Go Western, Young Man

These ideals were so strong in Westerns that one later Hollywood bad guy specifically called them into question. In 1988’s Die Hard, the character Hans Gruber says to the hero, John McClane, “But who are you? Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he’s John Wayne? Rambo? Marshal Dillon?” It was as if holding these “cowboy” ideals was a bad thing.

But like America itself, Westerns started to change in the 1960s. The Wild Bunch (1969) abandoned classic cowboy virtues, replacing them with cynicism, violence and the rejection of moral principles. It became each man for himself, no matter the cost. The string of so-called Spaghetti Westerns blurred the lines between the good guys and the bad guys.

This can be explained in part by the times we lived in. Vietnam, the civil rights movement and the rejection of conformity changed how we looked at government, authority and one another. The movies basically concluded that society is corrupt, that you should only take care of your own interests. Westerns absorbed and reflected that attitude.

“Probably more than any other genre there is, even though they take place 100 and something years ago, Westerns reflect the decade in which they were made,” director Quentin Tarantino said after releasing Django Unchained (2012). “Westerns in the ’50s reflected an Eisenhower America. In the ’70s, they reflected a Watergate America. You didn’t believe the myths of the West.”

The popularity of the genre faded at that point, and what had been a cultural icon in decades past had, by the ’80s and ’90s, become a novelty. There were some rare gems in those years, including Dances With Wolves (1990) and Silverado (1985), that harked back to earlier decades, though with some notable changes. The villains, for instance, were now folks in power who abused their authority.

This allowed the genre to start shedding some of the stereotyping of preceding decades and paint the past with a more truthful brush. In Dances With Wolves, the Native Americans are no longer the mindless savages of older films but people with thriving cultures who love, laugh and try to live in communion with nature.

“When I do a Western, I often wonder what I would have really done in that situation,” said actor and director Kevin Costner, putting a current set of values and mindset into an 1800s context.

This brings us to today and the recent explosion of Western movies and television shows. Seven of the 10 highest-grossing Westerns in worldwide box-office history were made in the last decade or so.

Costner’s Yellowstone, which presents a more traditional version of the old-style Western, had over 12 million viewers for the Season 5 opener, according to Nielsen. The audience is not just older viewers; viewership among those ages 18 to 34 grew 53 percent.

What are we to conclude by the return of more traditional Westerns and their values? Roger Ebert wrote a four-star review for 2007’s 3:10 to Yuma. He said at the time, “In hard times, Americans have often turned to the Western to reset their compasses. In very hard times, it takes a very good Western.” If there’s any way to describe the last decade or two, “very hard times” fits the bill.

Today’s America is a more realistic nation than it was in the heyday of the classic Western, with more diverse viewpoints. History is not whitewashed the way it was in the movies and TV shows we watched as kids.

As a whole, my hope is that society is re-embracing the foundations that the United States and Westerns were built on: standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves, building community, ensuring justice and taking every opportunity to be the best you can be.

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