What makes a non-Western a Western?

I'm not the most knowledgeable about westerns but from my understanding they have a strong theme of law vs freedom/civilized vs uncivilized, and both sides are presented with good or bad traits in the genre as a whole. Some stories the sheriff is the protagonist, in others it's the outlaw. In some stories the Indian is the nameless Other to be feared, in some they can impart great wisdom born from their different culture.

There also tends to be a strong masculine virtue bent to western, with a strong emphasis on brotherhood, either between the sheriff and his deputies or within the band of outlaws. Oftentimes there is a mutual respect between the protagonist and the antagonist, so long as both are masculine men, and no one's a cowardly politician/businessman. Even the heroine despite being the epitome of feminine beauty knows how to chip in with manual labor and can usually hold her own in a surprise shootout. Ruggedness is an ideal and all the good guys tend to have it to some degree.

 

Sometimes there was no Law, just settlers or pioneers headed out West in conestoga wagons to settle down and create homesteads, or a handful of cabins standing on open prairie. That's what I guess is meant by the Wild West. Then when towns started getting bigger and more established there would be a Sheriff.

Up through some time in the 60's many Westerns would have clear cut good guys and bad guys, but around there you started getting a lot of Grey Zone stuff, like the Spaghetti Westerns with Clint Eastwood. I remember John Wayne, who always played the good guy for most of his career, hated Eastwood at first, because his characters were shiftless, self-centered and sometimes downright mean, but eventually he came to understand it and then played at least one role like that himself (I forget what movie it was—The Shootist maybe?) Oh yeah, Rooster Cogburn was a self-centered son-of-a-bitch, wasn't he?

Of course Westerns would just be a particular instance of the Frontier. Things were probably very similar at many times in earlier history, like Feudal Japan in Samurai times. Not exactly a frontier I suppose, but feudal, so it was clan against clan with no larger Law or government.

The Frontier is the place where Chaos and Order clash—the animal law of the Strong take the Weak being gradually supplanted by Government, Civilization, and Law.

 

For a surprising take on this (and yet quite accurate I think) check out John Ford/John Wayne's The Searchers. The director pays special visual attention to the doorway several times, a shot from inside the house with dry hardpack (or sand?) and shimmering heatwaves visible outside. Strong visual contrast—inside it's fairly dark, cool colors, lace curtains and lots of Victorian-style furniture. All very feminine, while outside it's harsh, too bright and rugged. I wasn't sure what this meant until I watched the whole movie and realized it's metaphorical for the 2 different worlds. When out on the desert, the men are hard as nails, just as tough and fierce as the Indians they need to fight, or as the desert itself, which they must survive. But when indoors these tough hombres are all "Yes ma'm/No ma'm", and it's clear the women are completely and unquestioningly in charge in the private sphere of the home. In fact one young hothead tries to flout the rule of the women and all the other men rough him up (or at least threaten to, I forget which) until he falls into meek compliance like the rest. I've always noticed this with my older relatives as well (in fact the couples I've known). My uncle was a tough cowboy himself, but my aunt made the rules and he followed them. Hence all the jokes about "She who must be obeyed", "Happy wife, happy life", "If Mamma ain't happy, nobody is happy" etc. It's said jokingly and yet quite serious.

 

Westerns as a genre form part of the American frontier mythology. Their historical accuracy is suspect, but it doesn't matter. The shootout at high noon has taken on its own life in the mind, and the devil take historical reality. The solitary gunman, the judge, the kid, etc. All these archetypes form such a vibrant tapestry, but it's also a pretty rigid framework for those who want to write within the genre.

 

The way I understand it, the most basic component of the western genre is the frontier setting. That is to say, the setting is defined by an expansion of (what is perceived to be) civilized society into "uncivilized" territories, and the stories concern the people living at the border of the two - a sort of no-man's land where life is more rugged, lawless and demanding. Hence the term "wild west." The western setting is appealing because it is untamed, with the implication is that taming it is the job of heroes.

This is further related to the idea of Manifest Destiny as motivation for American imperialistic expansion: It was viewed as white man's duty to civilize the land, mostly by taking it from the savage natives who clearly weren't worthy of it. That philosophy... did not age well, shall we say. (This is considered a big part of the reason the "classic" western genre died and probably isn't coming back, with modern neo-westerns being much less cavalier about it all.)

Never the less, that frontier mentality got romanticized and mythologized to the point where you can still see traces of it in the contemporary American cultural identity.

Anyway, this is why western tropes mix so well with science fiction settings. Space is, after all, "the final frontier." It's easy to see the parallels between the wild west and, say, a distant space colony or nascent planetary settlement.

As for Waterworld, it has been a long time since I saw it but from what I recall I would define it more as a variant of a post-apocalyptic setting than a western analogue. There can be thematic overlap between post-apocalyptic stories and westerns, of course, and sometimes the former deliberately evokes the latter the same way sci-fi does. Still, I do think that a core theme of westerns is a conflict/juxtaposition between "the civilized world" and "the Wild." Waterworld, I believe, was more about people simply trying to survive after nature went Old Testament on civilization.

 

I wrote a short story one time of a woman struggling in a gold mining boom town where the powers that be, determined it was a western. This was rather surprising as the story was depicted during the Yukon Gold Rush...

This does fit within the years that is known as "westerns", which is why the determination was made. The story was in the right era, included a frontier town, and a damsel in distress; so I could not argue against the determination. In fact I cannot now, and why I include it in this discussion.

 

Can it really be a western without two characters with narrowed eyes staring each other down in an alley and/or main street and/or tavern, waiting for the signal to DRAW!?

 

Oo-ee-oo-ee-ooo... wah, wah, wah.
Oo-ee-oo-ee-ooo... wah, wah, WAH!

 

Who says sound effects can't be written?!

 

I found westerns to be a fun, challenging genre to write.

You have to do a little research, but back in that era, with so many silver, gold. quicksilver, and lead mines about, you can do little research on an old ghost town, and bring it back to life in a great story or novel.

There was also the characters and character traits, and you could write just a little about minor characters and let the reader's old stereotypes take over, and concentrate on the main characters, letting them have some traits that the reader might not think of at first. They need not all be train robbers and cowboys, as back in those days, many a lady had her own unique story that has been lost to antiquity. Miners, railroaders, and loggers all had unique stories to tell.

 

Roddenberry pitched "Star Trek" as a "Wagon Train to the Stars" because he had in mind a frontier people encountering other people and other perils at each episode. That could be a definition of a "Western" as well,

The "Western Tropes We Never Get Tired Of" link summed it up pretty well. My own definition would include a lone hero coming into town (usually on some sort of frontier), shooting at bad guys, writing wrongs, striking up a friendship with a women who will tempt him in vain to stay, and then riding off into the sunset (or into another adventure). A prime example of this is "The Mandalorian" currently on TV.

 

I think you are describing a certain kind of western story, but Clint Eastwood's Dollar trilogy for example doesn't involve romance at all, and neither do many of John Wayne's films. The Searchers comes to mind as a western which doesn't involve either riding into town or a romance, and many western novels that I can think of, by Louis L'amour for example (in fact most of the ones I've read of his as far as I can remember, although his Kilkenny novels are an obvious exception), do have the hero settling down with the girl in the end. These novels are often a sort of coming of age story, and the hero riding off into the sunset in that case would make for a really unsatisfying ending; often the object of aspiration is a ranch and the ability of the hero to put his drifting ways behind him. I agree with you about the Mandalorian; it's a good western.

 

I think there is a lot of potential in Non-Western-Westerns.

A lot has been done on the American West for sure, but a story or novel is about characters, plot and setting, so the latter one alone means a non traditional Western could be set in the Canadian West, the Yukon during the gold rush, and the Alaskan gold rush. However, do not forget that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid went to Bolivia to hide out, so don't discount that country, or Argentina, Chile, or Mexico.

And do not forget that a "western" has to be on land. A ton of people had to get to the west in the first place, and many of them went by ship! I know, because my family did. I have done (2) western stories using this time period and some ship elements on getting there.

 

I like the genre of Westerns. (As long as they're well written, like those of Elmer Kelton.) But what I strongly object to is any story that's set in the western half of the USA during the 19th century now being termed a Western. That's just silly, isn't it? When so many of these stories are about settler experiences, battling weather, loneliness, hard times, etc. Many are about the Native American experiences as well.

I grew up with the Laura Ingalls Wilder stories, and Old Yeller. At no point during my childhood were these EVER referred to as "Westerns." Nor was Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Or Mairi Sandoz's Old Jules. Or Willa Cather's Oh Pioneers, or Hamlin Garland's stories. "Westerns" were written by Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour, Owen Wister, etc. They all had good guys, and bad guys—and most of the characters were usually working as cowboys or bandits or rival landowners—and these stories always contained shoot-em-ups. Yet nowdays these other classics are all classified as Westerns as well? So what defines the genre now? Erm. Nothing but being set west of the Mississippi, apparently. And now even that definition is going by the wayside?

"Westerns" genre stories are a type of storyline, not a setting. Like a Mystery, where the mystery always get solved, or the Romance where the two people end up together at the end. Yeah, it's possible to write "Westerns" in other settings. But it's also possible to write stories set in the Old West that are NOT "Westerns."

 

Wherein lies the core of the original question of the thread.

 

Are people actually referring to those as westerns?

 

Yes. I was shocked to see them on lists of Westerns recently.

 

One of the great books that had a Western setting is Little Big Man by Tom Berger. But it isn't at all representative of the "Western trope." Instead, it's a depiction of the American West as it really was, particularly in the cultural clash of First Nations versus whites. So a setting in the West does not automatically qualify a book or story for the trope.

 

Yes, exactly. That's a good example. And here it is on a Wikipedia list of Western genre books anyway....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Western_(genre)_novels

 

Interesting that Little Big Man is on the list but not its sequel Return of Little Big Man. (Yes, I know that the main character was described as dying in the prologue of the first book, but the second book tells how he faked that death to fool his biographer.)