This is the second part of a two part story. The first part, “How The Cowboy Still Controls the Culture” was released on Friday, Oct. 3.
In 1877 Leland Stanford (yes, that Stanford) made a bet with friends about his horse. He believed that when his horse galloped all four of its legs left the ground at once. To solve his bet, Stanford hired photographer Eadweard Muybridge to set up an experiment on his farm (which is now the Stanford golf course off of Junipero Serra road). What resulted was the world’s first moving image. Pop culture was changed forever.
Cowboys have been a part of films since their very start. They are foundational to film Westerns, a genre that has played a crucial role in shaping America’s film culture since its creation in the early 1900s.
Westerns are an extremely important cultural artform. They are distinctly American. They also have a serious claim to the cowboy image. In fact, they’re probably the most responsible for bringing the image to the mainstream.
Today, Liberals are attempting to reclaim the Western from its more Conservative connotations. This would allow the Left to establish the cultural connection to the cowboy that the Right has done so successfully. With the Western, Liberals will be able to provide progressive alternatives to the values Republican political ideology is centered around.
“The [film] Western is the mythic history of the United States. It’s telling the story of how the country came to be. And depending on what period the Western is being made in, it can tell a very different story about the nature of America and how it got to be whatever it is in 1942, or ’39, or ’65, or the 21st century, or whenever,” Stanford film and media studies professor Scott Bukatman said, an idea originally theorized by Cultural Historian Richard Slotkin.
Westerns are iconic pieces of Americana. The genre’s peak in the ’40s and ’50s featured honorable heroes, rogue villains, beautiful natural imagery, shootouts, train robberies, bandits, American Indian tribes, and fights for treasure. Oh, and of course, cowboys.
In 1953’s Shane, a mysterious cowboy gunslinger helps to protect a small family farm against powerful ranchers, emphasizing the cowboy’s role as a protector of traditional lifestyles in the wake of industry and government. The Searchers (1956), High Noon (1952), and Stagecoach (1939) also center around the lives of mysterious, all-important cowboy protectors.
Westerns have forged some of our country’s first superstars. Rock Hudson, Grace Kelly, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, and John Wayne transcended to new fame through the genre.
But historically, Westerns feel tightly bound to Conservatism. John Wayne’s real life Conservative stances—his vehement homophobia and white supremacy—serve as a premier reminder of that. So does Ronald Reagan, who used his days as an actor in Westerns to draw up support from the Republican Party.
However, Westerns have had a resurgence in the last couple decades. These newer “neo-Westerns” feature progressive subject matter, come from auteur filmmakers, and use traditional genre tropes to emphasize their modern social messaging.
“They’re trying to put in what they see most Westerns as having left out. Gay cowboys, Black cowboys, women cowboys, etc,” Bukatman said. He noted, however, that this effort isn’t unique to recent neo-Westerns, but a part of a longer tradition of addressing the genre’s blind spots.
There’s Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, an impassioned film about homosexual ranchers. There’s the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men, an attack on the seamless violence of the frontier. Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood is a grueling critique of Old West greed. They all reframe Western conventions into tools to further progressive ideals.
When the honorable hero alone in the wilderness isn’t a burly ranger, but instead a stubborn 14-year-old girl—like in the Cohen Brother’s True Grit—the film’s message changes. When the quest to get revenge for an old wrongdoing isn’t about an unfair cop or a train thief but instead a slave owner—like in Tarantino’s Django: Unchained—the film’s message changes.
Neo-Westerns reshape the cowboy into an archetype that empowers groups other than straight white men. They apply the cowboy values to minorities so often excluded from being seen as symbols of mainstream American society.
In trying to reframe the way we think about the Western, the way we think about cowboys, liberal America might have found a solution to the dilemma that’s central to this entire discussion: Conservatives have taken control of the cowboy image through country music, and they’ve used it to control our cultural perceptions around American values.
But, with the emergence of neo-Westerns, Liberals don’t need to stage a miraculous take over of country music. They just need to reframe the Western.
The traditional tropes are there: Shane and High Noon feature cowboys as protectors of the oppressed, while The Searchers and 3:10 to Yuma critique violent, emotional, and bigoted actions toward the vulnerable. Classical Western trademarks can still resonate with progressive perspectives. There is a way for the genre’s traditional values and Liberal’s current ideology to coexist.
And ditch the pretentiousness. Focus on reincorporating the trademarks of the golden age of the genre: beautiful scenery, long takes, simple story structure, and tons and tons of tension. Go back to what worked in the ’40s and ’50s, what brought the Western to its previous political power.
Then plug in today’s politics. Center new Westerns around honor, first amendment freedoms, protection of the vulnerable, generosity, sacrificing yourself for the greater good, and going against the grain to fight for what you believe in. Focus on the ways we are all united by cowboy values instead of the ways they separate us.
Doing so would let Liberals tie their morals, values, and ideals to the cowboy image—an image that’s baked into what Americans believe about themselves. Just as Conservatives have used Nashville to shape cultural narratives, the Left could use Hollywood to do the same.
There are a couple issues, though. And they’re familiar issues for the Democratic Party. This movement feels inauthentic, and it’s reaching the wrong people.
Let’s take a step back.
Authenticity is a deeply important factor in this conversation. Cowboy expert Chip Schweiger thinks it’s the reason people are drawn to cowboy figures at all. “With all the complications in life, with all of the things where people may feel like they aren’t getting the full story, people crave authenticity. People crave simplicity…people associate that with the cowboy life,” he said.
People are attracted to the cowboy image because it provides an authentic and simple lifestyle, one that actually feels free. But this also means that anything that uses cowboys has to feel authentic too. And Neo-Western’s don’t.
“These are all art films. These are such big overblown movies. They’re so damn proud of themselves,” Bukatman said. They’re not targeted at mass audiences who enjoyed the golden age of the genre. Instead, they’re mostly angled towards film bros and Oscars voters. They’re too artsy, which means they are too inaccessible.
The second major issue with the neo-Western is that it’s reaching the wrong people.
“I see nothing that indicates that they want to, you know, go talk to Joe Rogan about their movies.” Bukatman said. “They’re like, they’re gay cowboys. Deal with it. And ‘deal with it’ is not an invitation.”
“Deal with it” isn’t bridging any gaps. It’s not encouraging critical thinking or political discourse. It’s not going to convince anyone to change their views. If the Left really wants to be able to change this image, to reinterpret the cowboy into a beacon for progressive America, they’ll need to go to the places where the cowboy is important.
But all hope isn’t lost. Westerns are still important in current society. Both Schweiger and Bukatman mentioned the TV show Yellowstone as an example. The series follows Kevin Costner’s John Dutton III as he manages a Montana cattle ranch. Though set in the present day, the show features the trademarks of more traditional Westerns.
Schweiger sees it as a more traditional Western that’s sparked renewed interest in the cowboy lifestyle. Bukatman called it a unique example of a modern Western that didn’t see itself as too good for its own audience. “There is…Kevin Costner as this self-consciously mythic guy…taking back the Western…and trying to make something traditional and populist,” he said.
Yellowstone is an important part of this picture. It shows that the traditional Western still has an audience—and still shapes how we think about cowboys, and, by extension, American identity. Hollywood’s power over the cowboy isn’t gone, it’s just not being used.
The idea that the neo-Western is the Left’s chance to reinterpret the cowboy image might still be sound. They’ve just been making the wrong movies—and for the wrong people.
We don’t need cowboys in Venice or Cannes. We need them in AMCs and Cinemarks across Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. Why not meet the cowboy where it is? Why not make the cowboy accessible to everyone?
Doing so could give Liberals the ability to truly control the cowboy—to create their own images that directly counter those long associated with Conservative politics. It would allow them to show that they, too, value tradition, patriotism, individualism, and free thought—the very ideals the Right accuses them of abandoning. And they could do so by using the same archetype Conservatives once employed to take ownership of those ideas.
They must recenter themselves as champions of the values they’ve long neglected—values that remain fundamental to American politics. It’s time they get their skin in the game, to shape the culture rather than merely react to it.
They just need to get back in the saddle.
