Feminism and the Western in Film and Television

This book works to complicate and push against common arguments that the Western from its inception is an anti-feminist genre. By focusing on representations of women professionals in Westerns, it shows that women in cinematic and televisual Westerns sometimes do acquire agency and empowerment in the private and public realms, despite our culture’s tendency to gender the former as feminine and the latter as solely masculine. The study reviews the relationship of these progressive Westerns to both explicit and latent feminist ideologies relevant to their times, as the films evolved from the 1930s to the twenty-first century. Front Matter ....Pages i-ix Introduction: Is the Western an Inherently Anti-feminist Genre? (Mark E. Wildermuth)....Pages 1-15 Women Professionals in 1930s’ Film: Westerns in the Context of the Progressive Age and the New Deal Gender Politics (Mark E. Wildermuth)....Pages 17-46 Women and Westerns in the Films of the 1940s (Mark E. Wildermuth)....Pages 47-73 Women and Western Films in the Cold War (Mark E. Wildermuth)....Pages 75-110 After the Cold War: From the 1990s’ Interregnum to 9/11 (Mark E. Wildermuth)....Pages 111-128 Women and Television Westerns, 1954–2001 (Mark E. Wildermuth)....Pages 129-149 Conclusion: Some Reflections on Women, Violence and Westerns (Mark E. Wildermuth)....Pages 151-155 Back Matter ....Pages 157-167