[175 years ago this coming weekend, Wyatt Earp was born in Illinois. Earp would go on to become one of the most iconic Wild West figures, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy stories of that complex and mythic region and history. Leading up to a birthday post on engaging Earp!]
On how a
classic Wild West story both uses and challenges elements of the myth.
I think it’s
fair to say that most audiences still know the story of True Grit through the 1969 film starring
John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn (a performance for which he would win his one
Oscar and which he reprised six years later in a film sequel named
for the character). Many others (like this AmericanStudier, who has a
lifelong aversion to all things John Wayne) have come to the story through
the Coen Brothers’ 2010
version. But after greatly enjoying that 2010 film, and with the
recommendation of my favorite fellow reader Ilene Railton, I picked up the original
source material, Charles
Portis’ 1968 novel (originally published
in serial form in the Saturday
Evening Post!). While much of the story and characters are very similar
between all three versions, I’m focused here on Portis’ novel; not only because
it was the original, but also and especially because I think it represents a
particularly interesting engagement with Wild West tropes, one written not at
all coincidentally right toward the tail end of the
Golden Age of Westerns.
The
character of Rooster Cogburn became popular enough to warrant a sequel not just
because he was played in that first film adaptation (and played well, even I
will admit having watched lots of clips to write this post) by John Wayne. No,
I would argue that in his novel Portis clearly and purposefully creates Rooster
as a living (if of course aging) embodiment of Wild West myths, and indeed of
those myths at their most idealized—of that titular characteristic of “true
grit.” Idealized doesn’t mean he’s without his flaws, and indeed Rooster is a
profoundly flawed man; but even those flaws fit well into Wild West stereotypes
of the ornery lone gunfighter, a man who has great difficulty getting along
with others or even living his day-to-day life, but who can absolutely be
counted on for both his talents and his tenacity in a shootout. Moreover, the
way he genuinely comes to care about and for the novel’s youthful protagonist and
narrator Mattie Ross, his eventual role as a father-figure to a young woman
whose own father has been murdered, makes him a powerfully appealing such
gunfighter, one whose true grit is in service of protecting those who need it
most.
As I wrote
about Walt Longmire earlier this week, there’s nothing wrong with using and
adapting such familiar and even mythic character tropes, especially not as well
as Portis does with Rooster. But I don’t think True Grit would be nearly as interesting if it weren’t for that
other main character, Mattie—a protagonist who, both as the story’s youthful
character and as its much older narrator, significantly challenges Wild West
myths. It’s not just that Mattie is a 14 year old girl who can more than hold her
own with men like Rooster (and the novel’s other main characters, all of whom
are likewise hardened Wild West types of one kind or another). It’s that in her
perspective, even at that young age and doubly so in her narration, she
directly questions the stories and myths themselves, refusing to settle for
accepted visions of anything (from gender and age to fundamental themes of
right and wrong). There are all sorts of ways to create a revisionist Western,
a genre that features two of my all-time favorite films, Thunderheart
(1992) and Lone
Star (1996). But I’m not sure anyone has done it better than did
Charles Portis with Mattie Ross.
Wyatt Earp
birthday post this weekend,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Wild West stories or histories you’d highlight?
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