Description
Book SynopsisWith paradigm-shifting readings of dozens of Westerns, from Gunfight at the O.K. Corral to No Country for Old Men, this book challenges us to rethink the genre as a supposed purveyor of conservative political and religious values.
Trade ReviewClearly Brode has made an important contribution to the literature on Western motion pictures. On nearly every page readers are confronted with new perspectives and ways of understanding how a film genre over one hundred years old addresses critical issues of American politics and religion. -- Western Historical Quarterly
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction. “Code of the West”: Politics, Religion, and Popular Culture
- Part One. Cowboy Politics: Roosevelt through Reagan
- 1. To Die in the West: The O.K. Corral, History versus Film
- 2. Sheriff of Cochise: Thirty Seconds to Eternity
- 3. Red, White, and Blue States: Political Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century America
- 4. “From My Cold, Dead Hands": Gun Control in the West and Westerns
- 5. Way of the Gun: Violence in American Life
- 6. It‘s a Man's World? Gender Politics on Hollywood’s Frontier
- 7. Go West, Young (Business)Man: American Dreamers, Political Schemers
- 8. Redistributing the Wealth: Gene Autry, Frank Capra, and the New Deal Western
- 9. Don‘t Fence Me In: Rugged Individualism and Open Range
- 10. Silent Springs, Vanishing Prairies: Environmentalism and the Western
- 11. Red States, Red Menace: Of Cowboys and Communism
- 12. Once upon a Time in a Revolution: Radical Politics and the Western Film
- 13. Viva Juárez! Viva Villa! Viva Zapata! The Biographical Western as Political Allegory
- 14. All the Right Stuff: The World According to John Wayne
- 15. Flag-Waving on the Wild Frontier: Stars and Stripes as Political Ideology
- Part Two. God‘s Country: Religion in the Western Film
- 16. Odes to American Imperialism: Manifest Destiny in Western Movies
- 17. The Town and the City: Space as Theme, Place as Character
- 18. Glory in the (Wild)Flower: Romanticism on the Open Range
- 19. Hearts of Darkness, Souls of Light: Visions of Nature in American Film and Fiction
- 20. A Chapel in the Canyon: Religiosity, American-Style
- 21. Multiculturalism, Mormonism, and Movies: Hollywood’s History and Cultural Appropriation
- 22. End of the Trail: The Dark Side of Faith
- 23. Ride Out for Vengeance: Revising a Western Paradigm
- 24. Old Testament and New: Days of Wrath, Angels of Mercy
- 25. The Church and the Saloon: Catholic versus Protestant Westerns
- 26. Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Pistol and the Pulpit
- 27. Harts of the West: The Gospel According to Clint
- 28. Then Came Sam! From Pappy to Peckinpah
- 29. Count No Man Lucky until His Death: The Western as American Tragedy
- 30. Born Again: Of Cowboys, Christianity, and Conversion
- Conclusion. No Country for Bold Men: The Western Film in the Twenty-First Century
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of Films and Shows
- General Index
