Westerns versus 19th-century American reality

Contrary to the popular belief, the Old West was much more peaceful than American cities are today. The real culture of violence on the frontier during the latter half of the nineteenth century sprang from the U.S. government’s policies toward the Indians. In spite of the violence, what were the biggest myths perpetuated in Westerns? What productions were the truest to form? What common elements were historically accurate?

The Western is a genre of various arts which tell stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in the American Old West, often centering on the life of a nomadic cowboy or gunfighter armed with a revolver and a rifle who rides a horse. Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape of deserts and mountains. Often, the vast landscape plays an important role, presenting a "...mythic vision of the plains and deserts of the American West". Specific settings include ranches, small frontier towns, saloons, railways and isolated military forts of the Wild West. Most are set in the American colonial era.

                                               

Who do we not see in westerns, although they were there in the real West? Until 1960's, black people were almost completely absent from westerns, although in history they were about one seventh of all cowboys. Hispanics another one seventh of the cowboys, were almost as invisible; the 1978 miniseries Centennial in 1978 was one of the first to give them a role as cowpunchers. We often hear complaints about how native Americans are shown in westerns, but at least they are there, and not always as villains.

But the racial blind spots have largely been corrected today. What we still do not see are events and issues of the utmost importance to the actual people of the West. Labor unions in the gold mines of Virginia City, Nevada and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; the fight over free silver, the Grange and the Populists. Republican and Democratic party politics and presidential elections are never shown; sometimes an election on statehood is shown, but with the party politics left out. Farm co-ops and their struggle with the railroads are hardly ever seen.

An example: in the early 1900s, Glacier National Park, home of the Blackfeet people, was advertised to Eastern tourists as one of the last places you could see the American Indians, who most whites thought would all be gone soon. Thousands of tourists came and saw scenes like this:

White people who had never seen a Native American before saw these folks, and made movies with "Indians" who looked like this.  And so every Native American in every western, from the Yaqui to the Apache to the Kiowa to the Oglala, ended up looking like the Blackfeet of Glacier National Park.  You rarely saw natives who looked or dressed like this:

The movie image is based on reality, yes, but we should definitely remember how loosely connected with the facts it actually is.

Conclusions? This barely scratches the surface of the similarities and differences between the historical Wild West and the kaleidoscopic range of movie versions of it. Hundreds of books have been written about the Wests of film and reality.  Overall, the trend has been toward a more realistic depiction of the West in movies, with the reality of racial diversity better portrayed, historical sources better consulted, and less tendency to draw superhuman characters. 

I've focused mostly on a racial aspect but there are a lot of different problems being constantly distorted if it comes to the culture and the history of the U.S.A. TASK: Make a brainstorm about the Westerns (19th c.) or any other period of the American history of your choice, think of some different aspects that are not completely faithfully reflected in, for instance, cinematography. Discuss your conclusions in groups.