City Slickers (1991) depicts a group of middle-aged pals going on a two-week western cattle drive run by the cowpoke Curly .Besides such obvious Western themes, such as the horses, Western scenery and uplifting music, are the male characters. Although in their modern city life the do not reveal their inner strengths, in the West, the men find the important values in life and within themselves. Curly represents the sole cowboy that once was and mostly likely will never be again.
Lastly, the 1976 Outlaw Josey Wales is closest to what we today consider the Western. Once again, this movie has the rugged and individualist protagonist and the comic friend. The difference here is that Josey Wales starts out as an unassuming farmer and transforms into a violent shooter. Although he has reason to seek revenge, one questions whether...
Even the men with the blacker hat, the Union Soldier, decide that the violence must come to an end and let Josey go back to his farming days.
Although Dances with Wolves and Outlaw Josey Wales, especially, and to some respect City Slickers, pushes the envelop of the Western genre of the 1950s, beyond a simple tale about a lonely hero, his side kick and horse in the badlands of the West, to a more complex psychological analysis of characters as they face varying life challenges, the overall theme is the same -- how the ruggedness of the West brought out the best or worst of humans as they may their way into a new…
