re: Why Did The Western Die as a Genre?

It's just not as culturally relevant because of the passage of time. The Old West was alive in the popular imagination for children even through the 1970s. And that chapter of history no longer resonates with children and they don't know all the cinematic archetypes or references. And those masculine themes aren't what Millennial audiences want. So we are more likely to see it approached from a post- modern prospective where the audience has rejected the archetypes that made the Western a staple through the 70s.

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The vast majority of film Westerns were also aimed at 12 to 16 year olds

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This is at best an oversimplification. There were various subgenres w/in the western:

Kiddie westerns and serials played Saturday matinees.

"Singing Cowboy" movies were aimed at a rural/small town audience, but also somewhat older

While the more expensive vehicles for Gary Cooper often had major romantic subplots for the female audience, and dealt with more complex issues like lynch mobs, property rights (dams, water rights, railroads vs landowners) etc..

Same w/TV. It began w/kiddie shows like Hopalong Cassidy and Wild Bill Hickock but evolved into the "adult western" of Gunsmoke, Cheyenne, Wagon Train (a show aimed as much at women as men), Bonanza (ditto), and so on.

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I just think that the Western has too much character development needed and nuance and not enough exploding buildings and flash to appeal to mindless audiences

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Which is ironic as westerns were once considered mindless action for the lowest common denominator audience

One of my favorite passages in a novel, the barracks card game in From Here To Eternity by James Jones. (My favorite passage in the passage I bolded)

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"I get my cards," he said and handed Prew the book. "Man, I feel good. I been readin' Tom Mix and the Ralston Straight Shooters. Pow! Pow!" he said, jabbing a forefinger and cocked thumb at the jockstraps and special duty men scattered around on their bunks. "Straight Shooters always win and a nuther thousand yowling redskins bit the dust."

"The Mystery of the Haunted Ranchhouse, starring Tom Mix," Prew read.

"This aint the Ralston Straight Shooters. The Ralston Straight Shooters is an ad."

"So whats the difference? I use to be a Junior G Man onct. It's the same difference. Me and J Edgar was like that. Them drawings really look like old Tom, don't they?"

"I wonder what happened to him? You never see him any more."

"His horse died," Maggio said, "and he had to retire."

'Tony," Readall Treadwell said, coming in from the latrine, a towel wrapped around his big, fat, but heavily muscled under the fat, belly with its navel like a dimple and the hair on it thick enough to comb. "His name was Tony."

"Remember Buck Jones's horse Silver?" Prew said. "There was a real horse."

"Yes, man," Maggio said. "Between Buck and his horse they had the two biggest chests in creation.

"He was a deep sea diver," Readall Treadwell said, sitting down, "before he got in the movies. I read it in a movie magazine. Our Lucky Stars, it was."

"He was a sailor," Maggio said scornfully. "You don't want to believe the crap in them magazines. It's propaganda. He was a sailor and he bummed around some, like Jack London."

"Well anyway," Readall Treadwell said, "when Buck Jones hit them they stayed hit. Deal me in."

"Don't get my goddam blanket wet," Maggio said, "or I'll hit you so you'll stay hit."

"Remember Bob Steele?" Prew said, as Reedy moved to put a paper under him. "He was the one could hit. He was a natural hooker. He was good to watch when he fought, you could tell he been a fighter."

"I seen him in Mice and Men," Maggio said. "He was Curly, the boss's brother-in-law. Boy, he was a mean son of a bitch in that one.

"But he was a good guy in his own pictures though," Readall Treadwell said.

"Sure he was, you jerk," Maggio said disgustedly. "You don't think he'd be the villain when he was the star, do you? I wonder," he said, "what ever happened to old Hoot Gibson? I can just barely remember him. My god, he had grey hair when I was just a kid."

"I think he's dead now," Prew said.

"Jesus," Maggio said. "I wish I had some popcorn."

"Me too," Prew said. "I been wantin' some the last ten minutes." "They got a machine over to the Main PX," Readall Treadwell said hopefully.

"We're broke," Maggio said.

"So'm I," Treadwell said. "If that's what you mean."

"I use to go regular," Maggio said, "every Sataday afternoon and eat popcorn. "Remember Johnny Mack Brown?" Had a southern accent?" Prew said. "And a rawhide hatcord? Let his hat hang down his back half the time?"

"Thats the one," Maggio said. "I wonder what ever happened to him? You never see him any more either."

"You said it a while ago," Prew said, laying down his hand.

"They die. Or graduate. Or retire. What do you say we talk about something else?"

"We gettin' old, men," said Angelo Maggio, aged nineteen and a half. 'T never realized it."

"Tom Tyler," Readall Treadwell said. "He was another one."

"I never liked him," Maggio said. "Too handsome. But I remember him. He plays villains now, in the Technicolor ones. The western epics."

"Sagas," Prew said. "They call them sagas.

"All the regular cowboys got to be musicians now," Prew said. "Musicians first and cowboys second. Because they're not Westerns anymore, they're Musicals," he said, suddenly surprisedly realizing sadly that he had watched and been a part of a phase of America that was dying just as surely as the Plains Indians Wars that gave it birth had died, had watched and been a part of it all this time, without ever knowing it for what it was, or that it was dying.

"You mean Gene Autry," Maggio said. "Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger."

"I read Gene Autry was a Eagle Scout when he was a kid," Readall Treadwell said.

"I believe that," Maggio said. "My hometown, the ony ones ever got to be Eagle Scouts was the preachers' sons and the schoolteachers' sons. I was a Second Class onct myself, till they kicked me out of the Troop for gettin' in a fight with the Assistant Scout Master."

"Gene Autry can't play 'Come to Jesus' in whole notes," Prew said, argumentatively. "Neither one of them can. You can't commercialize that kind of music without killing it."

"Don't look at me," Maggio said. "I don't like them either. You can't commercialize anything without killing it. Look at the radio.."

"But those guys," Prew said irritably, because this was a thing of great importance to him, and because he was trying hard to explain it, to find the word for this that always made him angry, "those guys. They're imitation," he said, finally, lamely.

"John Wayne was another good one," Readall Treadwell said, almost a hunger in his voice, when they stopped laughing.

"Not any more," Maggio said. "He's graduated into Adventure. Give him five more years he'll move up into Drama." "That's the same way Gary Cooper started," Readall Treadwell said. "He really use to be a real cowboy once."

"You can't compare Gary Cooper to John Wayne," Maggio protested.

"I ain't comparing them. All I said was they both started out in Westerns. You can't compare none of them to Gary Cooper."

"I guess not," Maggio said. "I hope not. Gary Cooper goes deeper than just plain adventure. If they's anybody shows all the things this country stands for it's Gary Cooper."

"That's what Hedda Hopper says," Readall Treadwell nodded.

"Hedda Hopper, my arse," Maggio said heatedly. "If I like Gary Cooper it's my business. And it's in spite of Hedda Hopper, not because of Hedda Hopper. Even my old daddy likes Gary Cooper. He go to see him every time he's on, even if it's raining, and he can't speak ten words a English."

"All right," Readall Treadwell said, good naturedly with the strong fat man's unrufflability, and with none of the weak fat man's malice that is the worst malice there is except a woman's malice, Prew thought, a world of difference between fat Reedy and fat Willard, "all right. I jist mention it."

"Well don't mention it," Maggio said.

"All right," Readall Treadwell grinned. "You don't care if I read her column, do you, Angelo? You wont beat me up if I read it will you?"

Maggio grinned, then laughed, the fiery Italian anger gone as quick as it had come. "Sure," he said, "I'll beat you up. You think you'd stand a chance with me? I keep a sawed off pool cue in my wall locker just for guys like you."

"All right," Prew said, "beat him up later. Right now, deal the cards."

She went on to be a railroad whore in an operation known as hell on wheels.

Isn't that always the case with damaged goods?

I'm almost 40 and none of my friends love westerns. Probably the same reason I don't. They all mostly look the same and sound the same. There's a saloon, a desert landscape, the usual cowboy garb and usual cowboy guns. There's the constant sound of horses clomping through the same looking towns.

Of course the stories vary and some westerns are great but the genre, in similar fashion to mob movies, can seem repetitive and tired to casual audiences.

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Breaking bad is a modern western

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In the abstract The Untouchables, Dirty Harry, SWAT, Miami Vice etc... are all westerns

This thread is about actual Cowboys and Indians

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Just that phrase shows the change

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Its one of the dumbest terms out there. As if they sprouted out of the ground like trees.

Hollywood doesn't know how to make movies about real men who know a woman's place and don't suck dicks on the side.