Rebecca
A. Umland, Outlaw Heroes as Liminal
Figures of Film and Television. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016. ISBN
978-0-7864-7988-7. Pbk, $35. 296 pp.
Review
by Michael R. Evans
Delta
College
Curiously, Rebecca Umland’s Outlaw Heroes has very little to say about perhaps the most famous
outlaw hero in Anglophone culture, but will still be of interest to Robin Hood
scholars. Umland, a professor of English at the University of Nebraska at
Kearney, traces what she terms “liminal outlaw” figures through U.S. film and
television, rooting these outlaws in Western European medieval archetypes. She
argues that the liminal “outlaw hero”―standing on the edges of society, on the
boundary between the law and lawlessness, between the civilized and the untamed―represents
an alternative to the “official hero” figure. The “official hero” represents
the law or expected codes of civilized behavior (and is often a lawman himself)
but is unwilling or unable to enforce justice, whereas the outlaw hero pursues
justice even if it means breaking the letter of the law.
Umland roots the distinction between the “official”
and “outlaw” hero in Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, where the official hero is Arthur, but
the outlaw hero is Lancelot, who places his love for Guinevere ahead of his
loyalty to his king and the conventions of the court, but still maintains the ideals
of chivalry. Drawing on the terminology proposed by Beverly Kennedy, Umland
argues that Arthur and the more obedient Round Table knights represent the figure
of the “worshipful knight,” whereas Lancelot represents the “true knight”―the knight
errant―the type for Umland’s liminal outlaw hero. She argues that Lancelot is a
better medieval archetype of the “outlaw hero” than Robin Hood in that the
former―like the heroes of American film and TV―is a loner, whose actions set
him apart from the court, and who ultimately has to part from Guinevere,
whereas Robin is at the center of a stable group of loyal fellow outlaws making
him part of a community even if he is separated from society by his outlaw
status.
Umland traces the evolution of the “Outlaw Hero” from classic
Hollywood (Rick in Casablanca; Shane) via the heyday of film and TV
westerns (the Lone Ranger, Paladin in
Have Gun-Will Travel) to the loner
vigilantes of the 1970s and ’80s (Dirty Harry, and Paul Kersey of the Death Wish franchise) to late-twentieth
and early twenty-first century action films (the Rambo series and the Christopher Nolan-helmed Batman trilogy). Many of these TV shows and films make direct
reference to medieval knighthood, such Paladin’s moniker and use of a chess
knight motif on his holster, and Batman’s designation as a “Dark Knight.”
Umland also shows how the Western helped form the figure of the outlaw hero in
American culture, and how even after that genre’s decline many thrillers or
action films were “urban westerns” that followed the genre’s conventions. While
the outlaw hero evolved alongside changes in U.S. politics and society (from
the clean-cut Lone Ranger to troubled, violent vigilantes), Umland identifies
some common features that define the figure: he (all the figures under
discussion are male) is set apart from the rest of society; he is often a wanderer;
he has no long-term female love interest (for example, Rick Blaine famously
does the right thing and helps Ilsa escape with the “official hero,” the
freedom-fighter Victor Laszlo); he places justice above the letter of the law,
defying the appointed legal authorities who are too corrupt or powerless to
bring about justice, and often has an ambiguous relationship with the “official
heroes” of law enforcement; and he has special weapons (like Arthur’s
Excalibur) that signal his “election” as a hero (the Lone Ranger’s silver bullets,
Harry Callahan’s Magnum .44, Batman’s gadgets, etc.).
Umland’s thesis is a useful one for analyzing outlaw
figures, but I would dispute the extent to which Lancelot, rather than Robin
Hood, is the medieval archetype for the outlaw hero. The trajectory of Lancelot’s
story, and that of the fall of Camelot, is defined by his adulterous love for
Guinevere, making it hard to see him as the model for the brooding, unattached
male heroes of late-twentieth century action films (in Death Wish women are merely a plot device to be cruelly murdered or
raped in order to motivate Kersey’s vigilante actions). Conversely, while Robin
may be at the center of a homosocial network of loyal outlaw companions, he is
very much a liminal figure; he is literally an outlaw, but was formerly a
member of the establishment (at least in most Hollywood versions of the
legend), and he frequently crosses the margins between the forest and settled
society, as when he enters Nottingham to take part in the sheriff’s archery
competition. Like Umland’s “outlaw hero,” he fights for justice even if it means
breaking the law and defying the corrupt representatives of that law. Hollywood
Robin Hood has his Maid Marian, but the Robin of the early ballads comes closer
to the “outlaw hero” in lacking a female companion, and is even betrayed and
killed by a woman. He has an ambivalent relationship with the “official hero,”
the king whose deer he hunts, and dislikes court life to the extent of
returning to the greenwood.
While it would clearly be impossible for Umland to
cover every TV series or film with an “outlaw hero” protagonist, it would have
been interesting (given her focus on recent Batman
movies) to see more treatment of adaptations of comic book superhero
stories; is Superman a “liminal outlaw,” for example? And what about
adaptations of comic books that question or subvert the “outlaw hero” figure,
such as V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Deadpool, or the Robin-Hood-like Green Arrow? Likewise, the question of whether the “outlaw hero” is
peculiar to Anglo-American culture, or whether it is a universal motif, could
be explored with reference to non-western TV and film cultures. Umland points out
how Death Wish 4’s plot, where Kersey
sets two gangs against one another in order to destroy them both, is based on
that of A Fistful of Dollars, but
makes no mention of the latter film’s debt to Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. Some of the detailed plot
summaries in the book slow the argument, as do some unnecessary details, such
as Michael Winner’s exact date of birth, or the distance between Bangkok and
Peshawar. There are also errors which may not detract from Umland’s arguments,
but are disconcerting for the reader nonetheless (Korea and Afghanistan are not
in South East Asia, and there is no such language as “Moroccan”).
Umland’s work may not be at the top of a Robin Hood
scholar’s reading list, given her focus on Lancelot rather than Robin as the
archetypal “outlaw hero.” It is, nonetheless, a useful addition to the
scholarly literature on the outlaw figure in western popular culture.
