Return of the WesternRefracting Genre, Representing Gender in the Twenty-First Century
£24.99
Out of stock
About this book
Approaches 21st century Westerns with a specific focus on genre and gender
- Examines how the frontier ideal is redefined in contemporary Westerns
- Investigates how American masculinity is re-constituted in contemporary Westerns
- Analyses how American femininity is refashioned in contemporary Westerns
- Explores the significance of popular Neo-Westerns and mash-ups in the twenty-first century paradigm shifts in international Westerns
Transmitting the crisis that Frederick Jackson Turner and Theodore Roosevelt feared when the frontier closed, the Western has returned to reveal a cultural watershed at work in twenty-first century America, revitalized with horror, terror and the peccant. Darkened and dystopic, contemporary Westerns point to a national bankruptcy, upending the notion that regenerative, civilizing impulses direct nation-building.
Exploring films like Open Range (2003), Yahşi Batı (2010), The Keeping Room (2015), Little Woods (2018), and First Cow (2019), as well as television series like Justified (2010-1015), Longmire (2012-2017), Westworld (2016-2022), and Yellowstone (2020 –), this thought-provoking collection examines re-constituted masculinities, feminine re-fashioning and new directions in Western filmmaking.
Covering a wide range of aesthetic and thematic concerns, Return of the Western: Refracting Genre, Representing Gender in the Twenty-First Century reminds us how deeply this versatile genre is grounded in the American psyche.
Reviews
Interpreting a range of recent Western and Western-adjacent media, Matheson and her contributors see a dark mirror of contemporary America—where old myths are swept away to reveal moral decay and cultural instability. These bold and often provocative essays are sure to spark debate about what the Western means today.
Table of contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Rethinking the American frontier—Frederick Jackson Turner, Neurasthenia, and the Contemporary Western - Sue Matheson
1. “Free to be not important:” Variety and Versatility in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) - Stella Hockenhull
PART ONE RE-CONSTITUTED—CONTEMPORARY COWBOYS
2. “I’ve Grown Old:” Star Embodiment and Aging Masculinity in the Westerns of Kevin Costner and Jeff Bridges - Gaylyn Studlar
3. Jesse James: Melancholy Aesthetics at the End of Cowboy Politics - Christopher Minz
4. “Next one’s comin’ faster:” The Vigilante Lawman in FX’s Justified (FX, 2010-15) - Brian Brems
5. “I aim to show that he’s a man like any other:” Demythologizing Frontier Masculinity in The Proposition (2005) - Christopher J. Olson
6. Lords of the Plains: The Conemporary Western and Discourse in Hell or High Water (2016) - Kelly MacPhail
7. Baking Soda Buddies: Frontier Friendship/Capitalist Critique in Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow - Sue Matheson
PART TWO RE-FASHIONED—21ST-CENTURY FRONTIERSWOMEN
8. Deviations from type: the female gaze in a Frontier setting in Ron Howard’s The Missing (2003) - Anne-Marie Paquet-Deyris
9. Sexual Terrorism, Gender, and Race in The Keeping Room (2014): Revisioning the Revenge Western
Fran Pheasant-Kelly
10. Subverting Classic Western Codes and Women’s Empowerment in Meek’s Cutoff (2010) - Gilles Menegaldo
11. Doing What Westerns Do: Nia DaCosta’s Little Woods (2018) and the Representation of the “New West” - Erin Lee Mock
12. Screening Femininities in Deadwood (HBO, 2004-6) - Claire Dutriaux
PART III. RE-FORMED— THE 21ST-CENTURY FRONTIER
13. The (Un)Making of Civilization in the post-2000 Western - Martin Holtz
14. The Land and its Relationship to Justice in Longmire (A&E, 2012-14; Netflix, 2015 – 17) - Andrew Howe
15. A “Safe Place”: The Western “Home” and its Mutation in Logan (2017) - J. Paul Johnson
16. “We have always been posthuman:” Towards Post-Anthropocentric Perspectives in Westworld (HBO, 2016-22) - Katarzyna Nowak-McNiece
17. Revelations in the Old West - Cynthia J. Miller
18. Postcolonial Discourses of “Hobbyism,” Cultural Appropriation, and Historical Memory in Global Transnational Westerns - Khani Begum
19. Westerns in Turkey and the Contemporary Turco-Western: Genre, Gender, and Transnationality in Yahşi Batı (2010) - İlyas Deniz Çınar
20. The Western Rides into the Twenty-First Century: A Bibliography - Camille McCutcheon
Index