JP "Unforgiven"

In the 1992 film, Unforgiven, the audience watches a revisionist Western about a “cured” alpha male cowboy and his African-American partner following through with just one more ride for the sole reward of money. This film represents a revisionist film to the tee. Not only has this film been revised from the traditional Western, but the alpha male cowboy and other characters have been revised as well. Revisionist is defined on dictionary.com as, "attempting to reevaluate and restate the past based on newly acquired standards". This film fits the revisionist category for many reasons. Such reasons include the role women play in this western, the unusual role of an African-American in the West, the vulgar language used, the role of the alpha male cowboy, and the significance of firearms not being allowed.

Clint Eastwood plays the role of the “revisionist” alpha male cowboy named Will. Will is a widower, who is unlike any other alpha male cowboy in the Western genre. He is a man who once killed anyone and anything, including women and children. Luckily, he met a woman who "cured" him from all the evil and violence he had made of his life; causing him to be an altered alpha male cowboy. Will’s wife saved him and unfortunately passed away, leaving Will alone to raise their two children. The audience observes Will’s main responsibilities being towards home life and his children over the western grounds. A young man hears about Will’s past and rides out to speak with him about a job involving killing men who had “cut-up” a woman in the town of Big Whiskey, with the reward of five-hundred dollars. Will hasn’t “been on the saddle” for many years. He ends up leaving his children behind for the temptation and reward of the money involved in the job. On his way to meet up with the young man he goes by his good friend’s to let him know he will be gone and needs him to watch over his children. Will’s good friend, Ned Logan, played by Morgan Freeman, ends up joining him and leaves behind his Indian wife Sally. It is not until the news of Ned’s death, later on in the movie, that Will starts to resemble the traditional alpha male cowboy. Will ends up killing the men who have killed Ned out of rage and his duty to his friend. Will makes sure to get the money he has deserved and moves him and his children far away from the land of violence, in which he wishes to have nothing to do with.

Ned Logan, played by Morgan Freeman, is Will’s African-American friend and old partner in crime, also can be referred to Will’s sidekick. He plays the role of the “thinker”, specifically when Will comes to him to tell him he is going out on this job. Ned asks all the realistic questions that need to be asked. For example, he mentions how Will would not be doing this if his wife were still alive and so forth. He says everything that Will doesn’t want to say because he doesn’t want to think about the answers. Ned, being the wiser of the two, decides to go back to Kansas before getting into more violence with the men from Big Whiskey. On his way he is captured by these exact men and is wiped to death due to his connection to Will and involvement with the issue at hand. The big revision that is at hand with this film is the fact that the sidekick is an African-American. If African-Americans had been placed in a classic Western, they have always had the role of “the other”. However, more times than none, Ned can be seen as equal to Will, and even share similar alpha male cowboy character traits.