I’m currently reading Dave Nichols’ book, One Percenter: The Legend of the Outlaw Biker. I’m finding it an interesting read, although I don’t disagree with some of the reviews I’ve read on the book that Nichols would have benefitted by using a ghost writer to clean up the writing.
Still, I just finished reading a section about the movie Easy Rider, the film that started it all for many a biker. Nichols spoke often with Peter Fonda, and his insight into the real message of the movie needs to be heard even today. So, I thought I’d reprint it for you:
Most of the world didn’t get the message of the film Easy Rider. The truth is plain to see if you wade through the allegory. Captain America encapsulates the spirit of what this country was originally based upon. He is hope and the spirit of true freedom from oppression, just as Billy represents the ugly American frontier spirit and the conscienceless masses yearning to consume Mother Earth without compassion. Captain America is Thomas Jefferson’s concept of liberty, while Billy is the willingness to burn it all to the ground through mindless consumption.
The term “easy rider” is Souther slang for the old man of a whore. He doesn’t have to work, doesn’t have to pay for his sex, and gets the easy ride. The film shows us that we have collectively raped and brutalized Liberty and made her our whore. America is still about freedom, but it’s the freedom to eat more Whoppers and Big Macs while the rain forests burn. Billy thought that freedom could be bought and sold in the marketplace. You score big and you retired in Florida, mister. Captain America knew that we as a country “blew it” because we stopped being about something and just concentrated on getting that one big score.
Guess what, people. Billy won that argument. Look around you. Just as Captain America and Billy took their cash and bought two-wheeled symbols of decadence and excess, we all ride the highways — a country on luxury wheels and cell phones, a country without roots, without a tribe … lost. As such, we’re moving too fast to care about our neighbor, to raise a barn, to stop for a downed bro. We’re all on the move to get our thing together, score big, and retire in Florida, mister. Yuppiedom is the holy church of personal greed and its members are the “me” generation.
Now, here’s the surprise ending: we are racing toward our date with those rednecks in their ancient pickup truck. The sword of Damocles is poised and Liberty is dropping her scale. The lessons are staring us in the face in Easy Rider. The bikers stop to fix a flat at a farmer’s house. And then later, they stop at a commune. In both cases they meet people who are living off the land and doing their own thing in their own time. They are people who chose to be caregivers to the earth rather than takers and exploiters. The boys ride on toward their doom, refusing to stop, to take a stake and be about something, to join those who are about building something real. Over 37 years ago Peter Fonda made sure Captain America told us plainly, “We blew it.” And you know what? All these years later, when our leaders look us straight in the eyes and lie boldly, when a man is measured not by the compassion in his heart for his fellow man and Mother Earth, but by the size of his wallet and toys … we’re still blowing it, man.
Thoughts?
