I watched most of the 1972 Clint Eastwood movie “Joe Kidd” on Sunday afternoon. I hadn’t seen it in who knows how long. Something that struck me in particular about this film was a scene in which all these Mexicans who were riding horses wore those big sombreros. You know the kind, they are usually gaudy and big enough to provide shade for a family of four people.
It had not really occurred to me before that probably every Western movie ever made that featured folks who were supposed to be Mexicans wore those double-wide hats. I don’t know if they really were worn a lot back in the old days. I am ignorant about a lot of Mexican culture. I have seen old pictures of vaqueros. In some photos they wore regular cowboy hats and in others they wore the taller and wider sombrero. These hats were not like the ridiculously large ones you see such as those in “The Three Amigos.” But whether Mexican cowboys wore such hats or not, at some point in time the hats became stereotypical. Perhaps even in SurroundSound. That was just only part of the stereotype in movies. Some were what I consider now to be rather culturally incorrect, if not racist.
But you got to love those wide old sombreros. I mean you’re a walking tree wearing that thing. There have been many times I could have used a Mexican sombrero. In the Texas heat this summer would be a good example.
The hats do pose a couple of problems. First, I drive a small Toyota pickup truck and there would be no way I could wear the hat while driving. I have a wide-brim straw hat and I can’t even wear it and drive. I perhaps could set the sombrero on the truck seat if no one else was sitting in it but it still would be a tight fit. Of course, I could always place the hat in the bed of the pickup but it would be vulnerable to wind blowing it away.
I need a sombrero but one is really impractical for me, I suppose. But now that I think about it, I wonder what reaction a driver might have seeing a big ol’ sombrero coming out from nowhere and flying toward them? Would the driver wreck? Would he or she curse en Espanol? Would they catch it, stop and do the Mexican hat dance around it?
So many things to ponder in this world and so little time.