Western (genre)

The Western is an American genre in literature and film. Westerns are art works – films, literature, sculpture, television and radio shows, and paintings – devoted to telling stories set in the American West, often portraying it in a romanticized light.

Common themes

The western film genre often portrays the conquest of the wilderness and the subordination of nature, in the name of civilisation or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original inhabitants of the frontier.

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The Western depicts a society organized around codes of honor, rather than the law, in which persons have no social order larger than their immediate peers, family, or perhaps themselves alone. Here, one must cultivate a reputation by acts of violence; or they can be generous, because generosity creates a dependency relationship in the social hierarchy.

Related Topics:
Honor - Law - Hierarchy

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These themes unite the Western, the gangster movie, and the revenge movie in a single vision. In the Western, these themes are forefronted, to the extent that the arrival of law and "civilization" is often portrayed as regrettable, if inevitable.

Related Topics:
Gangster - Revenge - Civilization

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