Chicanonautica: The Wild, Wild Border

by Ernest Hogan

 

There was this TV series back in my antediluvian 1960s childhood, The Wild, Wild West. There really hasn’t been anything else like it, since. Now it’s being rediscovered as early steampunk. It provides interesting material for rethinking the western genre, and different takes on history. Yeah, it ain’t so politically correct, but this was over half a century ago.

It came out of the James Bond-inspired secret agent genre. For a few years, spies armed with gadgets that bordered on sci-fi were everywhere, movies, TV shows, sleazy paperbacks, and people ate it up.

I imagine the idea had the network seeing dollar signs: James Bond in the Old West! And back then Hollywood still had western sets, props and costumes. 

The problem is, the genre was all about the Cold War. How do they come up with Bond villains in the post-Civil War Southwest? That’s where it gets Chicanonautical. It seems that back then the Border was an issue . . .

 

I caught the first three episodes—you can watch them for free on Pluto TV—as suggested with the cartoon James West karate-chopping a bandito in the credits sequence, and they were dead on. 

The pilot goes right to heart of the matter: A renegade Mexican general is taking land and towns and is planning on taking back the former Mexican territories. Aztlán! 

If that weren’t enough, turns out the general is being financed by an opium-smoking Chinese merchant (he offers the hero some) played by Victor Buono—King Tut from the Sixties Batman, who also was a similar yellowface villain in the Dean Martin/Matt Helm film The Silencers.

But wait! Turns out he’s actually a Mexican in disguise. A Chicano identity crisis! 

There are no Mexicans, or even Latinos in the cast! All the guys with sombreros and accents are Anglos, including Ross Martin, the master of disguise/sidekick.

We go from that to another border crisis: A French man, still in Mexico after the French occupation—Emperor Maximilian, the Battle of Puebla/Cinco de Mayo, and why lots of Mexicans have French names—wants to be the Napoleon of Norteamerica, has developed a secret weapon to destroy the railroads.  A “Latin” America, ruled by Francophones would become a reality. Lots of people in the areas nabbed in the Louisiana Purchase already spoke French—this includes some Indian tribes. Imagine a non-Anglo Midwest . . . Alternate universes keep popping up.

The third menace introduces the recurring villain, Dr. Miguelito Loveless, a mad scientist from a wealthy Spanish–Hispanic rather than Latino–family who once owned most of California. He wants it back and threatens to blow up San Francisco with his new explosive. 

For some reason, the name of the city is never spoken. Did the network think it was a bad idea to suggest such a diabolical plan with all that radical dissent going on across the bay in Berkeley? 

Another thing not mentioned is the fact that Loveless was a dwarf. Maybe this wasn’t part of the script, but the serendipitous casting was of Michael Dunn.

All these threats on the Anglo-American identity of Aztlán . . . or should I say in this case, the Southwest?

The villains are all non-Anglo. Somehow, I can relate to them better than the “white” heroes.

And now that a presidential candidate is threatening to seal off the border, defend it with the military, and round up people without the right documentation in a reboot of Eisenhower’s Operation Wetback–though for some reason avoiding that politically incorrect name–these fantasies from the past can be enlightening.

Is this the way the Anglos really see us?

Ernest Hogan was born in East L.A., Aztlán. All his life his citizenship has been questioned. His latest book is Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction.