Academic Year 2009-2010
Event Title
Blurring the Lines: Good, Evil, and the Western Film Hero
Disciplines
Film and Media Studies
Description
Hardly showcasing the traits of the “white hat-black hat” caricature of the genre, Westerns offer complex moral dilemmas and characters for reflection. The most intriguing figure is the Western hero, with his unspoken code and divided identity: in between the “good” group (homesteaders or townspeople) and the “bad” group (cattle barons or outlaws), having characteristics of both.
This change occurred mainly in the “vengeance”- and “transition”-plots of the early 1950s. But the character, and perhaps the genre, reached its ultimate potential in The Man with No Name films starring Clint Eastwood. Can such a personage as these “heroes” or antiheroes be admirable or virtuous? This lecture explored how philosophy can help us to understand the characters and themes of these Westerns.
Blurring the Lines: Good, Evil, and the Western Film Hero
Hardly showcasing the traits of the “white hat-black hat” caricature of the genre, Westerns offer complex moral dilemmas and characters for reflection. The most intriguing figure is the Western hero, with his unspoken code and divided identity: in between the “good” group (homesteaders or townspeople) and the “bad” group (cattle barons or outlaws), having characteristics of both.
This change occurred mainly in the “vengeance”- and “transition”-plots of the early 1950s. But the character, and perhaps the genre, reached its ultimate potential in The Man with No Name films starring Clint Eastwood. Can such a personage as these “heroes” or antiheroes be admirable or virtuous? This lecture explored how philosophy can help us to understand the characters and themes of these Westerns.