Historical Accuracy in the 1994 Western Film Bad Girls
This paper critically examines the 1994 Western film Bad Girls, directed by Jonathan Kaplan, for its historical accuracy. The essay analyzes three major areas of concern: the legal rights of prostitutes in the nineteenth-century American West, the actual provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862, and the timeline established by the Gatling gun's appearance in the film. The author argues that Bad Girls misrepresents the genuine opportunities available to women — and particularly to prostitutes — during westward expansion, and that the film ultimately fails as a tale of female empowerment by portraying its protagonists as helpless victims of circumstance rather than the resourceful, economically powerful figures that historical evidence suggests they could have been.
- Introduction: Plot Overview and Historical Framework: Film synopsis and thesis on historical inaccuracy
- Women's Roles in the Nineteenth-Century American West: Prostitutes' real economic power in the West
- The Homestead Act of 1862 and Crown's Land Claim: How the Homestead Act contradicts the film's plot
- Dating the Film's Timeline: The Gatling Gun: Gatling gun patent used to establish film's time period
- Bad Girls as a Failed Female Empowerment Narrative: Film's misrepresentation undermines its empowerment message
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What makes this paper effective
- Uses specific historical evidence — including the exact provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Gatling gun's patent and adoption dates — to build a precise, verifiable critique of the film's anachronisms.
- Draws on multiple source types (legal history, social history, film scholarship) to support a single, coherent argument about historical misrepresentation.
- Engages productively with the film's intended message (female empowerment) while demonstrating that the film's historical errors undermine that very message.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper uses cross-disciplinary evidence as an analytical tool: it moves from legal history (the Homestead Act), to social history (the economic status of Western prostitutes), to military history (the Gatling gun timeline), weaving all three strands into one overarching argument. This technique — corroborating a single thesis through multiple independent lines of evidence — is a hallmark of effective historical criticism.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a plot summary and thesis, then devotes one section each to women's roles, the Homestead Act's specific provisions, and the Gatling gun as a dating device. It closes by situating the film within the early-1990s Western revival and delivering a final evaluative judgment. Each body section introduces a historical claim, presents supporting evidence, and connects back to the film's shortcomings.
Introduction: Plot Overview and Historical Framework
The things that are historically accurate about the 1994 film Bad Girls are few and far between. Given the plot and theme of the film, Bad Girls is clearly directed at women who sought to be entertained by tales of female empowerment. In the film, four prostitutes — Cody Zamora, Anita Crown, Eileen Spenser, and Lily Laronette — leave their former lives behind after Zamora commits a justifiable homicide and escapes from police custody. After Zamora and her cohorts escape, a duo of Pinkerton detectives is hired to apprehend Zamora and bring her back to Colorado, where the homicide took place. While on the lam, Zamora and company face bank robberies, kidnapping, and a seemingly unattainable dream of owning a sawmill, which they hope will provide them peace and stability.
Bad Girls focuses on four women and the social conventions and limitations they attempt to escape. During westward expansion in the 1800s, women's roles began to slowly expand toward greater equality with men. That expansion, however, remained limited within roles that had already been established. For instance, women expanded on their role as homemaker by taking in and cooking for boarders, establishing restaurants, opening laundries, and mending and making clothing (Lewis). In essence, "women's domestic skills became the basis for a profitable business" in the West (Lewis).
Works Cited
Bad Girls. Dir. Jonathan Kaplan. USA: 20th Century Fox, 1994. DVD.
"Comparative Value of the U.S. Dollar (Approximate)." Web. 23 June 2012.
IMDB. Release dates of Unforgiven, Tombstone, Bad Girls, and Wyatt Earp. Web. 23 June 2012.
Lewis, Chris H. "How Did Women's Lives and Social Roles Change When They Moved West in the 1800s? Class Notes." American Studies. [University]. 12 September 2002. Web. 23 June 2012.
"The Museum Gazette: The Homestead Act of 1862." Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. PDF. Web. 23 June 2012.
Russell, Thaddeus. "How 19th Century Prostitutes Were Among the Freest, Wealthiest, Most Educated Women of Their Time." A Renegade History of the United States. Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2010. Web. 23 June 2012.
Stephenson, E. Frank, Jr. "The Gatling Gun." Tar Heel Junior Historian 46:1 (Fall 2006). North Carolina Museum of History. Office of Archives and History, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. 2007. PDF. Web. 23 June 2012.
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