Exploring The Role Of Violence In The Western Genre

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This essay explores the role and effects of violence in Western films and uses two films from the Western genre to illustrate various uses of violence. According to Scott (2007), the Western has been a popular genre since films were first produced. Their character and depth of meaning have evolved and matured. There are less of them than in earlier decades but they have influenced other genres. Violence as well as other eventual clichés of the genre has been part of the Western and other genres from earliest times. Westerns feature strong, heroic human effort based upon internal motivation and growth, “intelligence, self-reliance, multiple skills and physical fitness” to accomplish admirable objectives (Wallmann, 1999, p. 28). Schatz (1981) …show more content…

. . are culturally pervasive and overpowering . . . obsessed with pain [and] carry within them compacted worlds of meaning and value, codes of conduct, standards of judgment, and habits of perception that shape our sense of the world and govern our behavior without our having the slightest awareness of it” (p. 6).
Wallmann (1999) adds “the western in effect holds up a mirror which intensifies and purifies and universalizes [contemporary audience lives] which lets them see themselves and respond.” Since Westerns are set primarily in the past this allows the symbols and actions in the Western’s story to be used to relate to and help interpret current societal issues and problems (p. …show more content…

17). The character Tom (John Wayne) is pragmatic and uses any effective means needed to kill Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) even if, in isolation, an action like back-killing is condemned. Valance’s death gives Ransom acceptance, increases his status in the community and gets him elected a U.S. senator. To Falconer, “the Western has been able to accommodate alternative perspectives on violence” (Falconer, 2014, pp. 18-19). Only Wayne and Marvin’s characters show guns and threaten violence in the film. Even the selection of the name, Liberty Valance, emphasizes the frontier’s essential values: “human life counts for little and all conflicts are resolved in the most direct, immediate way.” The real conflict in the film is between the values of the old west shared by Wayne and Marvin and the forces of progress endorsed by Stewart (Trifonova, 2007).
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) Sergio Leone places violence at the center of a story of three men searching for Civil War gold. Each knows only one fact to help locate the treasure. Each is prepared to kill his

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