The Western genre conjures images of vast open plains, brave cowboys on horseback, riding into the sunset after just besting their vicious opponent in a shootout. It is a genre shaped by classical Hollywood directors like John Ford and Howard Hawks, signifying everything the Western genre stands for — the American dream.
However, the Wild West wasn’t all shootouts and white cowboys — despite what classical Hollywood Westerns lead you to believe. The Western genre has evolved over the years to make up for the shortcomings of the past. Ranging from self-reflexive satire to revisionist Westerns, the Western genre now looks to the horizon of diversity — not just in who the genre represents, but how these people are represented.
‘Dances with Wolves’ (1990)
During the early beginnings of the Western genre, Native Americans were established in films like Stagecoach as a faceless horde of wild warriors and an obstacle for white America to overcome on the frontier. However, as the genre developed with films like Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves, the representation of Native American cultures made a long overdue shift towards respect.
Following a serious injury, Lt John Dunbar (Costner) is assigned to a remote western Civil War outpost. In these new surroundings, his life changes after forming an unlikely friendship with the local Lakota tribe. Immersed in their language and culture, the authentic representation in Dances with Wolves rewrites the Western genre’s representation of Native American with respect.
‘Dead Man’ (1995)
William Blake (Johnny Depp) is a meek accountant on the run after committing murder. Along the way, he meets an enigmatic Native American spirit guide named “Nobody” (Gary Farmer), who prepares Blake for the afterlife.
Jim Jarmusch’s postmodern Western Dead Man offers a well-researched and nuanced representation of Native American culture. Conversations in the film spoken in Cree and Blackfoot intentionally aren’t translated by subtitles to further highlight the divide between white settlers and the indigenous peoples they displace. With its focus on emphasizing cultural differences, Dead Man brings a rare appreciation to the Western genre in its representation of diverse Native American cultures.
‘The Magnificent Seven’ (2016)
After a small town is seized by the greedy industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), the residents turn to bounty hunter Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington) for help. He recruits an eclectic group of gunslingers to take on Bogue and his henchmen and liberate the town.
In Antoine Fuqua’s remake of the classic Western The Magnificent Seven, several of the title heroes are from diverse backgrounds — Comanche warrior Red Harvest played by Native American actor Martin Sensmeier, South Korean actor Byung-hun Lee as knife-throwing assassin Billy Rocks, and Mexican actor Manual Garcia-Rulfo’s outlaw Vasquez. Furqua’s remake is a reminder that the Wild West was not completely white.
‘The Harder They Fall’ (2021)
When Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) discovers that his enemy Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) is being released from prison, he reunites with his old gang to seek revenge.
Not only is Jeymes Samuel’s The Harder They Fall a Western with an entirely Black main cast, but these characters are also based on real cowboys, lawmen, and outlaws from the nineteenth-century American West. White, patriarchal values have reigned supreme in the Western genre through icons like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, but with films like The Harder They Fall, the untold Black history of the Wild West finally gets a chance to shine.
‘Blazing Saddles’ (1974)
There comes a point in any genre that reaches iconographic status, in which the genre’s style and form can be parodied. Master of farce Mel Brooks’ 1974 film Blazing Saddles parodied the Western genre at a time when the genre that had seen strong popularity throughout the 1940s and 1950s had all but disappeared.
The film follows Bart (Cleavon Little) as the first Black sheriff in a western town. In typical Brooks fashion, Blazing Saddles draws attention to its artifice by revealing the film’s fabricated production, fourth wall breaks, and parodying genre conventions. Through its self-reflexive parody, Blazing Saddles critiques traditional expectations surrounding the Western myth by actively reshaping the idealized cultural image of the Wild West.
‘Damsel’ (2018)
The Western genre has been largely male-dominated, where women are either absent or present solely as nameless sex workers, victims of violence to motivate male characters, or as wives. But Nathan and David Zellner’s Damsel offers a revised look at the women on the frontier by instead forging them as their own characters with their own motivations.
Damsel is set up as a romantic tale of Samuel Alabaster (Robert Pattinson) on a journey to marry his precious Penelope (Mia Wasikowska). However, as the film progresses and we learn that Penelope is not interested in marriage, the perspective drastically changes. The romantic tale is shattered as Penelope forges herself as an independent woman, and Damsel draws attention to a redefinition of the Western male archetype by questioning the desperation behind fulfilling such assigned gender roles.
‘Godless’ (2017)
After 83 men die in a mining incident, the town of La Belle finds itself without men, and so the women of the town use their strength to stand in their place and carry on business as usual.
Scott Frank’s Netflix miniseries Godless depicts women as far from being damsels in distress by giving a new meaning to the phrase “no man’s land.” The women of Godless range from mothers to school teachers and sheriffs, but all offer, in their way, a refreshingly resilient representation of women in the Wild West.
‘Bad Girls’ (1994)
Saloon prostitute Cody (Madeleine Stowe) has been sentenced to hang after shooting an abusive customer harassing her coworker Anita (Mary Stuart Masterson). However, Anita and their two friends, Eileen (Andie MacDowell) and Lilly (Drew Barrymore), rescue Cody from the hanging, and the four make a run for Texas.
Jonathan Kaplan’s Bad Girls rewrites the representation of prostitutes in the Western genre by imbuing each of them with their own depth and strengths that subverts the genre’s trope of the tragic disenfranchised woman who relies on men for protection. Bad Girls proves that women's experiences are diverse while showing the strength found in strong female friendships.
‘The Drover’s Wife’ (2022)
Set in 1893 on a remote homestead in the Snowy Mountains of Australia, Molly Johnson (Leah Purcell) is home with her children while her husband is away droving sheep. After encountering an indigenous fugitive, Yadaka (Rob Collins), wounded on her property, the two form an unlikely bond.
Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife is a rare feminist Western that valiantly reclaims the brutal genre for oppressed voices of the time. The film's Australian setting highlights the unique diversity in Western stories outside America.
‘The Power of the Dog’ (2021)
Tensions begin to rise after George Burbank (Jesse Plemmons) brings his new wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) to meet his charismatic yet unpredictable brother Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch).
Jane Campion’s award-winning film The Power of the Dog is a revisionist Western that challenges depictions of men in the genre. With a tale about closeted homosexuality and toxic masculinity, Campion’s film deconstructs the classical Western cowboy archetype and reveals an image of men of the time that wasn't depicted in classical Hollywood Westerns.