deterioree replied to your post “outofbullets; real talk tho why are there no old west conventions that...”
because america as a collective allowed the genre of the old western to die out as cultural values shifted and people became more aware of the racism that was basically woven into its presentation so we don’t really “celebrate” it anymore because nobody wants to confront the uncomfortable truth of where the genre came from but nobody wants to erase the truth either because that’s arguably worse
(This response got way too long and I apologize. I’m just really fascinated with film and the western genre so... this is horribly long-winded.)
My question was rhetorical, but these are good points! I can’t say much about the modern western genre since I haven’t seen but a handful, but classic western films and shows did always have their problems, as did pretty much every form of media back in the “western heyday” of the ‘50s and ‘60s... and as does pretty much any form of media today. I can see how the culture changes within the US would definitely effect the genre’s popularity, but I don’t know how much that really has “killed” the genre since a good story set within the American 1800s can still be had without focusing on these problems. Or, on the flipside, the story could still focus on these problems and do so with respect and awareness. Just because there is unpleasantness in noting points of history doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be shown because, as you said, that’s arguably worse.
I would also argue that, if the genre has died, the biggest reason lies in the fact that the whole setting--the look, the feel, the environment in which characters would have to be placed--doesn’t hold as much interest entertainment-wise anymore. The western isn’t glamorous or fanciful, it’s gritty and tough or in the very least just primitive in today’s world. Sure, there are fairly popular shows and films that take place in earlier ages with kings and queens, great battles and so on, but even those stories, with their swords and armor, tend to catch the imagination more than the western frontier. Even media that takes place in the same time period but in more “modernized” countries at that time, such as England, seems more popular. They have a sort of glamour and romanticism that appeals a wider variety of people nowadays. I think this can be backed up by how media with western influences is shown today (which brings me to my other argument that I believe the western genre hasn’t so much died as... simply evolved).
The western genre--particularly in film--produced a lot of memorable moments that are repeated and referenced to in modern media and have seated themselves perhaps permanently in pop culture. Take The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly score, the iconic stare downs from so many westerns, the musical firsts of High Noon within cinema history, and all the quotes and cinematography in between. These moments crop up in all kinds of media, but are typically meshed with another genre such as science fiction, horror, or fantasy and the supernatural.
Beyond pop culture references, the western genre still lives on in modern media through remakes and often a combination of western and science fiction. For instance, Westworld (a deliberate remake of the scifi-western by the same name in 1973), Firefly (considered a scifi-western with plenty of references), Red Dead Redemption (straight up western video game inspired by the life of and past films surrounding Tom Horn), 3:10 to Yuma (remake of a film by the same name), The Lone Ranger (an albeit awful and inaccurate ‘remake’ of the original 1950s television show), Cowboys and Aliens, The Magnificent 7 (loose remake of a film and a series by the same name), Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, True Grit (remake), The Revenant, etc... Admittedly, some of these didn’t do well and I can’t comment too far on them since I haven’t seen the majority of them, but some have been successful and are still drumming up viewers and popularity (namely Westworld and the RDR franchise).
There is still an obvious interest in the genre, though maybe it’s more of a particular niche now akin to the film noir genre of the ‘30s and ‘40s? It just seems strange to me that there isn’t more buzz in the convention side of entertainment.
