For some reason as I lay awake in bed last night staring at the ceiling deep into the morning hours, my mind turned to "Billy Jack," one of my favorite movies for all times. Such is the way my mind works. Some men dream of making their first million. Some dream of what they will cross off their bucket list next. I think about "Billy Jack."
I've seen "Billy Jack" 10 times if I've seen it once. It's been many a year since my last viewing, but each time I take that flick in, it only gets better and more compelling. "Billy Jack" is in no way the best movie ever written, directed, or acted, not by a long shot, but man if it doesn't resonate with me for some reason. Tom Laughlin, I don't know how you did it, but you made me a believer in Billy. Maybe it was the bad-ass beaded hat he wore. Maybe it was the way he ever so coolly took his cowboy boots off before doling out an ass whipping. Maybe it was the whole package, but I was enthralled with the essence that was one Billy Jack.
I've always been a sucker for a movie that presents a strong, bad-ass hero who carries himself in an unconventional manner, who is a solitary figure, and who is broken and flawed but ultimately unquestionably good. Billy Jack's primary flaws are his anger and his act-before-thinking demeanor, which causes him to write checks his fists and feet can't completely cash. Billy acts in violence first and leaves reason as a possibility sometime down the road. But that trait is also the very one I loved about BJ. He didn't flinch. He didn't hesitant. He took on all comers, no matter the odds. Such is the hero in the movies.
Each time I watched "Billy Jack," I was left with the question, "How would have I acted if in Billy's position?" Would I have handled myself in the same manner that Billy does when it came time to put the snot-nosed Bernard Posner and his pack of flunkies in their place? I'm not sure it's a positive trait, but I was always left believing I'd most likely act with fists before reason. That's probably my inflated ego at work, though. I'm guessing in reality, I'd try reason before letting my fists of fury fly. We can't all be Billy Jacks, after all.
As a kid when I watched "Billy Jack," I vehemently thought, "Jean, would you please shut the hell up and just let Billy do what Billy does best, kick ass." I wasn't much in favor of Jean's voice of reason, no matter how much sense and dignity it might of held in comparison to a karate chop to the nose. As I got older, I better understood ole' Jean's footing and how sometimes to make progress, you have to take the long route and not the one that necessarily offers instant gratification.
During my first few viewings,"Billy Jack" appealed to me pretty much only for the violence. The movie played out very much like a western, only set in modern time. That I loved the fighting scenes in which Billy dealt out bone-crunching punishment wasn't too surprising considering my age in the late 1970s and how impressionable I was. It didn't hurt that I grew up in a house where John Wayne, Lee Marvin, and the like were worshiped. I was drawn in by Billy's manly man persona. He possessed what I thought were the best traits of Bruce Lee (a mastery of martial arts) and Dirty Harry (oozing machismo). I still get chills picturing the scene in which Billy confronts old man Posner and defiantly proclaims, "You know what I think I'm gonna do then? Just for the hell of it?" After old man Posner answers, "Tell me," Billy matter-of-fact says, "I'm gonna take this right foot, and I'm gonna whop you on that side of your face, and you wanna know something? There's not a damn thing you're gonna be able to do about it."
Whop!!
After viewing four or five or so, "Billy Jack" started to leave me saddened and hollow as the credits rolled and "One Tin Soldier" played in the background. This was about the time in my life when the scenes portraying racial bigotry and abuse toward women, although undeniably presented heavy-handed, had an extremely painful and eye-opening impact on me as a kid watching. One one hand, the scene of a woman being physically held against her will and raped turned my stomach. On the other hand, the scenes in which the town's elders actively led the discrimination left me confused and bitter. The scene in which the kids from the Freedom School head to town, decide to get some ice cream in a local shop, only to be demeaned and battered simultaneously brought tears to my eyes and made my blood boil . When I was younger, it could sometimes take days to get the image out of my head of the little Native American girl having flour poured over her head to make her "white." Even the gratification of Billy coming to the rescue and going "berserk" on Posner did little to offer relief.
It's funny to me which movies from my childhood have stuck with me and why. If I watched "Billy Jack" for the first time today as a grown, middle-aged man, I'm fairly certain the inner critic in me would take over and focus on the film's weaknesses, of which there are probably many. The movie, after all, sends a pretty mixed message by putting the Freedom School, populated by peace-loving pacifists and hippies, at its core only for the protagonist to be a walking, talking ass-kicking machine who uses violence to right pretty much every wrong. I think that's the beauty of a young mind, though. You don't tend to view everything as a cynic. You tend to view with your emotions, which isn't such a bad thing.
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