The Perversion of the Violent Frontier - Essay Example

The Perversion of the Violent Frontier 1. Introduction The research on the most violent cities in America was published by the Morgan Quinto Press located in Lawrence, Kansas which rated ST. Louis as the most dangerous place of U.S. in the first number and Detroit as the second most violent place in U.S. Associated Press identifies St. Louis as for being in the top levels of the yearly rating of the nation’s safest and the most hazardous cities. In relation to violence, the Western world has always suffered from the disturbing circumstances in the past. After carefully studying the origins of violent frontier and the subsequent increase of violence there, it has been found that violent nature of the region tremendously impacted the media in that time. In turn, the very same media perverted the picture of violence at the frontier. The success and fame of revived the production of American Westerns. Spaghetti Westerns form a significant genre in the history of film industry irrespective of the opinion of the critics. The film by Robert Rodriguez, ‘Desperado’ and the extremely violent action flicks by John Woo both are being hailed as ‘modern Spaghetti Westerns.’ 2. Violent Frontier in History Fredrick Jackson Turner is regarded as the father of the advanced study in Western history, he researched some fundamental principles of western violence and found that the ideals of the pioneer have been understood in two forms that are: anti government sentiment and the other interpretation is the profound faith in egalitarianism. Afterwards, Turner explained that the pioneer passionately hated monopoly, aristocracy and special privilege in the social structure. Pioneer had faith in economy, simplicity and in the people’s rule. These people classified the attribute of personal development to be free from government and social limitations. If Turner’s perspective was valid for the situation on the frontier then it would have been easier to accept the conventional concept of the western ‘bad man’ or ‘criminal’ in response to the Turner’s proposition that the Western world was a person’s paradise. The pioneer in Turner’s construct did not have faith in the law and dealt with the matters on his own. Historical research of two about decades brought new theories to explain the relationship between the West and the violence. The book, ‘The Great Plains’ that was published in 1931 and was written by Walter Prescott Webb braided the concept of Western violence in to a survey about the entire history of the Great Plains. According to Webb, in the situation of the West and the hostile existence beginning from the Native American, the passive farmer transformed in to a rancher equipped with weapons and ammunition inspired by the non conforming natives riding over Spanish horses. Then the armed rancher further evolved his weapons in order to fight back the challenge of native warfare game. Web recognized violence as the compulsory act of evil on the Plains during 1940s for one’s survival and progress. His research on the relationship between the settlers and the natives can be classified as a fact based story of the conflict between the civilized and the savages. Webb acknowledged that the natives were constantly terrorizing innocent people including men, women and children while he also identified the failures of the civilized apart from their successes. Webb further identified other reasons towards Western violence in addition to describing the role of the native settlers as the dominating form of violence over the plains. The Mexican war brought with it the necessity of weapon that could be easily and efficiently used over the back of the horse. The solution to this problem was found by Colonel Samuel Colt in ‘Peacemaker’ that was the six shot pistol turning out to be the deadly weapon creating violence by the Westerners in the decades to follow. Webb also a very important cause of violence from the Turner’s theory apart from the cattle ranchers and the advance weaponization that the disbelief of the pioneer in the law concluding that the violence has peaked on the Plains due to the lawlessness. Turner explained that in initial days of Western advancement when individualism of the frontier was preserved as an ideal then an increasing number of these individuals fighting with one another and dealing with enlarging problems covering vaster and vaster areas in every day life considered it important to unite under the leader ship of the strongest. Webb acknowledged this in his example of the ‘Cattle Kingdom’ that was a system making its own law which was known as the Code of the West and being done mostly upon the extra legal basis. Webb considered that the laws of the West were formulated by the men in East but Turner argued that the pioneer actually had individual law. According to Webb’s observation, the plains’ man found this law inappropriate for him and thus, was called lawless for breaking it. Webb also enhanced the unique brand of Social Darwinism which was a theory, first presented by Turner in his essay, of the survival of the strongest. Both Webb and Turner agreed that the Westerns pioneer hast protect himself through forcefully defending his rights using his courage, strength of body and personality and weaponry skills since no one else would do so for him. These historians evidently reached to the conclusion that the Western people devised a specific Code of the West for themselves as an unofficial law of the land constructed by the population out of lawless nature that hugely affected the law breakers or criminals in America. The Code of the West re-defined the act or state of violence as: A homicide in the East would be considered just an incident in the West. Individuals on the plains executed the duties of the judge, the sheriff and the executioner and every one was his own defender and prosecutor for his opponent. If he were a man then he would self impose certain obligations for his own survival. The acceptance of this concept of survival of the strongest resulted in the icon of the American Outlaw passing the judgment against the lesser or weaker man as the man holding the six shooter has more power and strength. 3. Spaghetti Western Film production European companies produced about 600 movies during 1960-1975 most which were financed by Italian companies and therefore, called Spaghetti Westerns. The success of the movie, ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ by Sergio Leone, attracted a vast number of producers towards financing Western with huge budgets. This movie was cynical, violent and visually stunning. The story revolved around an anti heroic outlaw who could do almost anything to get money. The unique style of the film, the artistic camera angles and movements, perfect timing and raw explosive violence presented by Leone portrayed a distorted image of the West. Although the critics denounced the movie for presenting such a brutal view of the West however the people enjoyed it completely. Thus, Leone immediately made a sequel, ‘For a Few Dollars More’ in 1965. This movie turned out to be major success as well as it also projected Western violence. Leone’s Dollars trilogy ended with release and success of ‘The Good, the Bad, the Ugly’ in 1966. This quintessential Spaghetti Western was brutal, long and funny tale turning out to be the most famous of all Spaghetti Westerns. The genre of Spaghetti Westerns attained its full momentum by the end of 1966 and new trends, talent and major directors emerged in that era. The film, ‘Django’ by Sergio Corbucci introduced the motive of revenge in to the plots of Spaghetti Westerns that also increased the ratio of violence significantly banning Spaghetti Westerns in several markets. Height of violence and brutality compelled critics to disregard many outstanding movies. The movies, ‘Django Kill’ released in 1967 by Giulio Questi and Tomas Milian has been ranked as the most brutal of all Spaghetti Westerns portraying torture, humiliation, crucifixion, vampire bats and a team of homosexual gunslingers. Over 30 sequels were made after ‘Django’ however only one of them was official. Since most of the Spaghetti Westerns were merely simple action pact movies for unsophisticated movie lovers therefore majority of their audiences were from the third world. 4. The Perversion of the Violent Frontier Although historians submitted that violence played a significant role in shaping the West, but still there always has been an element of sensational embedded in to the impression of the Western lands. The difference between the real history and the legendary history of the Western violence has been a popular theme running through the end of 20th Century scholarship which has contributed much to explain and expand the mythic iconography. In the end, almost every body agreed that the film and the literature mediums in the 20th Century have seriously damaged and perverted the reality of the violent frontier. The book, ‘Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol & Myth’ by ‘Henry Nash Smith’ which was written after 20 years of publishing Webb’s Great Plains, strongly emphasized over mythic West and pushed its audience to view history in the context that how this iconography had influenced the national image of the Western. 5. The Role of Western Films Western films, in particular, projected a much more perverted picture of the Western violence. The author of ‘The Pistol Packing Cowboy’, Philip D. Jordan was confused with the prominent difference between the pioneer of reality and hero of the Western films considering that the character of the hero in typical Western films is ridiculous acceding with Smith that the stunts such as finger twirling, hammer fanning, six shots which sound as one are executed by someone who has known none of these. Also, Jordon showed that the kinds of wounds inflicted to a victim of a fictional cowboy would actually need an advance weapon of today and not a piece of the 19th Century. The films like ‘Red River’ in 1948, ‘Tombstone’ in 1993, and ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ in 1962 portray the non-realistic and fanciful characters of the violent frontier. In fact, the actual cowboys would hardly carry any arms. Jordan identified the presence of some stereotype characteristics as found that some men in the west used to wear guns as a necessity against wild animals and such men were vulnerable to threaten fellow westerners entering in conflict with them. Although the cowboy was not the only character in the west carrying arms however, novel readers and movie audience singled out him as the only one carrying weapons and creating violence all the times. 6. The Impact of Perversion and History John H. Lenihan projected the theory of changing dynamics of history by Turner on the big screen’s delusion of hidden motive behind violence. According to Lenihan, the violent image projected on the Western films was the affect of two world wars and the social impact of the cold war occurring in the 20th Century. The American history after war portrayed the misinterpretation of the Western Outlaw in films and literature that social turbulence brought him in to existence. Lenihan found that many veterans suffered from disillusionment, emotional distress and social discontent as they experienced extensive brutalities and realities of violence. Thus, good men exhibiting lawless behavior due to the trauma of war became the favorite theme of Western films. The film, ‘Red River’, was based on the story of a rancher named Dunson whose ranching business collapsed due to the Texas’s economic conditions whilst reconstruction. Dunson then tried his luck in cattle race to Sedalia, Missouri failing to which he turned violent to get success and even adopted extra legal force. He called himself the law during his confrontation with one of his crew. His anger and assertion showed symptoms of becoming an Outlaw as he considered himself above the Law by becoming the law. The film was released right after passing 3 years of removal of World War II that was the time when the impact of the war and hardships on veterans and their family and friends were not realized completely by the mainstream people. Thus, many veterans somehow related themselves to the plight of Dunson. Most post war film of this era incorporated consequences of not abiding to the law in the end of the story for example, outlaw’s death or prison at the end that warned against lawlessness cultivated due to war or any other traumatic incident. Lenihan, Turner and various other historians believed that the westerns during 1960s were mostly anti establishment propaganda that discovered an outlet in violence for its agenda which was portrayed in films like the Sundance kid and Butch Cassidy. Butch Cassidy was released in 1969 showing the outlaws trying to make a way of to life in the early 20th century countering the adequate law obligation caused by the rail road. 1960s was the era of confrontation and dissidence that urged the then film makers to show Western outlaws with a new social order sacrificing individual freedom. Then another reason leading to Western violence is problems associated with psychology or insanity of the outlaw that included non traditional Western story in which the violent frontier seems to have no motive at all for breaking the law. The producer-director John Carpenter uncovered one of the unresponsive murders in the history of silver screen in his film, ‘Halloween’ that was released in the year 1978. It was observed that there are numerous reasons to why Western heroes and villains get in to violent activities. Such incidents and reasons coincidently took place in the post turbulent periods in the past. Halloween portrayed a very worrisome picture of the West providing no motive to kill or break the law. Although the above mentioned films show that the violent frontier carries on to present an outlet for senseless crime or violence and further exploited the frontier’s history in the non traditional Western story, however, the researches conducted since the very early 20th Century prove the proceeding effort to determine and endorse that perversion is a distinct part of American culture. 7. Conclusion Violence has been an integral part of the society since dawn of time. The Western territories have been no exception to this phenomenon. Historians observed that literature and films further exploited this violence in an unbelievable and exaggerated fashion carrying it forward to the current date and to the future which gave birth to the untraditional Western story blurring the motives behind violence in to almost non-existence. The violent frontier is still alive today in literature or in films or in news. The unbelievable acts of violence in the present era of time include massacre on the campus of Northern Illinois and at Columbine High School in Colorado. The Columbine act seemed largely inspired by the violence portrayed in movies and video games. References Webb, P. W. (1931). The Great Plains. New York: Grosset & Dunlap. Smith, N.H. (1950). Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lenihan, H.J. (1980). Showdown: Confronting Modern America in Film. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Red River (1948). Directed by Howard Hawks and Arthur Rosson, screenplay by Borden Chase adapted from his short story. Hollywood, CA: Charles K. Feldman Group and Monterey Productions. Halloween (1978). Directed by John Carpenter, screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. Hollywood, CA: Compass International Pictures and Falcon International Productions. Read More