DG "High Noon/Ballad of Little Jo"

As the years of producing Western movies carried on, these films were very progressive in the way they portrayed women than their earlier predecessors. One way was that they gave women more of a role in the movie. In earlier Western films, women had very small roles in which they were completely ignored by the protagonists or seen as the weakness of men. In her book, Jane Tompkins acknowledges this by giving an example of a conversation between a woman and a man in Westerns:
WOMAN That's a pretty dog.
MAN (No response)
WOMAN Well, it's got a pretty coat.
MAN (Silence) (Page 58)
This perfectly exemplifies how men would not even acknowledge women. Women simply seemed to be brushed aside and their opinion had no value whatsoever. But in later movies, like The Ballad of Little Jo (1993), this was not the case. In this film, the main character was actually a woman. This alone was progressive in itself and gave a woman the ultimate role in the film. And although Josephine tried to "pass" as a man and be known as Jo, it was still her womanly instincts that were making all of the decisions in the movie throughout. This movie was obviously all based on the woman's role. Also, in the film High Noon (1952), Ellen Rodriguez, a Mexican immigrant, lives by herself and owns her own saloon. In earlier movies, women owned absolutely nothing, let alone lived by themselves. If they had anything, it was from their husbands. A simple detail like this still gave women a larger role in Western movies.

In later Westerns, women were not completely dependent on their cowboy husbands. In original films, women leaned on every word that cam out of a man's mouth and would do what they would tell them to do. If a man told her to stay in town while he went on a cattle drive, no matter how badly the woman wanted to go, she would stay and do as she was told. Jane Tompkins exemplifies this in her book when she writes about a scene between Tess Millay and Matthew Garth when Garth returns to his hotel room where she has been waiting for him to tell him to not fight his enemy. Tompkins writes, "Her words spill out uncontrollably, until she finally says, 'Stop me, Matt, stop me.' He puts his hand over her mouth, then kisses her. The fade-out that immediately follows suggests that the heroine, whose name is Tess Millay, is getting laid" (60). Here, the woman not only is completely controlled by the man, but also begs for him to command what she does. But, in more recent films, this has changed. In High Noon, the woman Amy, who had just gotten married to the protagonist Will, stands up against to what he says. When Will finds that his nemesis Frank Miller is coming back to town he says that he must stay in town so that he can finish Miller for good. But Amy, who is against violence because she is a Quaker, tells him that she is going to leave him if Will stays. Although Amy leaves the train she is departing on at the last minute, just the stance she takes against Will and the ultimatum she gives him is progressive in itself. In earlier films, the woman would just submit to the man and not argue with him. But, in these later films, the woman was more independent and autonomous in her role in Western films.