Johnny Guitar and Two Mules for Sister Sara

Johnny Guitar and Two Mules for Sister Sara both show women in a more prominent light. This is due to the progressive feminist movements were taking place. Women were beginning to have a bigger role in society, other than being in the center of domesticity.

In Johnny Guitar, the two women characters Vienna and Emma become focal points throughout the film. Kid is in love with Vienna, which is not an emotion the alpha male cowboy often displays. Vienna and Emma are very different characters, and are almost opposites. Vienna is more relaxed and calm while Emma is more uneasy and outspoken. Women are still portrayed as emotional and use language to express themselves. For example, Vienna tells Johnny that she loves him, letting her emotions get the best of her. As Tompkins states, “It is by putting words to an emotion that it becomes feminized” (56).

In Two Mules for Sister Sara, the other, Sara, is a prostitute who lies to Hogan telling him that she is a nun. Tompkins claims “It is precisely words that cannot express truth about things” (53); cowboys distrust language for this reason. Sara is still somewhat similar to the typical “other” role in westerns since she uses men to get what she wants; she depends on men. Tompkins goes on to explain how women are categorized with language to express their emotions, while men are categorized with action. Sara, however, does not use language to express her emotions but to lie. When Sara tries to tell Hogan the truth, he doesn’t listen, which is typical of the alpha male cowboy. Sara also does tasks outside of the “other” role by placing dynamite on the train tracks. Sara is different from the “other” characters, and uses language in a completely different way. “Language is gratuitous at best,” Tompkins says “at worst it is deceptive” (52).

Johnny Guitar/Two Mules

The movie “Two Mules for Sister Sara” was released in 1970. In the movie Sara who is originally a prostitute, acts to be a nun since the beginning of the movie and disguise Hogan. She knows that she need help, she needed to be protected in the vast, scary desert. So she disguises him and takes his help. In turn, she also plays a decisive role at many different occasions. She helps Hogan, save his life at a number of occasions. She makes plans and gives ideas about how to attack the French. All in all, we can see both the characteristics in Sara. She is a traditional woman who needs help and also, she is the new rising woman, who is ready to take action and raise her voice and give opinion.
In the movie Johnny Guitar, which released in 1954 we see two female characters dominate the entire movie; Vienna and Emma. In the movie we can see that these two women play the role of the Alpha Male cowboy and the actual men are in the back drop. We see that Vienna builds her own casino and a place outside of the town. She is not scared even though the town people and the Marshal come and threaten her an ask her to shut it down. She is not at all scared, she knows that she is right and continues doing what she feels is right. She has men who are working for her and help her run her casino business. At the same time, we see Emma who is another string character in the movie, has a lot of influence on all the town people. She keeps influencing everyone and misleading so that she can get what she wants. At the end of the movie when all the town people go searching for the “Kid” and his associates, Emma does not sit back at home like all the other women do, she goes with everyone. She emerges as a very strong and influential woman.
We see that, women who played a very minute role in society during the earlier decades had then become a very significant part, important and influential part in the society. At the same time in the US there was the women’s rights movement that demanded for equal rights for men and women. Women had gained significant importance in the society.

Johnny Guitar and Two Mules for Sister Sara

The two Western films Johnny Guitar and Two Mules for Sister Sarah featurea strong "other" in the film, in order to inspire the women in America during the times these films were made. In these movies, the "other" is a strong female character that mimics many of the qualities that are often associated with the alpha male cowboy.

In Johnny Guitar, the two main women characters Vienna and Emma both play prominate roles in the film. Vienna uses her sexual appeal to influence the male characters. Vienna and Emma are two forces that constantly clash with each other and mimic traits of the alpha male cowboy. Since the mimic these traits, there can only be one alpha male so they constantly interfere with each other.

In the film Two Mules for Sister Sara, Sara takes on the couragous role and saves Hogan's life on two differnt occassions. She also presents more tactical characteristics by suggesting different ways to attack the French fortress. By occupation Sara is a prostitute but she uses this role to gain a way to influence men. She uses this influence to lie about being a nun.

Both these films feature strong women as the "other" and this reflects the rise of women in American society when these films were made. The earlier film only shows a slight prevelance of women because this was made when steps were just starting to be taken to create gender equality. The later film was made when the fight gender equality was in full effect and the film certianly shows this.

Johnny Guitar/Two Mules for Sister Sara

In the movie Two Mules for Sister Sara, Sister Sara represents the female other to the alpha male cowboy. Sara is a typical female in a western in the sense that she cannot protect herself and needs the alpha male cowboy’s help, but she is also unique since she lies to him and helps him. He cannot figure out why she acts the way she does and is intrigued by her since he does not understand her. Sara knows she needs his help in order to survive, so she lies to him the entire time, pretending to be a nun since he said if she was not a nun he wouldn’t continue to help her, and Sara, in turn, helps him. One night she tries to tell him the truth, which talking is typical of a female in westerns and seen as a weakness, but since he is an alpha male cowboy, talking is not his top priority, so he does not find out until they return to the brothel she is from. Sara does many things the typical western woman would not do, such as climb the supports the hold up the train tracks to place the dynamite under the tracks so they can derail the train, destroying the war cargo.
In Johnny Guitar, Vienna and Emma are both others and Johnny Guitar is the alpha male cowboy and Kid is another cowboy. Johnny does not understand why Emma hates Vienna even when Vienna explain to him that it is because Emma is in love with the Kid but the Kid is in love with Vienna and how Emma’s feeling for the Kid frighten her. The Kid does not understand the emotions of either Vienna or Emma but is sure that he loves Vienna. Emma is a foil of Vienna. Emma acts on emotions while Vienna stays calm and in control of the situation. Vienna and Emma are both powerful women, but Vienna’s calm and control benefit her while Emma’s loose emotions hinder her especially when she tries to get the men to listen to her. Vienna does show her true emotions to Johnny, and their romance continues due to her weakness for him. Vienna says that she hired him for protection, showing that she is weak and cannot fully protect herself. Johnny rescues Vienna when she is about to be hanged, the typical damsel in distress who needs to be rescued. Emma wants Vienna dead but is scared of killing someone, which is evident by her telling others to make the mule move, resulting in Vienna’s hanging, but she eventually does it herself. Although the film seems to be focused on the actions of the women, it is still about the alpha male cowboy since he is the character who has changed and the film is named after him.

BB, Johnny Guitar and Two Mules for Sister Sara

The two films, Johnny Guitar and Two Mules for Sister Sara, create a slightly different character of the alpha male cowboy than seen in previous films. Johnny Logan, in Johnny Guitar, is more of an unspoken alpha male cowboy. It appears that he returns from the east to be a guitar player in Vienna's saloon, however, the audience soon uncovers unsuspecting shadows in Johnny's past. He had relations with Vienna over five years ago, and was a crazy gunman. Johnny attempts to change in order to win Vienna back, which is a quality not common to the alpha male cowboy. He must prove that he no longer lives for shoot-outs, like the alpha male cowboy does. This makes him an outcast in the society where the men are hardboiled cowboys. This relates to Vienna's situation, of being an other, since she is a successful woman living by herself. In 1954, when this film was created, the Civil Rights Movement had not gotten underway, and women did not have many rights. WWII did help women gain support, since they operated the work force while the men were off fighting in the war, but the men resumed thier jobs when the war ended. Vienna represents a rare case where a strong woman can provide for herself in a man's world.

In the film Two Mules for Sister Sara, the woman lead, Sara, is a strong character, but clearly an outcast. She was forced to run from her French controled town for helping the Mexican army, and travels alone until Hogan finds her. Sara is also dressed as a nun, in order to hide her true identity of a prostitute. She knows that nuns are given much more respect than prositutes, and plays her part convincingly in order to survive. She plays a major role in Hogan's plan to overtake her villiage to steal money from the French. Sara's role is one of a strong female, which can be explained through the Civil Rights Movement, which was completed a few years before the film was created, in 1970. Women were granted many more rights than before, and were beginning to be allowed into the workforce. They began playing bigger roles in society than simply raising a family and preforming domestic chores. Sara represents a strong female character with many differences from the earlier western films, where women stayed in town caring for the children and tending to the household chores while the men explored the land.

otherness

Both Johnny Guitar and Two Mules for Sister Sara provide a strong contrast to the stereotypical "other" portrayed in the westerns we have seen so far. The "other" refers to everyone except the white alpha-male cowboy, but mostly focuses on women for the purpose of these films. In Two Mules for Sister Sara, the female lead, Sara, initially comes across as a sort of classic damsel in distress, but later proves her worth when she saves Hogan's life twice and provides solutions to infiltrating the French fort. She is a prosititute, and has a way of manipulating men, especially when she lies about being a nun. In Johnny Guitar, Vienna and Emma effectively sideline the men, giving them secondary status in the film. Vienna especially makes the important decisions over the men and has a strong sexual presence that also gives her an edge. Johnny Guitar and the Dancin kid are very different than most of John Wayne's characters in that they communicate well and have artistic skills (guitar and dancing).

However, both films still maintain some acknowledgement of women as the "other". For Sister Sara to accomplish her goals, she relies heavily on men. She lies to Hogan by pretending to be a nun so that he'll take her along to guarentee her safety. Through prostitution she uses men for their money. Initially, she comes across as needy and relies too heavily on religion and verbal communication, wasting Hogan's time and water and being too sensitive to eat real food because it was made by men who tried to rape her. Here, Hogan is clearly epicted as the stronger being. In Johnny Guitar, Vienna readily agrees to let Johnny Guitar protect her after she becomes involved with the dancin kid.

The reasons the women in the film are portrayed in a positive light as opposed to their traditional secondary role in westerns is because of history. Events prior to Rowe vs. Wade sparked the feminism in Hollywood.

Johnny Guitar/Two Mules

Examine how each film subscribes to the idea of otherness in terms of the alpha male cowboy and alternatively revises the idea of otherness. Take into consideration the time period in which the films were made in order to understand the issue from a cultural studies point of view.