Westworld: The Wild West Frontier
This post is dedicated to exploring the significance of the Wild West as the setting for Westworld.
The Wild West is a trope has been mythologized, romanticized, and enshrined in American pop culture — a vast desert land with no laws where pistol-slinging cowboys tame wild creatures, fight Indians and bandits, and ride off into the sunset. But the Wild West is more than just the physical space; it is the idea of a boundless land that is not constrained by convention. It is a place of new beginnings, second chances, and unlimited opportunities.
The notion of a land without limits is an underlying element of the human condition. We obsessively crave freedom and novelty and yearn for an undiscovered space that exists outside the confines of science and society. Frontiers represent the gateways to this limitlessness. They are the borders between the known and the unknown. As American historian Frederick Jackson Turner wrote, “…the frontier is the outer edge of the wave—the meeting point between savagery and civilization.” Crossing over the frontier presents great risks but offers considerable rewards.
Countless narratives employ the frontier concept as their foundational cornerstone. Star Trek, the popular 1960’s show, portrays space as the “final frontier” where no one has gone before. In his acceptance speech, Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy used the term “new frontier” to encourage voters to support him in the upcoming election. Groundbreaking scientific fields are often portrayed as frontiers for the immense possibilities they offer in advancing human society.
Westworld similarly wields the concept of the frontier to frame its narrative structure. The familiar medium of the Wild West allows guests of the park to immerse themselves into a world without consequence where they can recreate themselves. As Bernard explains in season 1 episode 2, “[the guests are] not looking for a story that tells them who they are…they want a glimpse of who they could be.” In the same episode, Maeve eloquently says to a guest, “this is the new world, and in this world, you can be whoever the fuck you want.”
But there’s another frontier that Westworld explores: the scientific frontier of the human mind. The human brain is the most complicated object in the known universe. Despite everybody having one, we know surprisingly little about it. One of the greatest mysteries is the process by which this complex network generates conscious awareness, perception, behavior, and emotion all at the same time. As far as we can tell, we humans are the only creatures who have the capacity to examine and question our own natures.
But what if we were able to artificially create conscious beings? Underlying Westworld’s western theme park storyline is the realization that the human-like robot hosts have acquired enough intelligence and experience to start questioning the world around them. The vast, open, lawless Wild West is hence the perfect setting for androids to explore the depths of their newly awoken bicameral mind.