Hybridity, Agency and the Distribution of Whiteness in ‘The Searchers’

Hybridity, Agency and the Distribution of Whiteness in The Searchers John Ford’s highly celebrated Western The Searchers from 1956 is applauded for its critique of racism but also criticised for being racist itself – partly due to the ambivalence of the protagonist, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) who is portrayed both as a hero and as a racist. The transgression of the racial divide between Whites and Indians is central to the narrative of the film, since the three main characters of the film all in different ways occupy hybrid positions between Whites and Indians. Through an analytics of hybridity the article contributes to elucidating the complexities of these positions by turning our attention to the construction of polarity, transgression and the distribution of agency. It sheds light on how the racial transgressions that drive the narrative both confirm and defy a simple racial dichotomy. Finally, it argues that the film is interesting today because the complexity of racial categories and their conflation with other socio-cultural categories that it displays makes it ideal for an ”exemplary” analysis of the tensions and contradictions that are often found in representations that struggle to overcome stereotypes and dichotomisations that are also part of the basic cultural narratives of their time and society.