DB - Unforgiven

Unforgiven is a revisionist western. It is a movie which incorporates more modern standards and ideals into the past. One of the major ways that it does this is by its strengthening of the role of characters normally depicted as “others”, such as minorities or women. Ordinarily in westerns, women are portrayed as being relatively weak, with opinions which are of little to no importance if they happen to have an opinion at all. However, in Unforgiven this is not the case. The prostitutes are shown to be strong women, going directly against the will of a man, in this case Little Bill, in order to carry out their own will. The film also suggests a more important and equal role for women in their relationships with men. Munny was, at one point, a typical alpha male cowboy. However, when we meet him, he has been “cured” thanks to his love of is wife, and has assumed a role much more in line with the modern male, participating in household chores, taking care of children, etc. Rather than maintaining the typical old west aura of ultra masculinity, he had become in many ways domesticated, more suitable to live in normal society.

Additionally, Munny’s sidekick Ned is another way in which Unforgiven shrugs off typical western standards. Ordinarily, an African-American in a western is cast as an “other”. Interestingly, in Unforgiven Ned is treated as an equal in most ways, maintaining his own separate identity and indeed even owning his own home. The two view each other as equals, and their relationship is based on mutual respect as opposed to indebtedness or something to that affect, which is usually how a sidekick in the “other” category would come to ride with an alpha male cowboy. Indeed, Ned’s existence is due to the shift in race relations in modern times, which resulted in people of all races being viewed as equals.