The Evolving Cowboy in Texas Film
Western films are notorious for their wild landscapes, horseback riding, outlaws, gun-blazing scenes, and most essentially the cowboy. This character is the face of Westerns but appears to lose himself in the spotlight. As time changes, he grows soft, and the evolution of the Wild West and its celebrity icon becomes evident in film. It is the shaping of the “Wild” West that leads to the extinction of Westerns’ free-spirited persona, no longer allowing the cowboy to ride off into the distance on his horse. While the cowboy is off signing autographs and sponsoring commercials, the Anglos pave the cowboy’s land with their roads, towns, schools, and laws. The cowboy’s ignorance results in his film transformation from a wild, free, and feared persona to a tamed, retired, and laughable one. In modern Westerns, he loses respect; he is miserable; and he does not uphold the deeply rooted traditions his cowboy ancestry plant. The once frightening hard-ass cowboy shies away from society, and allows society to make a mockery of him. He attempts to live up to Ethan Edwards and Pike Bishop’s standards, but in the end, walks away from his roots and permits the shaping landscape to tarnish his image for the sake of “fitting in.” The cowboy changes from more notorious films like The Searchers and The Wild Bunch, where he is wild and ruthless, to a more pathetic character in Tender Mercies, and finally to three distinct remnants of this persona in No Country for Old Men.
H. J. Ortiz 