Water Rights in Fictional Film Part II--Rango and the Desert Land Act

 

Rango (2011) deliberately addresses water rights issues as it both elucidates the environmental history surrounding water rights in the American desert and critiques current water rights practices in the Las Vegas area. In an obvious homage to Chinatown noted by critics from Time Magazine to Salon.Com, Rango explores a hero’s attempts to “save a parched Old West-style town from the depredations of water barons and developers” (O’Hehir “Rango and the Rise of Kidult-Oriented Animation”). 

In fact, the mayor of Dirt (Ned Beatty), the Western town Rango must civilize, modeled his performance on that of John Huston in Chinatown. With help from a variety of anthropomorphized western characters, Rango (Johnny Depp) successfully returns water to the desert, defeating the water baron mayor and rehabilitating his henchman, Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy), an obvious homage to Lee Van Cleef’s characters in his Western Films. 

Although A. O. Scott declares, “I confess I wanted a tighter gathering of loose ends, and a more thorough explanation of the politics of water and real estate in the fast-changing American West,” Rango effectively illustrates the continuing influence of nineteenth-century water rights issues. The animated film especially reinforces the ramification of those connected with the Desert Land Act of 1877.