Ranger,” ChristianAnswers.net, nd, http://
www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/tv/2002/walkertexasranger.html.
41.
Allen, e-mail to author, May 6, 2010; Robert Conley, professor of Cherokee studies at
Western Carolina University, e-mail correspondence with author, May 6, 2010; also see Terence
Towles Canote [Mercurie] blog entry “e Invisible Minority: Native Americans on American
Television,” July 6, 2009, A Shroud of Thoughts, http://mercurie.blogspot.com/2009/07/invisible
-minority-native-americans-on.html.
42. Kirby Farrell, “e Berserk Style in American Culture,” Cultural Critique 46 (Autumn 2000):
179–209.
43. Richard Allen, e-mail correspondence with author, May 6, 2010.
44. Robert Conley, e-mail correspondence with author, May 6, 2010.
45.
Geary Hobson, The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Native American Literature
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1981), 104.
46. Walker: Texas Ranger, The Complete Third Season (CBS Paramount Home Video, 2006), DVD.
47. Richard Dyer, White (London: Routledge, 1997), 146.
48. Richard Allen, e-mail correspondence with author, May 6, 2010; Robert Conley, e-mail corre-
spondence with author, May 6, 2010.
49. Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book about Men (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1990).
50. Richard A. Shweder, “What Do Men Want? A Reading List for the Male Identity Crisis,” New
York Times January 9, 1994, http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/09/books/what-do-men-want-a
-reading-list-for-the-male-identity-crisis.html. Firewalker was also the title of a 1996 Norris action
film released by Cannon. Fire Walk with Me was the subtitle of David Lynch’s 1992 film sequel to
ABC-TV ’s Twin Peaks (1990–1991).
51. David Gates, “White Male Paranoia,” Newsweek, March 29, 1993: 48–53.
52. Conley, e-mail correspondence with author, May 6, 2010.
53.
Jimmy Durham, “Cowboys and. . . Notes on Art, Literature, and American Indians in the
Modern American Mind,” in The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance, ed.
M. Annette Jaimes (Boston: South End Press, 1992), 424.
54. Quoted in Wendy Rose, “e Great Pretenders: Further Reflections on White Shamanism,”
in The State of Native America, 403.
55.
Dirk Johnson, “Spiritual Seekers Borrow Indians’ Ways,” New York Times, December 27,
1993: A1. However, this article notes that there are some Indian religious practitioners who feel that
the Native ways should be shared with and by anyone who appreciates them.
56.
Jacques Aumont, Alain Bergala, Michel Marie, and Marc Vernet, Aesthetics of Film, ed.
Richard Neupert (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992), 117–18.
57. Jean Beaudrillard, Simulacra and Simulations (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983), 24–26.
58. Quoted in Johnson, A1.
59. Norris, Against All Odds, 19-21; Norris, Secret of Inner Strength, 1996, 4, 11–12, 42.
60. “Rainbow Warrior” (Episode 32), Walker: Texas Ranger: The Third Season. Originally aired
on CBS Television, November 5, 1994.
AmericAn indiAn culture And reseArch JournAl 38:2 (2014)
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61. Norris, Against All Odds, 15–16.
62. Norris, Against All Odds, 9.
63. Ibid., 13, 20.
64. Ibid., 12, 14, 18, 23, 25.
65. Allen, e-mail to author, May 6, 2010; Conley, e-mail to author, May 6, 2010.
66.
Norris, Secret of Inner Strength, 206; The Searchers, director John Ford (Los Angeles: C.V.
Whitney Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures, 1956). Norris’s idol, John Wayne, told interviewer Richard
Warren Lewis, “I believe in white supremacy.” Asked specifically how he felt about Indians and
their loss of the land, he responded, “I don’t feel we [Euro-Americans] did wrong in taking this
great country away from them. . . . ere were great numbers of people who needed new land, and
the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.” Richard Warren Lewis, “e Playboy
Interview: John Wayne,” Playboy, May 1971, 78.
67.
“Black Belt Patriotism: Chuck Norris,” BH Publishing Group. nd, http://www.youtube
.com/ watch?v=kMhLgC8WGz8. Emphasis mine.
68. Norris, Against All Odds, 22.
69. Allen, e-mail correspondence with author, May 6, 2010.
70. Overturf, “Program Reviews.”
71. Norris, Against All Odds, 181–82.
72. Chuck Norris, “Saving a Roundhouse for Romney,” World Net Daily, January 7, 2008, http://
www.wnd.com/2008/01/45413/.
73. As delineated in Ephesians 5:22 and 6:5–6; Colossians 3:18; Titus 2:3–5; and 1Peter 3:1,
New American Standard Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999).
74. See Leviticus 18:22, NASD.
75.
Lee Clark Mitchell, Westerns: Making the Man in Fiction and Film (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1996), 37, 139, 173.
76.
James Kendrick, Fighting Outward, Looking Inward (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
University Press, 2009), 112–13.
77. J. Fred MacDonald, Television and the Red Menace: The Video Road to Vietnam (Westport,
CT: Praeger, 1985), 139–40; Peter Homans, “Puritanism Revisited: An Analysis of the Contemporary
Screen-Image Western,” in Focus on the Western, ed. Jack Nachbar (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentiss-
Hall, 1974), 84–92; Michael T. Marsden, “Savior in the Saddle: e Sagebrush Testament,” in Focus
on the Western, 93–100.
78. Marsden, 1974, 93.
79. Hannity & Colmes, Fox News Network, June 20, 2001. Like Coulter, Norris has become a
political and cultural commentator. He has his own column in the conservative World Net Daily.
80.
e awards are sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. Norris, Against All Odds,
2006, 226.
81. e voiceover introduction that begins each episode in the Lone Ranger television series uses
the epithet “fabulous individual.”
82.
Paula Span, “at Lone Star Good Guy: George Bush? Nope. Walker, Texas Ranger,”
Washington Post, May 19, 2001, C1.
83. Coincidentally, George W. Bush’s middle name is Walker.
84. Span, “at Lone Star,” C1.
85. Wright, Six Guns and Society, 52, 80.
86. Deloria, Playing Indian, 3.
87.
See Farrell, 179–209. Rambo’s Indianness was not revealed until the sequel Rambo: First
Blood, Part II and was not part of author David Morrell’s original conception of the character. David
Morrell, e-mail correspondence with author, January 19, 2009.
