The Western as portrayed in films such as High Noon, Stagecoach, Red River, The Magnificent Seven, or Unforgiven, and television shows such as Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Have Gun — Will Travel, Johnny Ringo, The Lone Ranger, The Annie Oakley Show, The Roy Rogers/Dale Evans Show, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Rawhide, Sky King, or The Young Riders, is no longer as popular as it was in the 1940s to 1960s. However, it is perhaps one of the most definitive of all genres in terms of consistent adherence to the cowboy hero role and the value assumptions associated with the small western-town setting of the last half of the 19th century. The cowboy hero was typically an “outsider” who was not tied down to “the town” or “women”/family. He (rarely she) would be brought in to deal with the problem — bank robbery, cattle rustling, murder, etc., because the local sheriff and/or townspeople were not able to or lacked the expertise to deal with the problem. This portrayal of the “outsider” who was not part of the system as the agent best able to cope with the problem reflected an ideology of individualism that Ronald Reagan, himself a former actor in Westerns, evoked in running for President as the “outsider” who would clean up and reduce the “Washington bureaucracy.” The settings for the Western were often wide-open vistas and landscapes that conveyed the idea of the American West as “free” and without constraints for individual development and exploitation, again reflecting the ideology of individualism.

Yahoo Movie Directories: Westerns
filmsite.org: Western Films
IMDb.com: Westerns
lewestern.com: Westerns

This American cultural emphasis on the individual white male hero who expresses his power through his skills with guns contrasts with the Japanese Samurai films in which the hero is made up of a collective group designed to protect society without the use of guns, a reflection of the Japanese cultural value on collective as opposed to individual action. The Hollywood version of the Japanese film, The Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, emphasizes the individual characters’ roles to a greater degree than in the Japanese film: for example, portraying the psychological difficulties of a character who no longer can draw his gun as quickly as he could in the past dramatized by his inability to kill a fly crawling across a table.

While there were a few female western heroes — Dale Evans, Annie Oakley — most of the western heroes were male; females were stereotyped as the “rancher’s daughter” with whom the hero had a fleeting relationship before he rode off into the sunset, the sophisticated “woman from the East,” or the local saloon proprietor, such as Kitty in Gunsmoke. As with the helpless townspeople, the hero was perceived as the powerful male who could save the female when faced with difficulties. For a 12-minute film, see The Cowboy and the Ballerina.

Native Americans were typically stereotyped as savage “enemies” who needed to be conquered or destroyed as impediments to white western expansion. While the film Dances with Wolves portrays Native Americans in a more complex light, the film still privileges a white male perspective on Native American tribal culture.

Later Western films of the 1960s by Sam Peckinpah and “spaghetti” (i.e., Western Italian) director Sergio Leone emphasized more violent, action-packed story elements. During the 1970s, more complex portrayals of the western hero occurred in films such as Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller, in which the seemingly powerful male is challenged by an even stronger and smarter female. More recent Westerns, such as Unforgiven, have introduced heroes who are more conflicted about the “eye-for-an-eye” values of the traditional Western, perhaps reflecting Post-Cold War ambiguities.

Webquest: Western

For further reading:

Buscombe, E., & Pearson, R. (Eds.). (1999). Back in the saddle again: New essays on the western. London: British Film Institute.

Cawelti, J. (1999). The six-gun mystique sequel. New York: Popular Press.

Sauders, J. (2001). The western genre. New York: Wallflower Press.

Slotkin, B. (1999). Gunfighter nation: The myth of the frontier in twentieth-century America. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

Walker, J. (Ed.) (2001). Westerns: Films through history. New York: Routledge.

Module 7: Word document

Different Perspectives on Genre Study

Audience-based Approaches to Film/Television Genre Study

Critical/Ideological Analysis of Genres

The History and Evolution of Genres

Devising Genre-analysis Activities

Different Genre Types

Action/Adventure

The Western

Gangster/Crime

Detective/Film Noir

Comedy

Fantasy/Sci-Fi

Horror/Monster

Suspense Thriller/Spy/Heist

Soap Opera

The Talk Show

Sports

Game Shows/
Reality TV

Animation

Comics

Graphic Novels

Teaching Activity

References

Teaching activities on genre developed by students in CI5472, Spring, 2004