Simon Dillon
1 min readNov 22, 2023

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Some thoughts on the three films you mention:

The Patriot - I have loads of issues with this one, some of which you mention. I won't bother getting into more detail.

Glory and Dances with Wolves - I struggle to see how these could be considered "white supremacy" films. They are clearly sincere and to my mind have their hearts in the right place. They are also both extremely well acted, directed, and so on (though I daresay that's beside the point here).

I will concede that Glory is a story that probably wouldn't be told from a white point of view today (indeed, I do think it would be a better film if told from the perspective of one or more of the Black soldiers in the regiment). It's still not a racist film though, to my mind. And it has a great score (again, not really what this article is about - fair enough).

I've not written about Glory in any detail, but I have written about Dances with Wolves. Here's my defence of the film, if you're interested. It's a huge favourite of mine. I will just say (in case you don't read the article) that Dances with Wolves can't really be considered a "white saviour narrative" as the Sioux save him.

https://fanfare.pub/why-i-defend-dances-with-wolves-f5f0266aee

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Simon Dillon
Simon Dillon

Written by Simon Dillon

Novelist and Short Story-ist. Film and Book Lover. If you cut me, I bleed celluloid and paper pulp. Blog: www.simondillonbooks.wordpress.com

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