Cowboy Cops and Black Lives Matter: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and the Great White West[ern]

• Authors: Debbie Olson
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The racial framework of Martin McDonagh’s 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri rests at the intersection of three persistent cultural myths-the Frontier Myth, the hero cowboy myth and the myth of white supremacy. There has been much criticism of the portrayal of black characters in the film, and particularly the lack of significant black characters in a film that sports a solid undercurrent of racial politics. While the black characters in the film occupy a small amount of screen time, this paper argues that the film’s treatment of black characters, including their absence, puts on display the cultural dysfunction of racial politics in the US, especially in rural America, and particularly in Missouri. The film’s subversion of the cowboy hero instead reveals the disturbing reality of the Frontier Myth and its dependence on racism and white supremacy for validation. In its unmasking of myth, Three Billboards challenges the illusion of a glorious Western past that never existed and at the same time supports racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Keywords

EN

race; Black Lives Matter; the Western; Missouri; the Frontier Myth

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture
• Year: 2020
• Issue: 10
• Pages: 93-117

Dates

published

2020-11-24

Contributors

author

Debbie Olson

• Missouri Valley College, Marshall, MO

• https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8281-6462

References

• Abramovitch, Seth. “Making of Three Billboards: How a Haunting Greyhound Bus Trip Inspired the Dark Revenge Comedy.” Hollywoodreporter.com. The Hollywood Reporter 12 Jan. 2018. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Addley, Esther. “Here’s One in the Eye.” Theguardian.com. The Guardian 5 Nov. 2003. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Anderson, Mark Cronlund. “The U.S. Frontier Myth, American Identity, and 9/11.” The Journal of Psychohistory 38.4 (2011): 314–27. Print.
• Anderson, Steve. “History TV and Popular Memory.” Television Histories: Shaping Collective Memory in the Media Age. Ed. Gary R. Edgerton and Peter C. Rollins. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2001. 19–36. Print.
• Appadurai, Arjun. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Cultural Studies Reader. Ed. Simon During. New York: Routledge, 1993. 216–27. Print.
• Barthes, Roland. “Myth Today.” Global Literary Theory. Ed. Richard J. Lane. New York: Routledge, 2013. 53–64. Print.
• Bell, Amanda. “Absence/presence.” Lucian.uchicago.edu. The Chicago School of Media Theory. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Belton, Danielle C. “Dear Family, Please Move Out of Mo., Love Danielle.” Theroot.com. The Root 3 Aug. 2017. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• “Black Lives Upended by Policing: The Raw Videos Sparking Outrage.” Nytimes.com. The New York Times 19 Apr. 2018. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Bohnke, Michael. “Myth and Law in the Films of John Ford.” Journal of Law and Society 28.47 (2001): 47–63. Print. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00178
• Brode, Douglas. Dream West: Politics and Religion in Cowboy Movies. Austin: U of Texas P, 2013. Print.
• Brown, Jeffery A. “Bullets, Buddies, and Bad Guys.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 21.2 (1993): 79–87. Print. https://doi.org/10.1080/01956051.1993.9944235
• Bunch, Sonny. “What If Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Is a Tale about Damnation, Not Redemption?” Washingtonpost.com. The Washington Post 11 Jan. 2018. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Calomiris, Charles W., and Larry Schweikart. “The Panic of 1857: Origins, Transmission, and Containment.” Journal of Economic History 51.4 (1991): 807–34. Print.
• Carbonneau, Amanda, et al. “Understanding Racial Disparities in Police Use of Force: Lessons from Fatal Police-on-Police Shootings.” Journal of Social Issues 73.4 (2017): 744–67. Print. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12246
• Carter, Matthew. Myth of the Western. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2014. Print.
• Clayton, Dewey M. “Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights Movement: A Comparative Analysis of Two Social Movements in the United States.” Journal of Black Studies 49.5 (2018): 448-80. Print. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934718764099
• Conason, Joe. “Missouri’s Tortured History of Racism: Why the Inferno in Ferguson is No Surprise.” Salon.com. Salon 21 Aug. 2014. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Corkin, Stanley. Cowboys as Cold Warriors: The Western and US History. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2004. Print.
• Criss, Doug. “The Reward Has Been Doubled in the Cold Case That Inspired Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Edition.cnn.com. CNN 18 Apr. 2018. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Cummings, Ian. “NAACP Issues First-ever Travel Advisory for a State-and its Missouri.” Kansascity.com. Kansas City Star 1 Aug. 2017. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Dalpozzo, Cristiano. “Off-Screen: The Liminal Dimension of the Cinematic Image.” Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media 22 (2013): n.pag. Refractory.unimelb.edu.au. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1997. Print.
• Donahue, James J. Failed Frontiersmen: White Men and Myth in the Post-Sixties American Historical Romance. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2015. Print.
• “Elijah Lovejoy.” Loc.gov. Library of Congress. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove, 1952. Print.
• “Ferguson Unrest: From Shooting to Nationwide Protests.” Bbc.com. BBC 10 Aug. 2015. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Foucault, Michel. “Film and Popular Memory.” Foucault Live: Collected Interviews 1961–1984. Ed. Silvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1989. Print.
• Froh, Tim. “Anonymous Letters and Threats: How Racism Came to Stalk US Youth Soccer.” Theguardian.com. The Guardian 15 Feb. 2018. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Gomberg, Herbert L. “A Note on the Phallic Significance of Spitting.” The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 50.1 (1981): 90–95. Print. https://doi.org/10.1080/21674086.1981.11926945
• Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971. Print.
• Gregory, Kia. “Killing Us Softly: How Videos of Police Brutality Traumatize African Americans and Undermine the Search for Justice.” Newrepublic.com. The New Republic 13 Feb. 2018. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Guerrero, Ed. Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1993. Print.
• Harriot, Michael. “White Men Can’t Murder: Why White Cops Are Immune to the Law.” Theroot.com. The Root 22 Jun. 2017. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• hooks, bell. “Eating the Other.” Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works. Ed. Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001. 366–80. Print.
• Hughey, Matthew. The White Savior Film: Content, Critics, and Consumption. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP, 2014. Print.
• “Interactive Hate Group Map.” Splcenter.org. The Southern Poverty Law Center. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• “Kathy Page.” Unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com. Fandom. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Kremer, Gary R. Race and Meaning: The African American Experience in Missouri. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 2014. Print.
• Langford, Barry. “Revisiting the ‘Revisionist’ Western.” Film & History 33.2 (2003): 26–35. Print.
• Maniglia, Valentin. “Going Western-Carter Burwell On Scoring Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Magazine.scoreit.org. Score-it Magazine 9 Feb. 2018. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Marans, Daniel, and Mariah Stewart. “Why Missouri Has Become the Heart of Racial Tension in America: From Ferguson to Mizzou, the Show-Me-State is Not a Focal Point.” Huffingtonpost.com. Huffington Post 16 Nov. 2015. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• McVeigh, Stephen. The American Western. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2007. Print.
• Morris, Wesley. “Does Three Billboards Have Anything to Say About America? Well . . .” Nytimes.com. The New York Times 18 Jan. 2018. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Mueller, Matt. “Martin McDonagh on the Real-Life Inspiration Behind Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Screendaily.com. Screen Daily 8 Jan. 2018. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Norwood, Kimberly Jade. “The Far-reaching Shadow Cast by Ferguson.” Washington Law Journal 46.1 (2014): 1–22. Print.
• Olson, Debbie. Black Children in Hollywood Cinema: Cast in Shadow. New York: Palgrave, 2017. Print. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48273-6
• Prokos, Anastasia, and Irene Padavic. “‘There Oughtta Be a Law Against Bitches: Masculinity Lessons in Police Academy Training.” Gender, Work, and Organization 9.4 (2002): 439–59. Print. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0432.00168
• Sewell, Abigail. “The Intersectional, Structuralist, and Anti-geneticism Centres of Black Lives Matter.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 41.8 (2018): 1443–46. Print.
• Shallat, Todd. “Racial Discrimination in Idaho: The Myth of the Colorblind State.” The Blue Review 4 (2014). Thebluereview.org. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Shin, Annys. “Recalling the Protests, Riots After the Police Shooting of Michael Brown.” Washingtonpost.com. Washington Post 3 Aug. 2017. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Simmon, Scott. The Invention of the Western Film: A Cultural History of the Genre’s First Half-Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.
• Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century America. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1992. Print.
• Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1950. Print.
• Snead, James. White Screens, Black Images. Ed. Colin McCabe and Cornel West. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.
• Sommerlad, Joe. “Three Billboards is Not a Racist Film. What’s Truly ‘Problematic’ is Twitter’s Appetite for Controversy.” Independent. co.uk. Independent 27 Jan. 2018. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Sparks, Richard. “Masculinity and Heroism in the Hollywood Blockbuster.” British Journal of Criminology 36.3 (1996): 348–60. Print. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.a014099
• Stoeltje, Beverly J. “Cowboys and Clowns: Rodeo Specialists and the Ideology of Work and Play.” And Other Neighborly Names: Social Process and Cultural Image in Texas. Ed. Richard Bauman and Roger D. Abrahams. Austin: U of Texas P, 2011. 123–51. Print.
• “The Case of Dred Scott in the United States Supreme Court.” Loc.gov. Library of Congress. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Dir. John Ford. Perf. James Stewart, John Wayne. John Ford Productions, 1962. DVD.
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Dir. Martin McDonagh. Perf. Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell. Blueprint Pictures, 2017. DVD.
• “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Boxofficemojo.com. Box Office Mojo. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Tompkins, Jane. West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Print.
• Vera, Hernán, and Andrew M. Gordon. Screen Saviors: Hollywood Fictions of Whiteness. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Print.
• “Western Spittle.” Semih Okmen. Online video clip. Vimeo.com. Vimeo 9 Jul. 2016. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Williams, Joseph P. “Welcome to Missouri and Civil Rights 2.0: LGBT Rights, Racism, and Police Use of Deadly Force Converge in a Politically Purple State.” Usnews.com. US News and World Report 5 Jan. 2016. Web. 22 Jul. 2020.
• Žižek, Slavoj. “The Truth Arises from Misrecognition Part 1.” Lacan and the Subject of Language. Ed. Ellie Ragland-Sullivan and Mark Bracher. New York: Routledge, 1991. 188–212. Print.

Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/2083-2931.10.06