Silver and the Lone Rangers

 

Ansel requested three Lone Rangers... and specified the 2013 version only.

He and his friends have been playing Lone Ranger at recess.  No one wants to be Tonto, or the brother, or the bad guys, so there have to be three masked men. 

As of last week, I don't think any of these six year old boys had actually seen the current movie, or even the previous television series, which was no doubt just as well as far as their game was concerned.

Having seen the movie over the weekend- silly gratuitous violence, casual references to genocide and all- my inner six year old says the horse was the coolest character in the movie.

Lone Rangers

Clayton Moore and Armie Hammer debate who has the better mask and hat:

Ansel asked for the Lone Ranger today.  I watched the 1950's series back in the early 70's, and somehow felt compelled to include the earlier version here.

Unsurprisingly, Ansel told me he prefers the guy on the right with the star.  I definitely did a better job rendering the recent incarnation, plus the costume and accessories have been refined to be more cool: no exposed forehead and no fey lace-up shirt and droopy bandana.

Tontos

Jay Silverheels from the 1950's series contemplates Johnny Depp's spectacular headgear.

This morning I tried to convince Archer that Tonto was more the cool character rather than the Lone Ranger, but he wasn't having any.

He has spent the last couple of years in school studying Native American  cultures in the northeast and how the reality differed from media stereotypes.  But I don't think that applying that information to a Hollywood movie with that probably has cool gunfights is all that compelling for him right now.

The Lone Ranger and Batman

Que es mas macho?  Lone Ranger ou Batman?

For some reason, while raising small boys over the last ten years, the lyrics from a Laurie Anderson song from "Home of the Brave" frequently spring to my  sleep deprived and addled mind.  She asks repeatedly  "Que es mas macho?" about a series of pairs of items like pineapples and lightbulbs.  Everything and everyone has to be located on the macho scale of course, and super heroes are certainly not the exception.

Archer rarely wants to see movies in a theater, but the advertising campaign for "The Lone Ranger" remake has somehow caught his attention.  I had previously tried to interest him and his brother in watching a few minutes of the original series mostly for historical and sociological interest, and perhaps to explain my affection for the phrase "What do you mean "we" white man?"  But they wouldn't sit still for even a few seconds of it.  (Black and white television?  Nooooo!) 

I added Batman here because of the morally superior than thou vigilante in a mask parallel... and because I was feeling snarky.  Archer was not impressed, and I don't think his problem was my poor drawing of Batman...or that I really should have drawn the Nolan/Bale remake Batman here rather than the comic book blue and grey version.