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Newcomb and Westerns
How did TV Westerns dramatize issues of race, nationalism, and citizenship? What does Newcomb mean by the "old frontier" and how does it relate to the content of these shows, at least on their surface? How were dramatizations of race, nationalism, or citizenship related to larger social and cultural changes of the 1960s? What does the New Frontier represent in the Kennedy era, and why does Newcomb argue TV Westerns are connected to it?
Horace Newcomb explains how TV Westerns popularity was not due to their ‘good old days’ simplicity but their complex examination of issues worrying 1950s and 1960s audiences addressed in a familiar setting. TV Westerns dramatized issues of race, nationalism, citizenship, and racial relations in each episode by having the stoic hero face internalized drama that centered on questions of morality when faced with a bad guy who represented an issue that society was facing. The resolution of the hero was usually not complete or wholly satisfying, such as the episode cited where a Chinese foreigner learns the ways of American violence and the show preaches racial acceptance, only for the foreigner to leave town anyway (a great reflection on growing racial tension in the 1960s). Newcomb believes that the “old frontier” was traditional, firm, and simplistic ideas of national unity and straightforward domestic relations and ideas of masculinity that the generations that lived through the Great Depression and World War II believed in before the social change of the 1950s and 1960s. The “new frontier” in the Kennedy era is the era of change as the US becomes more involved in foreign politics on the international front (the cold war), the civil rights movement changes dynamics on the home front, and society begins a time of progression and consequently great change in nearly all areas. He argues that the Westerns were not simplistic, blindly violent series, but were able to address “all these cultural and social process and negotiations” by having a “character who must once again confront the issues of the day” in each and every episode. The resolutions of westerns were more likely to end on “exclamation points on insoluble dilemma” that “became arenas for cultural conflict made visible.” Newcomb argues that the TV Westerns provided public spaces for dissection and analysis of the transition from old to new frontiers to be examined through the moral dilemmas TV Western heroes faced in each episode.
ReplyDeleteAs television became more popular, social dialogue appeared more often, even in the areas we’d expect it the least. Horace Newcomb hits on the evolution of the TV western and how effective it was at resonating with audiences. Westerns are a uniquely American genre. Cowboys exploring the west and establishing an American society are key patriotic values. After a victory in WWII, soldiers returned home and national pride was at an all-time high. That, in pairing with the Cold War and the growing fears surrounding communism, gave the western its most popular period.
ReplyDeleteThis platform became effective for addressing themes of the growing civil rights movement. By having the gunslinging protagonist stoically speak in favor of the themes, as Gilman does in “The Chinese Cowboy,” they become more heroic and lend strength to the movement. This new movement was a departure from the Old Frontier, which was the standard western held traditional values and didn’t do much socially. They were marketed to the generation that had experienced WWI and the Great Depression, while the New Frontier reestablished American unity, but leaned toward a younger, more diverse audience. The New Frontier represents a turning of the page in American history, nearing the first president that had made promises to work on racial inequalities in JFK. The New Frontier gave the older generations familiar heroes to rally around, while the younger audiences were given quality programming that finally represented the social views that had been ignored.