Derek Bressler - The West, Hardboiled

In The West-Hardboiled: Adaptations of Film Noir Elements, Existentialism, and Ethics in John Wayne's Westerns, author Sue Matheson contends that in John Wayne’s westerns, “Men are men because their behavior is fundamentally ethical”. While westerns are often thought of as being portraits of masculinity and manliness, seeming to stereotype a real man as somebody who takes matters into his own hands, a man who can take on ten armed thugs with a colt revolver and a single bullet, save the girl, and do it all without breaking a sweat, Matheson contends that this really isn’t the underlying message the films try to convey.

In Wayne’s movies, his characters are always men who “achieve their full human potential, living what may be considered a hardboiled, existential version of the good life, a life that in its completeness is both admirable and desirable to others.”, not as in living a life of luxury, but in the sense that they are living to their fullest potential and enabling those around them to do the same. However, it should be noted that Wayne’s characters are not necessarily heroes in the traditional chivalric sense. Rather, they occupy the middle ground between two opposing extremes, somewhere between the knight in shining armor and the bandit who robs the caravan. The reason they cannot simply be the chivalrous knight is because, “as Rooster Cogburn points out, it is not a practical, realistic way to behave”

The films are also expressing existentialist values and ideas. In Wayne’s movies, the hero doesn’t conform to society, he isn’t forced to settle down. Rather, he maintains his core values and beliefs, and is often forced to make a decision between adhering strictly to societal expectations of him , or doing what seems right to him. For example, as Taw Jackson, he plays somebody who in order to right the wrongs done to him, must himself commit wrongs.

Finally, Wayne’s westerns also serve to criticize capitalism, riding a wave of anti-industry sentiment sweeping through the Unites States during the great depression. Often, those characters who are wealthy and have power are depicted as being callous, cynical, and incapable of empathy. Interestingly, these men, while well dressed and clean, are not that way because they are meant to appear to be good. Rather, they are dressed up in suits and ties to highlight that in many ways they simply don’t belong. At one point, Matheson mentions “The dandy’s city clothes are inappropriate in the hostile…environment of the hero’s West”. Their suits and ties can also be viewed as costumes, meant to hide the fact that they are, as Matheson puts it, “savages”.