Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of fiction typically set in the American frontier, often called the "Old West" or the "Wild West," between the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the closing of the frontier in 1890. It is commonly associated with folk tales from the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada.
In Western media, the frontier is depicted as a sparsely populated, hostile region patrolled by cowboys, outlaws, sheriffs, and various stock gunslinger characters. Western narratives often revolve around the gradual attempts to tame the crime-ridden American West, using broader themes of justice, freedom, rugged individualism, manifest destiny, and the national history and identity of the United States. Native American populations are frequently portrayed as adversarial foes or savages.
Originating from vaquero heritage and Western fiction, the genre popularized the Western lifestyle, country-Western music, and Western wear on a global scale. Throughout the history of the genre, there have been popular revivals and it has been incorporated into various subgenres.
Characteristics
Stories and characters
The classic Western is a morality drama that showcases the conflict between wilderness and civilization. Stories typically focus on a male drifter, cowboy, or gunslinger who rides a horse and carries a revolver or rifle. These male characters often wear broad-brimmed, high-crowned Stetson hats, neckerchief bandanas, vests, and cowboy boots with spurs. While many dress in conventional shirts and trousers, alternatives like buckskins and dusters are also common.
Women are generally cast in secondary roles as love interests for the male lead or as supporting characters such as saloon girls, prostitutes, or wives of pioneers and settlers. The wife character often adds a measure of comic relief. Other recurring characters include Native Americans from various tribes labeled as Indians or Red Indians, African Americans, Chinese Americans, Spaniards, Mexicans, law enforcement, bounty hunters, outlaws, bartenders, merchants, gamblers, soldiers (especially mounted cavalry), and settlers (farmers, ranchers, and townsfolk).
A Western music score usually enhances the ambiance, featuring American folk music along with Spanish and Mexican folk music, such as country, Native American music, New Mexico music, and ranchers.
Locations
Westerns often emphasize the harshness of the wilderness, frequently setting the action in arid, desolate landscapes of deserts and mountains. The vast scenery often plays a crucial role, presenting a "mythic vision of the plains and deserts of the American West." Specific settings include ranches, small frontier towns, saloons, railways, wilderness, and isolated military forts of the Wild West. Many Westerns follow a stock plot that depicts a crime followed by the pursuit of the wrongdoer, culminating in revenge and retribution, often executed through a shootout or quick-draw duel.
See also [ Movie locations ]
Themes
The Lone Ranger, a famous heroic lawman, was part of a cavalry of six Texas Rangers until all but him were killed. He chose to remain anonymous, resigning and building a sixth grave that supposedly holds his body. He continues to fight as a lawman, wearing a mask, because "Outlaws live in a world of fear. Fear of the mysterious."
The Western genre sometimes depicts the conquest of wilderness and the subjugation of nature in the name of civilization, or the confiscation of territorial rights from the original Native American inhabitants of the frontier. The Western portrays a society organized around honor codes and personal justice–"frontier justice"–dispensed through gunfights. These codes are often examined through feuds or individuals seeking personal revenge against those who have wronged them (e.g., *True Grit* centers on revenge and retribution as its main themes). This portrayal of personal justice sharply contrasts with rationalistic justice systems found in cities, where social order is mainly upheld through institutions like courtrooms. Popular perception holds the Western as a story centered on a seminomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or gunfighter. A showdown or duel at high noon between two or more gunfighters is a typical scene in the popular imagination of Westerns.
In many ways, these protagonists can be seen as literary descendants of knights-errant, who were central to earlier sweeping genres like the Arthurian romances. Like the cowboy or gunfighter of Westerns, the knight-errant of earlier European tales traveled from place to place on horseback, battling various villains and bound only to their own code of honor. Like knights-errant, Western heroes frequently save damsels in distress. Similarly, the wandering protagonists of Westerns share many traits with ronin in modern Japanese culture.
The Western traditionally employs these elements to tell simple morality tales, although notable exceptions (e.g., John Ford's later Westerns or Clint Eastwood's *Unforgiven*, which follows an aging contract killer) appear more morally complex. Westerns often emphasize the harshness and isolation of the wilderness, frequently setting action in barren landscapes. Western films typically feature specific settings, including isolated ranches, Native American villages, or small frontier towns with saloons. Often, these settings seem deserted with little structure. Besides the wilderness, the saloon underscores the Wild West vibe; it serves as the venue for music (raucous piano playing), women (often prostitutes), gambling (draw poker or five-card stud), drinking (beer, whiskey, or tequila if in Mexico), brawling, and shooting. In some Westerns, where civilization has arrived, towns may include a church, a general store, a bank, and a school; in others, where frontier law prevails, it reflects Sergio Leone's description—"where life has no value."
Plots
Author and screenwriter Frank Gruber identified seven basic plots for Westerns:
- Union Pacific story: The plot revolves around the construction of a railroad, telegraph line, or another form of modern technology on the wild frontier. Wagon-train stories fall under this category.
- Ranch story: Ranchers defend their family ranch from rustlers or large landowners trying to force out the rightful owners.
- Empire story: The plot involves the creation of a ranch empire or oil empire, a classic rags-to-riches story that often includes conflict over resources like water or minerals.
- Revenge story: This plot typically features an elaborate chase and pursuit by a wronged individual and may also include elements of a classic mystery story.
- Cavalry and Indian story: The narrative centers around taming the wilderness for White settlers or conflicts with Native Americans.
- Outlaw story: The action is dominated by outlaw gangs.
- Marshal story: The lawman and his challenges drive the plot.
Gruber noted that good writers expand these basic plots into believable stories through dialogue and plot development.
Subgenres
Within the broader scope of the Western genre, several recognized subgenres exist. Some subgenres, like spaghetti Westerns, retain traditional Western settings and plots, while others adapt the Western theme and archetypes into different supergenres, such as neo-Westerns or space Westerns. For a period, Westerns produced outside the United States were often categorized by foods associated with the respective culture, such as spaghetti Westerns (Italy), meat pie Westerns (Australia), ramen Westerns (Asia), and masala Westerns (India).
Influence on other genres
Being period dramas, both the Western and samurai genres have influenced each other in style and themes over the years. The Magnificent Sevenwas a remake of Akira Kurosawa's film Seven Samurai, while A Fistful of Dollars was based on Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which itself drew inspiration from Red Harvest, an American detective novel by Dashiell Hammett. Kurosawa was influenced by American Westerns and was a fan of the genre, particularly John Ford.
Despite the Cold War, Westerns had a strong influence on Eastern Bloc cinema, which developed its own interpretation of the genre, known as the Red Western or Ostern. Generally, these films took two forms: either traditional Westerns shot in the Eastern Bloc or action films addressing the Russian Revolution, the Russian Civil War, and the Basmachi rebellion.
Many elements from space-travel series and films draw heavily from the conventions of the Western genre. This is especially true in the space Western subgenre of science fiction. Peter Hyams's Outland transposed the plot of High Noon to Io, one of Jupiter's moons. More recently, the space opera series Firefly adopted an explicit Western theme in its depiction of frontier worlds. Anime series such as Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and Outlaw Star also blend science fiction with Western elements. The science fiction Western can be viewed as a subgenre of either Westerns or science fiction. Additionally, Western film elements can also be found in some films that primarily belong to other genres. For instance, Kelly's Heroes is a war film, but its action and characters exhibit Western-like qualities.
The character portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in noir films like Casablanca and To Have and Have Not—an individual guided solely by his personal code of honor—bears significant similarities to the classic Western hero. Likewise, the Western genre has delved into noir elements, as seen in films such as Colorado Territory and Pursued.
In many of Robert A. Heinlein's books, the settlement of other planets is depicted in ways explicitly modeled on American westward expansion. For instance, in Tunnel in the Sky, settlers journey to the planet New Canaan via an interstellar teleporter portal across the galaxy, traveling in Conestoga wagons. Their captain, complete with mustaches and a small goatee, rides a Palomino horse. Heinlein notes that the colonists would need to survive independently for several years, making horses more practical than machines.
Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" is a series of seven books that combines themes of Westerns, high fantasy, science fiction, and horror. The protagonist, Roland Deschain, is a gunslinger whose character and demeanor are largely inspired by the Man with No Name from Sergio Leone's films. Additionally, the superhero fantasy genre has been described as having its roots in the cowboy hero but elevated to omnipotence in a primarily urban setting.
The Western genre has been parodied on several occasions, with notable examples including Support Your Local Sheriff!, Cat Ballou, Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles, and Rustler's Rhapsody.
George Lucas's Star Wars films integrate numerous elements of Westerns, and Lucas has expressed that he sought to revitalize cinematic mythology, a role that the Western traditionally fulfilled. The Jedi, whose name is derived from Jidaigeki, are inspired by samurai, highlighting the influence of Kurosawa. The character Han Solo embodies an archetypal gunslinger, and the Mos Eisley cantina evokes an Old West saloon.
Meanwhile, films like The Big Lebowski, which pulled actor Sam Elliott from the Old West to a Los Angeles bowling alley, and Midnight Cowboy, about a Southern boy turned gigolo in New York (who lets down a client when he doesn’t measure up to Gary Cooper), transplanted Western themes into modern settings for both parody and homage purposes.
External links
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Western_(genre) ]
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