Racial Formation: Before Johnny Depp Played Tonto in The Lone Ranger, There Was Ricardo Montalban in Bonanza

Give all your characters dignity and respect. What advice. If only all actors would follow such a mantra...

The critical consensus about a film at the time of its release is often wrong. For example, Cloud Atlas was panned by the critics. Future generations of film scholars and fans will--fingers crossed--correctly understand it to be a great movie that was a victim of poor marketing and an audience which was not prepared for such an ambitious and genius film.

I just saw The Lone Ranger. It too was savaged by most critics. I was prepared to be disappointed and distracted by Johnny Depp's depiction of the iconic Saturday morning serial character "Tonto". The charges of "red face", i.e. that a white actor should not be depicting a First Nations brother, hung heavy over my viewing of the film.

Yes, the fact that Hollywood was unwilling to cast a First Nations actor as Tonto is very problematic and reflective of broader issues about race and representation in the mass media. And no, I am not going to litigate if Depp's role was "offensive" or "insulting" as I am not one of the brothers or sisters who can claim membership among First Nations peoples. I will leave those matters to others.

The Lone Ranger is an ambitious film that almost threatens to collapse under its own weight. Gore Verbinski does award winning work holding together a script that is a revisionist Western, a self-conscious deconstruction of The Lone Ranger mythos (and that of the classic Western film motif more generally), an homage to movies by Sergio Leonne as well as Once Upon a Time in the West, and a lavish, indulgent, thrill ride action movie.

If you are a student of the American West, or have even a passing interest in the "new" social history scholarship, The Lone Ranger is a gem.

By definition, popular culture is disposable. On occasion, a movie can work within genre conventions while also educating, provoking, and introducing new ideas to the public. The Lone Ranger is not transcendent art. But, it is far from the disposable bit of film-making which does no political work in the service of asking questions about historical memory and power.

Johnny Depp narrates the film from a sideshow carnival. Tonto talks to a young white child (and the audience) who is dressed as The Lone Ranger in 1933 (some six or so decades after the events depicted in the film). Tonto begins the movie as a "living" embodiment of the Old West; the movie ends with Depp dressed as "the civilized" Indian.

Films are barometers of the public mood and reflect the politics of the moment in which they were made. History should teach lessons about the present by examining the past. The Lone Ranger reflects both of those dynamics. It is so ambitious that I am unsure what the specific details of that project are in The Lone Ranger, even as I am absolutely sure those broader themes are hanging over the film.

Following the Boston Marathon Bombing, and how two white Chechens were ostensibly stripped of their Whiteness by a media and a White Public that could not reconcile terrorism with white group membership, I proposed a series of posts on the concept of racial formation, and how race is a social construct, one that is made, not "natural", yet remains socially potent and real.

I did not expect to start with The Lone Ranger and Johnny Depp. However, I believe that one should follow random moments and spontaneous opportunities.

Questions of race, performance, and representation are central to how identity is manufactured and reinforced as a type of common sense in society. Depp's performance of Tonto does not exist in a historical vacuum. It is located in a socio-historical context of genocide, white supremacy, racism, and the continued disenfranchisement of First Nations peoples in the present. The latter are all but invisible in day-to-day mass media, and are little discussed in America's supposed, as well as much ballyhooed (stillborn) national conversation on race.

The United States has two original sins. The first was genocide and theft of land from First Nations peoples. The second was chattel slavery. The country will one day be made to answer for both crimes.

In thinking about Johnny Depp's role as Tonto, I wanted to locate it in a broader story of race and the performing arts. Ricardo Montalban's most famous role is (most likely) Khan from the Star Trek TV and film series.

Ricardo Montalban was an accomplished Mexican actor. However, in confronting a Hollywood and an America of the 1950s and 1960s where Whiteness was unapologetically normalized and dominant, he would find work as a professional type of Other who could be slotted into any role where "one of them" was needed.

Do listen to Montalban's full interview and meditate on the challenges he faced as a working actor of color. Is it possible to depict an actor who is not of your "racial" or ethic background and do it respectfully and well? How does one do this with dignity and respect, while not surrendering to type and stereotypes?