The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance1962

The man who shot liberty Valance, captivating from start to finish it isn't just a story about the good and bad, but it asks about them; who determines good and bad sprinkled with political stakes and media plays. At the core of our question is 3 characters ransoms stuttered; He is education, law, progress, and the modern masculinity. Tom doniphon; He's uneducated law and violence, his sense of justice stands from honor and his violence is for noble cause, he is the old masculinity, rigid and static. liberty valence; lawlessness and cruelty incarnated, the force of evil that needs to be tamed. but how do we tame it? through words and law or with fire and blood My answer is both, just as the movie depicts, an event can be facts and myth. It all depends on which side of the system you belong to, for the masses and the commoners, America was built on law and through words, a myth that sells the American dream. for the real ones let's say, those at the top, they know America was built on blood and lies. What bugs me is that both narratives rely on the man who shot liberty Valance, on the blood that was shed to build the new world; they both acknowledge the act of murder as a starting for this new era beyond the western cowboys. There is obviously one major difference, and it’s through “storytelling” and choosing the right words, for the commoners it is pointed and displayed as an act of heroism, framed as a story of a lawman triumphing over violence while we know in reality it was just violence that triumphed over another violence, the oldest law of them all, the rule of the jungle. The law failed to rise over lawlessness, it needed someone from afar to pull the trigger, beneath the shadows where nobody can see him, and all of this was reduced to a story of a fake hero that managed to bring peace solely by inoffensive peace. In this whole masquerade the only one that takes advantage of it is ransom surrendered not only he gained the public approval and builds a career on it but he has been depicted as the hero of this tale while all other characters met an unpleasant fate, one of them is dead, shot in the head and the other, the real hero he lived a life of solitude, away from recognition, away from success, and away from the woman that he loved as Ransom took her with him… Tom died in despair as a tragic hero’s tale and ransom in hindsight, seems like the story’s evil mastermind that took credit for being a hero and stole the hero's lover, funny enough, he never actively sought those things, he never asked to be the hero, he never chased that woman, it was all thrown at him. Dude is suffering from success. And that was the real story on how the world had to be built on a lie would we have gotten here where we are now if it weren't for these beneficial lies? (watched at 1.7x speed)