In West of Everything, Jane Tompkins approaches the subject of the roles that women play throughout the typical western movie, in which she asserts her position that although women are played up to be talkative and socially involved, their presence in the movies is neither revelatory or necessary. As Tompkins writes in West of Everything, “women’s talk evokes a whole network of familial and social relationships and their corollaries in the emotional circuitry” (Page 66). In many instances the difference between the alpha male cowboy and the typical female comes from the use of dialogue that they bring to the film. In the case of the alpha male cowboy, their role is defined through the lack of speech, thereby heightening the importance of what they do say. In the case of women, their usage of speech is used to reassert and vocalize what is happening throughout the film. One example of this that can be seen in the High Noon film by Fred Zinnemann when Amy Kane discusses with the hotel keeper both the relationship between her husband Will Kane and Helen Ramirez, and what reason the town had to approve of the return of the criminal Frank Miller. This scene helps vocalize to the viewer what is happening in the movie and set ups the past connections and relationships between the films characters.
The role of women in western films is also limited by the desires of men. In keeping with the image of the alpha male, cowboys are called to be detached from society and subsequently not allowed to settle down. This leaves the role of the woman to fulfill the needs of men when it bests suits the men. In doing so, in the ending scenes of westerns when men choose to return to the harsh wilderness the words of women are drowned out by these actions of men, as Tompkins writes “ Sex joins here with blood and death and a cold wind blowing as the only true reality, extinguishing the authority of women and their words”.
Zinnemann’s High Noon is a classic example of the interaction and the role that women had as compared to men. In the film upon receiving news that Frank Miller was coming back to town, Will Kane the former sheriff of the town prepares to confront the villain. Kane’s decision spark an argument with his newly married wife which ends with her walking out on him because he will not listen to her sense of reason. Kane embodies the alpha male in the sense that he confronts the four man squad of villains by himself after having no volunteers to aid him. Kane like the alpha male takes charge and instead of talking with the crew responds to their arrival with gun fire using the law of the gun and not the rule of law. The film also shows the role of women in its depiction of both Kane’s wife and in Helen Ramirez. Both women show a strong and dominating personality, which later breaks down. When Amy hears gun fire from the town she vacates the train and runs back in a sense of duty, and a sense of fear for her husband’s life. Abandoning her word to leave, she shows that her actions are not as strong as her words, which are the only weapon or power she has. “Being the weaker sex physically, women must use words as their chief weapon, and so, if men are to conquer, the gun of women’s language must be emptied” as Tompkins says (Page 64).
In The Ballad of Little Jo, the image of women is first instilled to the reader in the opening moments when after bearing an illegitimate child, Josephine Monaghan is shunned by her family and forced to head west. In the scene with the men on horseback making a deal for a women the statement “ Gimme my money I sold her to ya fair and square” is made when she goes running off into the shrubs. This shows the negative and condescending attitude that men had to the female gender. Later in the movie as Jo tries to blend in to the community of Ruby City, she begins to adopt the silent and harsh characteristics that an alpha male would have. This shift in her behavior is what ultimately disguises her in the town and keeps her safe, BY embracing masculine attributes, and doing away with the outspoken female image, Jo tries to make a better life for her.
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