(Re)discovering America
"...[S]uch appreciation of the environment [as we see in Easy Rider] becomes a way to rediscover one's self" (Laderman 71). Easy Rider's latter-day cowboy heroes, Wyatt and Billy, spend their time on the road traveling east not just "looking for America," as the ad copy reads, but in search of a version of America that fit with (and accepted) their modern version of masculinity. The scene in which our protagonists stop to patch a tire juxtaposes the traditional and new versions of the western hero--the cowboy versus the long-haired biker--but Wyatt and Billy look out of place with their motorcycle, since they haven't found their America yet. Everywhere they go, they encounter opposition to their way of life and their new take on the American lifestyle, from the motel owner who refused to give them a room to the gun-toting rednecks who ultimately destroy the heroes, but the criticism intensifies as they move from the Southwest into the South proper, as Klinger notes, saying,
"In the Southwest, the protagonists enjoy the freedom of the road, the hospitality of those they encounter, and the beauty and mystery of the region's wilderness. Conversely, the South, the small-town South in particular, is demonized in Easy Rider as the region most identified in the 1960s with militant racism, ignorance, and violence" (183)Though most of the characters, sympathetic or no, are white men, Dennis Hopper's directorial choices encourage us to identify with the motorcyclists by putting the viewers on the road with Wyatt and Billy, as though we are taking the same trip and searching for the same things. In the driving montages, we get frequent point-of-view shots that let us see what the characters see as they move across the country, as well as shots of the men themselves, as though we are on a third bike, looking over at our companions, watching them bring the new masculine into new territory. The efforts to make us connect with Wyatt and Billy make the abrupt and violent end to their journey that much more disappointing and tragic--the long-haird, drug-dealing bikers never got the chance to find their America.