When I was a kid, I tried watching
the older LR & T series. It was pretty cool to see a Native
American in a positive role on TV.
But what always confused me was why they trusted each other.
In
class we heard about how Custer died for our sins, Wounded Knee, the
Trail of Tears, Cynthia Ann Parker, Kit Carson, Geronimo, and Philip
Sheridan.
There's also the bit of Texas history that those outside of Texas might not know about the Texas Rangers.
In
the early days, the Texas Rangers were a bunch of racists thugs. One
became a Texas Ranger through who one knew, rather than because one
wanted to keep the public safe.
In
the new Disney movie, Dan Reid deputizes his brother, so brother John
is now a Ranger. Which is how becoming a Ranger often happened. One
didn't need any special training or psych eval to become a Ranger.
"Walker, Texas Ranger" they weren't.
They
were brutal to adversaries, often employing torture during
interrogation. Go do a google search and you'll find lots of info on
the behavior of the Texas Rangers in the 1800s.
There
was this wonderful investigation in 1919 of the Texas Rangers, which
found that they were responsible for the deaths of nearly 5,000
Hispanics in the past decade. The agency of the Texas Rangers was
reformed, and a sort of Internal Affairs department instituted. (They
didn't call it IA, and right now I don't remember what it was called.)
It's
just that when I would attempt to watch it as a kid, I always wondered
how Tonto could trust the Lone Ranger, or why the Ranger trusted Tonto.
Why would two men from opposing groups end up working together. No one
ever gave me an answer to that question as a kid.
In the movie, Tonto and the Ranger definitely have their squabbles. But by the last 15 minutes of the movie, they are working together in sync,
keeping watch over each others' back, and just fantastic together.
What
I liked about the new movie was that it answered the question my kid
self had years ago. John Reid (the Lone Ranger) and Tonto ended up
together due to need and circumstances, and somewhere along the way they
became best of friends.
I so want Disney to do a new TV series
now, except without all the fancy special effects they used in this
movie. There were a few times I was thinking that they would have been
seriously hurt in that stunt in RL. Especially with that rolling train.
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