Last Halloween a trick or treater came to our door. I guess the little guy was about 5 and with his dad. The boy had on a holster, gun, boots, cowboy hat and maybe even spurs. I thought to myself.. today young boys don't get holsters and guns as they did when I was a kid. So this little fellow was an immediate flash back to my youth. Without knowing it, a tender spot for those cowby shows was touched, smitten when after I asked the little guy what or who he was. He boldly offered "a cowboy." His dad added, there aren't many of those left. My mind did flips.. True quite true. I had a momentary flash of depression over the
loss of that spirit, the can do attitude that fueled my nostalgic desire for Westerns. Here's the good news.
Gunsmoke was the preeminent TV Western. The show ran for an incredible 20 years. I recall one episode in which Anthony Zerbe plays two roles, twins, one a priest , the other a bandit. The dialogue was filled with Biblical quotes as the plot unfolded.. Thematically this was the battle between good and evil as its centerpiece. The evil brother had also once been inclined towards a career as a clergyman but fell because of a flaw. Evil brother and good brother are juxtaposed with evil one showing no fear of damnation. Eventually Matt Dillon tracks the bad brother to a church where the evil brother has asked for sanctuary. In the course of sanctuary, good and evil brothers argue, and good brother strikes the evil one killing him in a scene reminiscent of the death of Thomas a Beckett in the movie version of Beckett. As I checked the credits I caught the name of the writer, William Kelley. My insatiable curiousity lead me to Google up Mr. Kelley whose credits were amazing. He won an Oscar and write dozens and dozens of shows. This particular episode was noteworthy for its excellent camera work, the director did a smashing job of photgraphing Anthony Zerbe in his dual role. Yes, that's been done. But Gunsmoke did it very well. Then I saw an episode of Have Gun Will Travel that was actually called Everyman.. a morality play I often taught. Boom. I finally got it. But even more impressive is the level of writing, acting and directing. Those two things seem to be a thing of the past. Never mind the moral lessons or the values which we boomers learned on Saturday night on CBS; it is the writing that most impresses me. Televion today has descended into a series of 'reality shows' and talent searches. No need for writers, no cost for performers, nothing but commercials. How about those commercials that are shown twice back to back. Isn't that insulting. As an aside, relevant but a bit off target, who has been swayed to buy Geico insurance by the guy doing his Joe Friday immitation.
What did Westerns provided us with in the 50's. Short answer, heroes and justice. The bad guy always got his due, justice was served. So that's what we loved and still love about Westerns. Maybe it was the two-fisted, no back-down characters who not only brawled but also showed a more tender side when dealing with children and women.
Now to flip the discussion to criticism of Westerns. I notice that Paladin kills at least one guy every episode, some times several. Thus one could say that the shows promoted the idea that justice too often came fom the barrel of a gun. And in our anti-gun culture, kids are discouraged from playing cowboys for many reasons. Native Americans when they were included were portrayed as savages. This charaterization ran smack dab into the awakening of a new view of Native Americans. They were savages, half clad, wearing war paint, threatening the settlers and comitting unspeakble atrocities. The acidity of that view has since been changed. We became aware of the atrocities in the West that America perpetrated on the indigenous peoples. Westerns became associated with horrific acts committed by the whites who settled the west. Really wasn't the area already settled? Oh well, you get the idea. Our collective conscious got to us and told us that cowboys and Westerns perpetuated those very views so liking such shows was racist.
The shows also were characterized by all white casts.. seldom did a minority appear. I pull back on that generalization because Paladin did have an Oriental woman in a recurring role, Unfortunately her name was always Hey Girl. Many may say that Westerns had a racist crust to them, no doubt there is something to that argument. But that wasn't specific to Westerns, it was true in all programs. Can anyone ever remember Perry Mason defending a black person. Not likely. Then there is the whole negative view of cowboys as racists, red necks a stereotype that has come down to us. Is there truth to the stereotype. I can't say that.. I think that there were cowboys of all colors in the West, they just weren't on television because in the 50's , when America had a population of 180,000,000 and the majority of people were white, advertising and programing were geared to sponsoring shows that that audiences wanted to see.. and audiences like to see people like themselves. Today our population has nearly doubled, The WWII generation has almost disappeared from the country and a new sensibility , a new code has been established. A code which associates anything pre-twenty-first century as racist and evil. Despite that Westerns continue to attract us. I hope they always will because there was much good in them.
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