I recently read that Phil Collins, the rock star, donated his collection of Texas revolution artifacts to The Alamo. Collins is thought to have the largest private collection of such artifacts in the world. Not H.L. Hunt. Not Jerry Jones (too busy spending his money on mediocre linebackers). Not Ross Perot. His collection includes items thought to have been owned by Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, as well as a receipt signed by Alamo commander William Barret Travis for “30 heads of beeves” (whatever they are) to feed his men. Collins’ obsession started while watching the Davy Crockett TV show as a kid. When he became rich enough to indulge this obsession, he began to amass his collection.
Around the same time, I was reading a memoir by the Irish actor Gabriel Byrne, “Walking with Ghosts”. He reminisces about growing in Dublin, where one of his indulgences was going to the cinema to watch American westerns. He has a vivid memory of going to a local theater where Roy Rogers appeared live on stage, with Trigger! He even remembers Rogers lassoing a kid in the front row.
Then last night I watched an interview with Akira Kurosawa. He talked about how much he admired Hollywood westerns, and especially the films of John Ford. That was no surprise since the influences back and forth between Westerns and Samurai films are as obvious as the screwdriver Tommy Pickles has “hidden”. (Sorry, I’ve been watching Rugrats reruns lately).
All of this synchronicity made me reflect on the incredible influence that the Western has had on world culture. Up until the 1970’s Westerns were considered to be the quintessential American statement of identity. A host of movies, TV shows and books depicted the American west as an unbounded frontier, where men (and I do mean men – a topic for another post) could define themselves. You either wore the white hat, and stood alone, if necessary, in support of what you believed in and those you loved (Gary Cooper, High Noon; John Wayne, Stagecoach), or you wore the black hat, and were just out for yourself, with no regard for those who stood in your way (Walter Brennan, My Darling Clementine; John Dierkes, Shane).
I think it was that sense of freedom from constraint, for either good or bad, that so mesmerized people worldwide for decades. Here was a place that not only was so different from the well-defined boundaries of Europe or Japan, but actually existed. A young Phil Collins could dream about going to Texas. And even though he knew that what he would find wouldn’t match the films he saw, or the books he read, there was still a sense that this wasn’t the ancient past. Traces of that Western ethos were there to be found.
In this country we were happy to embrace that myth. Yes, we told the world, we are those rugged, independent good guys who stand tall and are always looking off to the horizon for the next challenge. Yes, there are still untamed lands for us to conquer. Yes, we will use our freedom for truth and justice, because that’s the American way.
By the end of the 1960’s that mythos had pretty much faded, and it was reflected in the movies of that era. Those Westerns were much grittier (Once Upon a Time in the West), celebrated the “bad guys” (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) or bemoaned the death of the old west (The Wild Bunch). Many of those Westerns were shot outside the United States, with the best being the Sergio Leone films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Ironically (or not) one of best of those films, A Fistful of Dollars, was based on the Kurosawa Samurai film, Yojimbo.
By the early 1970’s the gangster film, starting with The Godfather in 1972, seems to have displaced the western as the archetypical American genre (at least until Star Wars came along). However, those gangster films never defined America the way that Westerns did. It is unlikely that little kids in London, Dublin or Tokyo were thinking “I would like to grow up, move to America, and join La Costa Nostra”.
While we still are the largest exporter of entertainment in the world, I don’t see any aspect of that entertainment as so prominent that people across the globe look at it as emblematic of this country. We are as diverse as the hip hop music, superhero movies, cop shows and internet videos that we send across the globe. In fact, that diversity may be what defines us now.
While the world no longer equates America with the mythical values of the old west, I’m not so sure that we have left those myths behind. Too many of us still see this country as wide-open, ours to conquer, tame and use as we see fit (e.g., the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge siege). Too many of us still see the United States as the last bastion of freedom, which gives us carte blanche to run roughshod over those who get in our way (e.g., Iraq). Too many of use still see the world in simplistic terms of good and evil, with America always wearing the write hat (e.g., Bush’s Axis of Evil speech).
The myth of the Old West was a beautiful and stirring myth. I can’t watch True Grit or Red River without being attracted to the rugged individualism and the sense of freedom. I know why a London or Dublin boy would want to claim a part of that myth for themselves. Hopefully, people still want to sit down for a Jimmy Stewart Western marathon now and then, and enjoy those movies for the wonderful legends they spin. Just so long as we don’t confuse those fantasies with reality then, or now.
