Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx
@GA Russell - Ummmm ..... are you saying that the US Western genre influenced contemporary authors of the day, nay the 20th Century?
Not being familiar with US (?) Western books (we don't have that genre endemic to Aus as far as I know) I'd find it curious if it influenced cultures that didn't have issues similar to those discussed. Are Western genre books typically about cowboys and Indians, and the land grab by the cowboys? (In Aus we call the land grabbers the 'squattocracy', because they just squatted on the land and claimed it for their own, irrespective of the fact that it was very likely never purchased either through the government or anyone else; and certainly was never negotiated for with the local Aboriginal tribes who were dispossessed as a result.)
That's how those old US 'western' cowboy movies come across. (The ones with John Wayne et al).
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I would dispute the contention that
The Virginian was in any way the first western novel. Actually western "dime" novels were very popular throughout the latter half of the 19th Century. It's then when much of the western mythology got started; like the idea of frequent gun fights (it's unlikely the quick draw duel ever happened anywhere). Yes, the Native American population was hardly depicted fairly and that would not change well into the second half of the 20th Century. The same could be said to be true for other ethnic minorities (eg blacks & Asians) who if they were acknowledged to exist at all it was as racist caricatures.
If western novels are still so popular, and apparently they are, it certainly does not match what has happened in film and television. Before maybe about the mid 1960s westerns were one of the most popular genres on television and very good (eg The Searchers) and drek films were a staple. Pretty much entirely gone now.