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Frederic Remington and Charles Russell were artists who painted the American West as a romantic and adventurous frontier. They helped create the western myth by portraying their characters on canvas as rugged heroes who conquered the terrain and so-called savages of the region. The mythological West was further propagated when Fred Harvey and the slowly developing film industry created a West where one could “see the past while in the present.” <ref>Hal K. Rothman, ed., ''Devil’s Bargains'' (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press), 42.</ref>This was appealing to American audiences as the West was the arena where democratic American values were portrayed.<ref>Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor, eds., ''Hollywood’s West: The American Frontier in Film, Television, and History'' (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press), 6. Historian Frederic Jackson Turner labeled the West as a "safety valve" to where Eastern populations would escape when the pressures of their region became too high.</ref>Tourism began to flourish and Americans became enamored with the romanticism of the West. The Hollywood film industry soon capitalized on the need for escapism by bringing the West to the people. Utilizing the formula of the Bronco Billy silent films ——— a good man, a girl in distress, and a gun ——— Hollywood expanded the genre into the era of talking films. Gary Cooper did well as a cowboy hero in such films as 1921’s ''The Virginian'', but the genre did not explode into success until John Wayne was made a star in the 1939 classic, ''Stagecoach''.<ref>Dudley Nichols, ''Stagecoach,'' DVD, 1939, directed by John Ford (Criterion Collection, 2010).</ref>

[[File:namdead1968.jpg|thumbnail|300px|Associated Press photograph from September 18, 1865 1965 during the battle of An Ninh.]]At the time the film was released, the American public had been inundated with images of the horrific violence in Vietnam. Peckinpah used an abundance of violence in the film and displays blood in stark red ''only'' when the outlaws are shot. He was demonstrating that the established authority figures were responsible for the blood and violence in the film, just as they were in Southeast Asia. He also made an obvious point of dressing Garrett and his posse in all black throughout the film, which was a wardrobe choice traditionally associated with villains. Just by employing this simple wardrobe tactic, Peckinpah depicts law enforcement as evil. He furthered this portrayal with a scene of young children throwing rocks at Garrett after he had killed the Kid; much like the rocks that were thrown at Vietnam veterans returning home.  The one redeeming quality he did give Garrett was near the beginning of the film when he warned Billy he was going to be arrested or killed and gave him the opportunity to leave the country and flee to Mexico. This was parallel to young draftees in 1973 making the difficult decision to run to Canada rather than go to Vietnam. The film version of Billy the Kid opted to stand his ground instead of fleeing to safety. Of course, the Kid was violently killed as were so many young men, who were the same age as the Kid, in Vietnam. == Conclusion ==While the 1970’s were defined by Watergate and Vietnam, the 1930’s were defined by the Great Depression. Both periods were a time of unrest and discontentment with the sitting government. The fine line between good and evil was often blurred. Both films established that "good" and "bad" can only be defined through social interaction and that which has been internalized by the viewer as an acceptable norm or value. The Western is the perfect genre in which to present questions of morality as the West has been romanticized into being a land of rugged individuality where one’s choices have not yet been made. As dude ranching “acted out the myth” of the West in the 1930’s via tourism, this film genre continues to do the same with a much larger audience. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the West is not only a place and a process but also a time; an entity not only separated by the 98th parallel, but the enactment of myth relevant to one’s present social condition. ==References==<references/> [[Category:Wikis]] [[Category:Film History]] [[Category:U.S. History]]  {{Contributors}}