Comparison Between Dirty Harry 'And A Fistful Of Dollars'

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Dirty Harry(1971) is the movie my arguments are based around along with these Westerns that portray white male power, traditional values, and vigilantism such as McLintock! (1963) and A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Clint Eastwood the star in Dirty Harry and A Fistful of Dollars shows the white, masculine male as the strength and the man who brings justice, law, and order to the city where a lot of change has taken place recently with the hippie counter culture movement.. John Wayne the star of McLintock! brings the same values to the table as Clint Eastwood and shows the values of a Western through his McLintock character.. Both of their careers have been made through portraying characters that are conservative and this does not change with Clint …show more content…

Harry Callahan sees the government as being inept and he must become a vigilante to deliver the justice he knows needs to be served. Clint Eastwood’s character from A Fistful of Dollars, a spaghetti western, also played a vigilante role after he witnessed the killing of a family who was supposedly protecting him. This character who has no name then takes the role of the vigilante. This persona that is portrayed in A Fistful of Dollars is almost copied and pasted to Dirty Harry. Harry Callahan of course is changed a bit along with the different setting of San Francisco. Dirty Harry is a response to the civil rights movement and counter culture hippie movement, that the white male was still in power and would restore law and order. It shows the white male masculinity being introduced from the Western genre into the city scene and how it brings law, justice, and order. The conservative values and vigilante justice traditionally found in the Western are introduced into more progressive minded areas such as the cities to combat or show an opposing view to the differing philosophies that have been riled up by the 1960’s

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