Character research: Tonto

By Stuart Brown

Originally a character in the 1938 radio show, Tonto is the sidekick to popular American western character the Lone Ranger. His name in Spanish translates as 'fool' which originally was quite racist, but is in the modern Gore Verbinski's Lone ranger this is ment in the wacky Johnny Depp kind of way he plays the character. I will look at this version of the character to study.

Tonto is first introduced as a strange, somewhat crazy fugitive who feeds the dead bird on his head. This accepts his name as 'fool'. But throughout the film, we learn more of the characters beliefs, such as when a boy tells him the bird "its not alive you know," he replies "Awaiting spirit to return. Not same thing." reflecting what actually happened to the title character in the film. We also learn that his quest in the film is not to simply be the sidekick to the Lone Ranger, but more the opposite. Rather than being bland and two-dimentional (like the previous incarnations of the character), Tonto has a personal story. After finding two white men nearly dead, he brings them back to his village to be healed. When well, the find traces of silver in the river, and bribe the young Tonto to tell them where the river begins, Tonto dose so. They find huge amounts of silver there, and murder nearly of Tonto's tribe that saved them so no-one else would find the silver they would return for. For this reason, Tonto is out for revenge against the "Wendingo" which initially  he believes is an evil spirit in his enemy, but through his character development comes to realise he is "just another white man" (racistly insinuating it is greed in the person, not a 'wendingo.') This I think is great, as much as the the film may seem racist for intimidate interpretation of a native American character named Tonto, with a dead bird on his head, he actually has a thought out emotional back story that gives him a personal stake in the film.

He is comedic character in some ways, such as arguing with the 'spirit horse' scene, and accidentally throwing a rock at the Lone Ranger's love interest, which keeps audiences entertained, but he is also a solid action star of the film leaping between runaway trains in an undeniably cool fashion. With a great back story and visually stunning and iconic design, Tonto, in my opinion, as proven himself a fantastic modern character revitalising the western for modern audiences.

Johnny Depp stated that  the iconic appearance of Tonto was based on this painting by Kirby Sattler, where the bird (thought ment to be flying) appeared to be on the man head, this being the main inspiration for the characters appearance.