Hard for me to rate. It's sexist and misogynistic, racist, whatever you want. That's to be expected for the era and genre, unfortunately.
Thought it was a cool story, when I could turn off my disgust over women being metaphorical cattle driven by a rugged cowboy to the men they are supposed to marry but have never met. Brought mail order brides to mind. It reminded me of Oregon Trail. Somebody was always breaking a leg or wagon wheel.
The depiction of non-white characters is expectedly underwhelming and offensive. Stereotypical depiction of Native people as only violent yet noble shouting warriors. You could cut that scene out of the film and nothing would be different, so I'm not sure why they felt it was necessary for the story, except for a moment of drama and stereotypes. The male lead wanted to leave one greiving woman to die because she didn't speak English (just Italian). I know his characterization is a hardass, but man, bad look. The Asian character has stereotypical broken English and frequebt slapstick funny moments, like slipping in the mud.
A lot of uncomfortable sexism. Even when the men are being noble and respecting the women, it's not for the women as individual people, but because their gender is female and they are (or could be) a wife or a mother. Or that they overcame their gender to do something only men can do. I think the thrust of the film was supposed to be a gender progressive narrative about how the white women who colonized the American West were also "strong," but it aged badly. It's not showing women as equals, but someone who could be made a man as long as they go through terrible trials and get rid of the things that make them women. When the women do something "strong" the camera cuts to the men smiling approvingly, as if it's only because of the men they could do anything. And once they're delivered to their future husbands, they go back to being meek.
It romanticizes white settlement of the American west, but that's an entire other essay. All westerns have that baseline.
Here's what I did like. There is a large cast of women who interact with each other frequently. There are many scenes of women doing things together and smiling about it. The large cast of women front and center is unusual for the era, so it was fun to see. Larger numbers of female characters give a much better environment to have well written female characters, so that just one or two women on screen don't have to represent all women ever. They are still all stereotypes in this film, but it was refreshing.
There is one woman depicted as very masculine, who I loved immediately. I am queer, and she gave me big dyke vibes. In the end she ends up in a light pretty dress and married to a man she's never met just like all the other women, but I enjoyed that departure from gender norms while it lasted.
Overall, if you can soldier through the vintage bigotry, it was a fun film. I'm gonna pretend in my head the masc woman and the Italian woman got together while sharing a wagon.
Thought it was a cool story, when I could turn off my disgust over women being metaphorical cattle driven by a rugged cowboy to the men they are supposed to marry but have never met. Brought mail order brides to mind. It reminded me of Oregon Trail. Somebody was always breaking a leg or wagon wheel.
The depiction of non-white characters is expectedly underwhelming and offensive. Stereotypical depiction of Native people as only violent yet noble shouting warriors. You could cut that scene out of the film and nothing would be different, so I'm not sure why they felt it was necessary for the story, except for a moment of drama and stereotypes. The male lead wanted to leave one greiving woman to die because she didn't speak English (just Italian). I know his characterization is a hardass, but man, bad look. The Asian character has stereotypical broken English and frequebt slapstick funny moments, like slipping in the mud.
A lot of uncomfortable sexism. Even when the men are being noble and respecting the women, it's not for the women as individual people, but because their gender is female and they are (or could be) a wife or a mother. Or that they overcame their gender to do something only men can do. I think the thrust of the film was supposed to be a gender progressive narrative about how the white women who colonized the American West were also "strong," but it aged badly. It's not showing women as equals, but someone who could be made a man as long as they go through terrible trials and get rid of the things that make them women. When the women do something "strong" the camera cuts to the men smiling approvingly, as if it's only because of the men they could do anything. And once they're delivered to their future husbands, they go back to being meek.
It romanticizes white settlement of the American west, but that's an entire other essay. All westerns have that baseline.
Here's what I did like. There is a large cast of women who interact with each other frequently. There are many scenes of women doing things together and smiling about it. The large cast of women front and center is unusual for the era, so it was fun to see. Larger numbers of female characters give a much better environment to have well written female characters, so that just one or two women on screen don't have to represent all women ever. They are still all stereotypes in this film, but it was refreshing.
There is one woman depicted as very masculine, who I loved immediately. I am queer, and she gave me big dyke vibes. In the end she ends up in a light pretty dress and married to a man she's never met just like all the other women, but I enjoyed that departure from gender norms while it lasted.
Overall, if you can soldier through the vintage bigotry, it was a fun film. I'm gonna pretend in my head the masc woman and the Italian woman got together while sharing a wagon.