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Where Have All the Cowboys Gone? Creating the Post 9/11 Westerner

The intention of this thesis is to analyze the figure of the post 9/11 Westerner as a modern character created from the preexisting archetype of the classic Westerner. 3:10 to Yuma (dir. James Mangold), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (dir. Andrew Dominik), and There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson) were released in 2007 and featured post 9/11 Westerners dealing with issues of fatherhood, demonstrating the prevalence of this figure within the modern western genre. Fatherhood becomes the prism through which these characters are depicted, which becomes the main source of their anxiety. The events of 9/11 contributed to a fracture of the western myth established by the classic postwar western that results in the post 9/11 Westerner attempting to reclaim a similar mythic status. The post 9/11 Westerner becomes an inversion of the classic Westerner seen through his insecure masculinity and ultimate failure to live up to his own imagined ideals.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc1833467
Date08 1900
CreatorsPossoit, Dylan
ContributorsBenshoff, Harry, Larke-Walsh, George S., Wise, Michael
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
Formativ, 81 pages, Text
RightsPublic, Possoit, Dylan, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved.

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