A Weakness for Westerns: A Poem July 1, 2022Harry RickettsCreative & PoetryOf course there’s almost everything wrong with Westerns: the term ‘Red Indian’ for a start and that, from FenimoreCooper onwards, noble savages and/or a dying race is the best they’re allowed to be (see Fort Courageous,et al or, later, Dances with Wolves). And it’s basically a male world: women relegated to angelor demon; the men strong, silent types played by Gary Cooper, Randolph Scott, Clint Eastwood …. those shoot-outs, all that phallic swagger –some model of masculinity. As for John Wayne, Stagecoach is good, (though the plot’s lifted from ‘Boule de Suif’),and The Searchers is subtler than it looks, if still morally suspect. Probably better to skip the Lone Ranger and Tonto.It’s true, there’s almost everything wrong with Westerns. Yet there’s still something about a man riding slowly into town,slowly dismounting, and slowly tying up his horse. Or a small boy crying brokenheartedly in the dusk to a vanishing figure: ‘We love you, Shane.’Print Harry RickettsHarry Ricketts is a poet, biographer, editor and essayist. Born and brought up in England, he lives in Wellington, Aotearoa, New Zealand where he taught for many years in the English Programme at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)Related Posts The Bishop’s Hands Bathsheba The Garden Gate Saul