Westerns are my jam

Fig. 1 The Duke is my bae

I recently made a confession to my dad.

"I am totally in love with westerns."

*Dad snorts and laughs* "Sorry, that's just not what I expected from you at all."

Yes, this may come as a shock to those who think they know me well. Probably since I am an East-Coast college-educated liberal arts type whose admiration/tolerance level for country music is "general loathing" and whose experience with farm animals was relegated to four years of agriculture class in high school. I hate guns and hyper-masculine attitudes and camo-print anything. I want to die every time anyone quotes Duck Dynasty.

But I love bluegrass (which was country music before there was even a country) and I grew up in the South, so I'm not completely adverse to down-home wholesome hard-working culture. I'm not outdoorsy per se, but I definitely have a healthy love for plants, animals, and beautiful landscapes.

These things are not even a semi-decent reason or explanation for why the Western still managed to sneak into my soul and seat itself there as a mild obsession. This genre of film--and similar literature--is almost completely divorced from the modern sense of "country-western" culture anyway. When Dean Martin crooned for his companions in "Rio Bravo" 1959 he was singing about sunsets, canyons, prairie birds, and his favorite pony, not trailer trash, jukeboxes and "shaking it off." Fuck that shit.

I'm all about John Wayne. Can't get enough of him these days. I know, I know he's exactly the hyper-masculine poster boy I'm supposed to resent as a modern feminist. He's all guns and grit and goddamned whisky. But you know what? He's not a redneck. He's not a hipster. He's not a fake. His characters are genuine and honest about their nature, and they don't bullshit. He gets off his horse and drinks his milk, damnit. He gets shit done and he does it with dignity and a touch of humanizing humor.

Gregory Peck doesn't look half bad in chaps either.

Fig. 2 The coolest Greg there ever was

I suppose this all started with a viewing of "Red River"1948 in my narrative film class in college. It's a perfect specimen of the genre. Howard Hawks directs John Wayne and Monty Clift in an epic tale of a cattle drive out of Texas. Wayne is his usual determined and efficient self, and Monty's tight trousers-covered bum is easy on the eyes. It chronicled a world very well-removd from my own, which made it inherently interesting at the time.

Fig. 3 The boys get rough on the range

I must've seen a small handful of Westerns over the next ten years. It was only recently that I came to realize that each rare occasion was a very fun and enjoyable one. The Coen Bros' "No Country For Old Men" 2007 , while not a pure example of the genre, certainly had enough of a Western flavor. It definitely turned me on to those wide-open untouched landscapes and hard-assed characters. Ultimately, it was that masterpiece of a remake "True Grit" 2010 that catalyzed my newfound infatuation. Re-visiting the original (starring John Wayne!) did me in forever.

Fig. 4-5 Rooster Cogburn brings new meaning to multitasking

Now I'm reading Lonesome Dove on my kindle and lamenting the fact that there aren't enough Westerns on Netflix. I'm never going to redecorate my house with thousands of square feet of stained wood paneling and mounted cattle horns (UGH my sense of aesthetics is aching), but I'm content with it gracing my big screen.

The secret to all of these films' appeal? That quintessential requirement of Westerns: the driving theme of man v. nature v. the nature of man. When my husband commented on my sudden addiction to Westerns, he summed it up as well I could have. He said that what typifies the Western is that man is pitted against the vast, untamed wilderness, which always serves to reveal man's true nature in the absence of society--the open range as anvil on which the metal of a man is forged and tested. It's just as easy to return to a one-horse town with more honor as it is to ramble in with far less. It's the gut-wrenching drama leading up to the revelation that keeps me watching. That and John Wayne's colorful kerchiefs.

P.S. I named my latest Catesetum John Wayne. He is just starting to bloom these oxblood-red flowers of awesomeness. I'll keep you posted.

Fig. 6 Just one more nice photo of Monty for you. You're welcome.