When did the wild west stop being cool?

[Dark Jezter]

I've got to agree with Ranger REG. John Wayne is the ultimate cowboy, indeed possibly even the ultimate American because he is the archetype of the Rugged Individualist, a view of life that is sadly increasingly lacking in our modern world. A man like John Wayne is what every American ought to aspire to be -- independent, lives by his own judgement, live-and-let-live with anyone who will reciprocate, agressing against none yet won't tolerate being agressed against.

Despite the disparagements of some, he never was a genocidal maniac. Although the portrayal of Indians in the movies may not have been the most positive, Wayne's character often had respectful friendships with non-whites, and he never went out on racist killing rampages just for the sake of killing Indians. His characters nearly always always sought some aspect of Justice, and only went after those who had done wrong, e.g. raiding and killing settlers.

John Wayne is cool. Always has been, always will be! It's people who don't like John Wayne who are not cool.

Amen to that. I agree with pretty much everything you said in that post.

It should also be noted that, for an entire generation, John Wayne was rated at the top of box office appeal and was probably the most popular actor in the world. He was more than an actor: he was a cinematic force around which movies were made. In his westerns he came to be the worldwide symbol of the rugged individualist American cowboy, and in his war films he became the iconic American soldier: tough, determined, and courageous. Elizabeth Taylor once said of the Duke "He gave the whole world the image of what an American should be." And the day after he died in 1979, a Tokyo newspaper ran with the headline "Mr. America Passes On." Such was his popularity worldwide, as well the way he influenced how people worldwide percieved Americans.

No actor since has managed to achieve what John Wayne has. His list of movies contains several timeless classics.

 

[Cheerful Coffin]

I love everything about the west. (Funny considering I'm Mexican. )

Science fiction westerns especially rule. Man did I love Will Smith's Wild Wild West. Trigun was good too. However I always got Nicholas G. Wolfwood or Legato Bluesummers on personality tests. I never particularly liked those two. They had.. issues.. :\

Legato=Bassicaly an evil Buddhist if you can immagine that who was in an abusive relationship with Knives and would make a ripping psion npc.

Wolfwood=Pretty much your typical depressed Catholic who thought way too often about kids and apples and would make a kickass cleric npc.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Who wrote TSR's "Boot Hill"? Was it Gary Gygax or someone else?

Brian Blume

What's the chance of a d20 "Boot Hill"?

You almost literally couldn't ask for a better "D20 Boot Hill" than Sidewinder: Recoiled.

 

[Thotas]

Well, I'm in my early 40's, so I remember the popularity of the Western, or at least the last part of that time. Helps that my parents loved them ... but in those days I didn't. I was the comic-books, horror and science fiction fan/weirdo. I only started to appreciate the western genre when my mother one night insisted that I stay up to watch a movie called "High Plains Drifter". Took me a while to understand why she did that ... and not to give too much away, Prince of Happiness, but I would have to recommend that one to you for, um, reasons that I suddenly very innocently can't remember.

As for those of you who the find the moral baggage a drawback in terms of playing in the setting ... think of those points as plot hooks and take another look.

 

[ToddSchumacher]

Lets not forget "Brisco County Jr."

I miss that show.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Supernatural Westerns?

Dracula versus Billy the Kid. Hahahahahahahahaaaa.

More seriously, Near Dark.

 

[Thotas]

And let us not forget, for those to whom "High Plains Drifter" was too subtle, "Pale Rider".

 

[Krieg]

Actually, they still are cool, but there has been a cultural shift over the last generation or two from comfortably enjoying tacit – or even explicit – genocide and conquest to being uncomfortable with the subjects.

When John Wayne western were produced, the culture was still comfortable with watching him kill Mexicans, Indians, Chinese and Canadians.

However, that is not the case anymore and so the entire genre becomes suspect.

Isn't interesting how the common view our cultural history has swung from innacurate extreme to another?

 

[schnee]

You are assuming that people give a whit as to what a movie's subtext is. The majority of people I know don't have a clue as to what movies like Fight Club or American Beauty are about.

Just because they can't articulate it doesn't mean they don't feel it. As a graphic designer, I see it all the time. People 'like' a certain design better, but don't know why until I point it out.

 

[S'mon]

Personally, I'm unable to romantisize the west when I know that a bunch of Native Americans were killed because of the crime of having something that we wanted. And that a lot of Chinese died building the railroad. And that Manifest Destiny made life hell for a lot of Mexicans. And so on...

That makes no sense to me - I loved playing a German Wehrmacht soldier in a long-running WW2 play-by-mail game, a regular kind of guy from Dresden - the irony that I was fighting heroically on the 'wrong' side for a regime that didn't deserve my allegiance, that my side was (thankfully) doomed to lose etc only made it all the cooler IMO. Likewise playing in a cool Western PBEM, Quickdraw, set in 1870s Arizona, with all its racism, genocidal attitude to the native Apaches (the 'orcs' of the wild West) and political-incorrectness. There was a very cool black lawman PC in that game, AIR - Rameses S True (not my PC) - of course he had to deal with racism and no matter how many times he saved the township he could never be the Sheriff, just the deputy, but the lawless frontier environment gave him opportunities he'd never have had back East, and he faced and overcame racism to win the grudging respect of the mostly-white township and the genuine friendship of his white comrades-in-arms. It made for a much stronger and more dramatic game than a Deadlands-style sanitised environment could ever have been.