Question for Discussion: Do you agree with
Tompkins' argument that because the Male
Western Hero must sacrifice his heart and
his feelings that he is cut off from his own
humanity and the community that he saves?

Reading: Tompkins, pp. 185-189, 198-203, 214-220
Slotkin, "Our Myths of Choice" ; Dodwell, "The Cowboy Myth"

Video: Unforgiven (1992); The Searchers (1956);
The Man who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Response Paper : How does the Indian's mythic story
of the West contrast with the "Mythic American West"?
Do these Indians intentionally tell their story of the West in order to challenge every point of the Anglo-American story? Is the Indian's Mythic West a counter-myth to the Anglo-American Mythic West? (1-2 page paper due on Monday, Feb. 23.)
( See Anglo-American vs. Indian Stories on
the American West )

Buffalo Bill Historical Center (in-class)
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Shows (in-class)
More, Bill Cody and the Western Hero (in-class)
More, The Legendary Western Hero (in-class)
More, Why Americans Love Westerns (in-class)
Image of Alan Ladd's Shane (in-class)
Buffalo Bill dressed as Western Hero (in-class)
Posters from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (in-class)
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show Poster (in-class)
American Progress by John Gast (1872) ( in-class)
Popular Western Novelists that
have shaped the modern West
Classic Western Movies that
have shaped the Western Myth
Western Pulp Magazines
Cars named after Western Places,
Images, and Symbols
The Old West Lives On: Western Rodeos
Western Magazines
Gunslingers and Outlaws
The Marlboro Man Myth (in-class)
Tompkins, Buffalo Bill's Western Myth
at the Buffalo Bill Museum (in-class)
Tompkins: Buffalo Bill and Violent Conquest
(in-class)
Dodwell, "The Cowboy Myth" (in-class)
Tompkins: The Western Hero and Americans:
Why are we attracted to the Western Hero
(in-class)
Tompkins: The Western Hero Sacrifices
his Heart (in-class)
Richard Slotkin and the Frontier Myth ( in-class)
Slotkin, "Our Myths of Choice" (in-class)
Why do we Identify with the Western Hero
when he is a violent killer?
(in-class)
The Frontier Myth and Regeneration
through Violence ( in-class)
Eastwood's Unforgiven (in-class)
Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (in-class)

The Origins of Buffalo Bill's
Wild West Show

"William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody opened Buffalo Bill's Wild West show on May 19, 1883 at Omaha, Nebraska. His partner that first season was a dentist and exhibition shooter, Dr. W.F. Carver. Cody and Carver took the show, subtitled "Rocky Mountain and Prairie Exhibition," across the country to popular acclaim and favorable reviews, launching a genre of outdoor entertainment that thrived for three decades and survived, in fits and starts, for almost three more.

In 1872, legendary plainsman Wild Bill Hickok joined several cowboys and Indians in a "Grand Buffalo Hunt" staged at Niagara Falls. Buffalo Bill Cody himself had already been in show business for a decade, staging plays known as "border dramas," which actually were small-scale Wild West shows featuring genuine frontier characters, real Indians, fancy shooting, and sometimes horses.

The birth of the Wild West as a successful genre was largely a product of personality, dramatic acumen, and good timing. The golden age of outdoor shows began in the 1880s, and with his theatre experience Buffalo Bill already was skilled in the use of press agentry and poster advertising. His fame and credibility as a westerner lent star appeal and an aura of authenticity. Most important, Cody gave the show a dramatic narrative structure.

Features such as the Pony Express, the wagon train, or the attack on the stagecoach recreated specific and well-known events. Spectacles such as "cowboy fun" or the "tableau" of American Indian life usually served as prelude to a dramatic event, such as a battle scene. Skill acts such as sharp shooting (with pistol and rifle), wing shooting (with shotgun), roping, and riding not only showcased star performers, the show's narration linked those skills to survival in the frontier West. An orator boomed the script to the audience from an elevated platform in the arena. The circus band became the "Cowboy Band" and backed the arena action with appropriate mood-setting music. The same skits and music later were easily adapted to film and television "Westerns."

Wild West shows: Buffalo Bill's Wild West

by Paul Fees, Former Curator
Buffalo Bill Museum

Tompkins, Buffalo Bill's Western Myth

"It was not accident...that Roosevelt, Wister, and Remington all went west originally for their own health. Their devotion to the West, their connection to it, their love for it are rooted in their need to re-animate their own lives. The preservation of nature, in other words, becomes for them symbolic of their own survival." (187)

"If in doing so those men were practicing the ancient art of absorbing the life of an animal through the destruction of another life, then we are not so different from them, as vistors to the museum, we stand beside the bones and skins and nails of beingds that were once alive, or stare fixedly at their painted images. Indeed our visit is only a safer form of the same enterprise as theirs." (187)

"[Buffalo Bill's] appeal on the surface is to children's desires, the desire for glamour, fame, bigness, adventure, romance....Buffalo Bill comes to the child in us, understood not as that part of ourselves that we have outgrown but as the part that got left behind, of necessity, a long time ago, having been starved, bound, punished, disciplined out of existence. He promises that that part of the self can live again. He has the power to promise these things because he represents the West, that geographical space of the globe that was still the realm of exploration and discovery, that was still open, that had not yet quite been tamed, when he began to play himself on the stage." (199)

"He was the incarnation of an ideal. He came to show people that what they had only imagined was really true. The West really did exist. There really were heroes who rode white horses and performed amazing feats." (199)

"Buffalo Bill and his cowboys played to an inward territory; a Wild West of the psyche that hungered for exercise and sprang into activity when the show appeared. Je Viens was a promise to redeem that territory, momentarily at least, from exile and oblivion. The lost parts of the self symbolized by buffalo and horses and wild men would live again for an hour while the show went on." (200)

"Must we throw out all the wonderful qualities that Cody had, the spirit of hope and emulation that he aroused in millions of people, because of the terrible judgement history has passed on the epoch of which he was part? The kinds of things he stands for--courage, daring strength, endurance, generosity, openness to other people, love of drama, love of life, the possibility of living a life that does not deny the body and the desires of the body--are these to be declared dangerous and delusional although he manifested some of them while fighting Indians and others while representing his victories to the world? And the feelings he aroused in his audiences, the idealism, the enthusiasm, the excitement, the belief that dreams could become real--must be declared misguided or a sham because they are associated with the imperialistic conquest of a continent, with the wholesale extermination of animals and men? " (201-2)

Buffalo Bill and Violent Conquest

"I cannot resolve the contradiction between my experience at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center with its celebration of violent conquest and my response to the shining figure of Buffalo Bill ... -- on the one hand, a history of shame; on the other, an image of the heart's desire. But I have reached one conclusion that for a while will have to serve." (202)

"Major historical events like genocide and major acts of destruction are not simply produced by impersonal historical processes or economic imperatives or ecological blunders; human intentionality is involved and human knowledge of the self. Therefor, if your're really, truly interested in not having any more genocide or killing of animals, no matter what else you might do, if you don't first, or also, come to recognize the violence in yourself and your own anger and your own destructiveness, whatever else you do won't work. It isn't that genocide doesn't matter. Genocide matters, and it starts at home." (203)

Why do we Identify with the
Western Hero?

Tompkins is saying that we admire the Western hero anyway. Even though we know he is violent, a hardened murderer, and a killer. We admire him for his character--his strength, courage, vitality, determination, and pride--even though we know what he did. The Western myth in movies and novels allows us to do this because the Western hero always rides out of town. In the end, he is not us, because we are members of the town, the civilized community that he sacrificed his heart for in order to save us. But, the truth is that we can't admire the Western hero and then at the same time deny what he did for us. Whether the Western myth wants us to or not, we are still implicated in the Western hero's violence, his killing, and his determination to enact his will on the West. Just like the hunters identify with their trophies,
the stuffed heads of their kills, having killed them and taken their life into us, we identity with the Western hero and his violent and murderous acts. Tompkins is suggesting that to the extent we do this without feeling a sense of shame and guilt, we ourselves are participating in the Western hero's violence and killing. The final showdown at the end of Unforgiven forces us to recognize the violence, brutality, injustice, and moral
duplicity at the heart of this Western hero. He is unforgiven for being a killer but so are we for pariticipating in and benefitting from his killing. This is
what Richard Slotkin means by "regeneration through violence" in his book, Regeneration through Violence: the Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860. Thus,
we can't admire the Western hero without taking some responsibility for his work--the violence and the killing that saved us and the West that we love.
Chris H. Lewis, Ph.D.

Tompkins, The Western Hero and
Americans

"The Western is not an escape from reality but an attempt to get as close to the marrow of things as possible. There is something else involved as well. To live only in the moment on nothing but your nerve is like trying to do without a body at all. To press your soul against the windowpane of being and hold it there. Though the Western hero thrives on physical sensations, the thrill of facing death challenges the mind above all."
(213)

"And this anesthetization of the hero is present in Westerns generally. The ethic of self-denial--denial of the needs of the flesh for warmth and comfort, succor, ease, and pleasure; and denial of the needs of the spirit for companionship, affection, love, dependency, exchange--thus turns the hero to stone in the end. He becomes the desert butte." (215)

"Afraid of what would come out if he opened up, the hero remains mute and, not speaking, eventually loses touch with the springs of feeling. His humanness then begins to suffer a slow death, and the fate he avoided by surviving the ordeal overtakes him from another quarter unaware." (215)

"This double denial--denial of intimacy either with other people or with one's self--makes the hero's isolation tremendous." (217)

"The excitement of hunting or being hunted, of living close to the land, is enough for him, and me. The thrill of the story and the cycle of fear and relief from fear keep the isolation from appearing...If you are always fighting off men with guns or trying not to die from thirst in the desert, it isn't possible to entertain others kinds of feelings." (217)

Tompkins, The Hero Sacrifices his Heart

"For what distinguishes the hero from the villains in a Western is that he still feels despite all the horror he has seeen and all the horror he has perpetrated. In fact, that is how we know he is tough in the way a hero has to be, for his face shows that he as had to harden himself against his own feelings...His heart, which is never heard to utter a sound, is what he carries with him back into the wilderness at the end. It is his sacrifice, bound and smoking on the altar of his principles, the thing without which what he did would have no weight at all." (219)

"The death of the heart...is what the Western genre, more than anything else, is about. The numbing of the capacity to feel, which allows the hero to inflict pain on others, requires the sacrifice of his own heart, a sacrifice kept hidden under his toughness, which is inseparable from is heroic character." (219)

"Having renounced his heart so that others might keep theirs, he rides away alone. And he must do this not because he is a murderer and therefore not to be trusted, but because having hardened himself to murder, he can no longer open his heart to humankind. His love is aborted, cut off." (220)

"When he rides out of town at the end, the hero bears his burdens by himself. When I think of how hew feels, no words coming out, everything closed inside, the internal bleeding, the sadness of the genre is terrible..." (220)

Slotkin, "Our Myths of Choice"

"So far, I see two myths being deployed in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11. One is the myth of "savage war," based on the oldest U.S. myth, the myth of the frontier. The myth represents American history as an Indian war, in which white Christian civilization is opposed by a "savage" racial enemy: an enemy whose hostility to civilization is part of its nature or fundamental character; an enemy who is not just opposed to our interests but to "civilization itself." The myth also provides a recipe for countering the threat, a model of heroic action that will bring victory and resolve the crisis. The hero of this myth is the wielder of extraordinary violence: He can win only by fighting fire with fire, evil with evil, and he must fight until the enemy is exterminated or utterly subjugated. In war with such an enemy, nothing less than total victory is acceptable."

"At the bottom of our reaction to a traumatic event like this is rage, grief, humiliation, and a sense of helplessness. We invoke our myths to help us begin to function again -- and they work often enough for us to continue believing in them. The danger in our present use of myth is that our myths of choice may be so at odds with reality that their imperatives can never be fulfilled."

"If events do not follow the course prescribed in our "good war" myth, we may revert to the "savage war" scenario -- and this is a dangerous myth. It expresses, and also empowers, the profound sense of rage we feel when we have helplessly suffered a terrible trauma, and it rationalizes a limitless, ruthless, and perhaps irrational use of force against those nations and peoples associated with our enemies."

Dodwell, "The Cowboy Myth"

."After September 1 1, 2001, as editorial writers and public figures discussed terrorism more vigorously, they frequently described Bush in terms of a variety of cowboy images that went well beyond the cowhand who works cattle and drives them to market miles away. In the months leading up to the war with Iraq, commentators began to portray Bush as a sheriff in the Old West who would go it alone without a posse if need be in order to defeat what he saw as lawlessness and evil. Europeans, who would not join the posse to defeat the outlaw, were compared to timid saloonkeepers and shopkeepers, afraid to confront evil and afraid of the sheriff who might shoot up the town while getting his man. Eventually, the sheriff realized he had to ride out without a big posse. Tony Blair became Tonto to Bush's Lone Ranger and rode along to cover his boss's back."

"I also wondered why the cowboy myth was still being used in political rhetoric early in the twenty-first century. In 1955, Franz and Choate asked the following question in their work, The American Cowboy: The Myth and the Reality : “ Why this everlasting preoccupation with the cowboy in a country that is supposed to be crassly treadmilling its way to an ever increasing urbanization and ulcerated pursuit of happiness through money?” The question seemed even more puzzling in the context of urbanization and consumerism that have proliferated beyond what most individuals in the mid-1950s could have imagined. Most editorialists and politicians who exploited the cowboy myth most likely lived in urban areas and were far removed from the austerities of life on the cattle trail and the frontier. Obviously, the myth of the cowboy persists not because many people live like cowboys but because it defines something significant about the character of the U.S broadly and the character of George W. Bush specifically. What the cowboy myth means, however, is complicated because, as Frantz and Choate have explained, the cowboy represents both a desire for violence and recklessness and also the
pursuit of heroism and integrity. "

"Many columnists and public figures outside and within the U.S. used the cowboy myth to create a very negative image of George W. Bush as a blood-thirsty, trigger-happy loner. The love of the cowboy in the U.S., however, became a potent means of coalescing support for George W. Bush as a fast-acting, straight-shooting, brave president. The cowboy myth produced positive associations for segments of the U.S. public that held conservative views while the myth produced negative associations for segments of the public with more liberal views. As I will explain, this dichotomy aligned with a view of the frontier promoted by Frederick Jackson Turner and the opposing view promoted by New Western Historians and those who have called for the abandonment of the cowboy myth."

"One important and timeless pattern in the construction of the historical and the mythical cowboy is the contrast between the heroic good cowboy and the rogue, bad-man cowboy. Frantz and Choate describe the idealized cowboy tradition: The good cowboy is brave and up for a challenge. He promotes justice and defends the honor of women; he is “ the implacable foe of the Indian; and a man to whom honor and integrity come naturally.” As I will illustrate, George W. Bush and many editorialist have adopted the myth of the idealized cowboy in promoting the war with Iraq, while Bush's opponents have adopted the tradition of the rogue cowboy in promoting their opposition to the war. The bad cowboy is associated with such notables as Wild Bill Hickock and Billy the Kid. As a reckless ruffian, the bad cowboy is a pistol-shooting, merciless, hard-living man who roamed the boom towns of the Old West."

"One New Western Historian, ” Patricia Nelson Limerick, redefines the West as a site of “ invasion, conquest, colonization, exploitation, development, [and] expansion of the world market.” In her focus on the West, Limerick includes “women as well as men, Indians, Europeans, Latin Americans, Asians, Afro-Americans. ” She rejects Turner ' s idea of the closing of the frontier in 1890, and she contests the belief that westward expansion primarily meant progress and improvement. She, like many other New Western historians, points to the injuries to the environment and to individuals that resulted from the expansion into the West."

"In the editorial clashes, Turner's glorification of the frontier conflicts head on with New Western condemnations of the violence and exploitation in the American West. The two conflicting versions of the West and the two conflicting images of the cowboy help explain why the cowboy myth has been used both to condemn the war with Iraq and to call the U.S. to war. The image of the cowboy gunfighter with a frontiersman mentality is offensive to those who resist the war with Iraq and who call for settling international conflict without violence and exploitation. At the same time, the image of the cowboy gunfighter is positive to those who support the war with Iraq and call on the U.S. to uphold the frontier ideal of bravery and integrity in the face of danger."

"Brant Ayers, publisher of the Anniston Star , claimed the Bush administration had “blurred the quiet cowboy as a self-defining allegory” by being more like “a bad-humored, 20-foot American cowboy [who] tells the whole saloon he's going to drill the 3-foot bad guy, who doesn't stand a chance.” Ayers analyzed the Gary Cooper style cowboy and explained that Americans have looked up to the image of the quiet cowboy, personified by Gary Cooper as Sheriff Kane in High Noon , who only lost his quiet demeanor and fought when he was provoked by an outlaw."

"As a result of my reading of other pieces of meta-commentary, I believe that the image of Bush as a heroic cowboy president had more currency in the U.S. than the images of him as an outlaw bad-man cowboy. Several elements appeared to reinforce the positive image of the cowboy president: the increasing popularity of Ronald Reagan who played into the image of the cowboy president during the dismantling of the Soviet Union; the American love of the cowboy—the impetus that generated so many westerns in the first place; and the ability to use the image of the cowboy to clearly distinguish a U.S. view of the war with Iraq from a European view. Many Americans relish the idea that they are different from the Europeans because of the experience of the American frontier and the cowboy who rode in it; consequently, many Americans promote Frederick Jackson Turner's version of the frontier as a means of defining differences between the U.S. and Europe."

”According to Buckley, moving forward as a loner with a clear will to take action was antithetical to the international community. Buckley claimed that Bush, if he was like other cowboys, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, would go forward with removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. The cowboy image of Reagan and of Bush for those who endorse Buckley's line of thinking, was not that of the crazed gunman riding out alone, but instead of the man of courage who left ambiguity behind and clearly named the evil doer. Apparently, after the horrendous images of 9/1 1, the U.S. public was more open to image of the cowboy as a courageous straight-shooting leader than many editorialists realized when they used the word “cowboy” to generate extremely negative associations."

”In line with Turner's theory of the frontier, Lutz said America was built by individuals with a cowboy mentality, which meant straight shooting and honesty to most people. The public, Lutz claimed, liked Bush's moral clarity; they admired the fact that he risked an unpopular war, but a war he believed was just. In my opinion, Lutz revealed what should have been obvious in the editorial wars all along: many Americans believe in and love the cowboy. They see the cowboy as central to the identity of Americans and to themselves. We have only to think of the popularity of country western music, of western movies, and the cowboy image in general."

"Robert Kagan in The Globalist approved of the global role of the cowboy president and claimed the U.S. had become a self-appointed “international sheriff” who kept law and order and defeated the outlaws. Kagan viewed Europe as a saloonkeeper, who was not only afraid of the outlaw but also the violent sheriff. If some Americans love the cowboy, and correspondingly George W. Bush as lawmaker of the international community, then perhaps it is not surprising that the press and citizenry of other countries have come to disdain the image of the cowboy and of George W. Bush."

"Bush and conservative editorialists apparently adopted the cowboy myth in order to clarify their adherence to a no nonsense policy on Iraq. Like a sheriff of the Old West who clearly delineates the difference between good and evil, Bush as a straight-shooting cowboy declared the aims of the U.S. were good and those of Iraq under Saddam Hussein were evil. The president was justified, then, in leading the charge for good to win out over evil."

"What I find disquieting is that the cowboy myth has become not only a pattern in the mind but also a pattern on the printed page that generates action. In Regeneration Through Violence , Richard Slotkin emphasizes that myths generate not only thoughts but also action. He defines mythology as “ a complex set of narratives that dramatizes the world vision and historical sense of a people or culture, reducing centuries of experience into a constellation of compelling metaphors.” The human mind, as Slotkin explains, generates the myth, but myths “ultimately affect both man's perception of reality and his actions.”

Eastwood's Unforgiven

"There is one exchange in the movie that has long stayed with me. After he is fatally wounded, Little Bill says, "I don't deserve this. To die like this. I was building a house." And Munny says, "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it." Actually, deserve has everything to do with it, and although Ned Logan and Delilah do not get what they deserve, William Munny sees that the others do. That implacable moral balance, in which good eventually silences evil, is at the heart of the Western, and Eastwood is not shy about saying so."
Roger Ebert Review of Unforgiven

"The long final act of the movie involves William Munny's desire to avenge the death and public humiliation of his friend Ned, whose corpse has been put on display in a box outside the saloon. Here we see Eastwood as the master of the kind of sustained action sequence he learned from Leone and Siegel: Not a boring montage of quick cuts and meaningless violence, but a story told through deliberate strategy, in which events may not be possible, but are somehow plausible. William Munny, the hapless hog farmer who couldn't even saddle his own horse, has been transformed into the efficient, omniscient figure of vengeance we know from Eastwood's earlier roles. The old pro still remembers
the moves.

The title of the movie is intriguing. Does Munny still seek forgiveness from his dead wife, and the others he wronged? There is a sense that he is still haunted by guilt: He has reformed, but has not made amends. Munny tells Logan: "Ned, you remember that drover I shot through the mouth and his teeth came out the back of his head? I think about him now and again. He didn't do anything to deserve to get shot, at least nothin' I could remember when I sobered up."

His friend says "You ain't like that no more." Munny says, "That's right. I'm just a fella now. I ain't no different than anyone else no more." But his voice lacks conviction, and we sense unfinished business in the air. Munny says he needs the bounty money to support his kids, but the kids would be better served if the old man didn't ride off to risk his life against fresher gunfighters."

Roger Ebert Review of Unforgiven

Quotes from Unforgiven

first title card]
Title card: She was a comely young woman and not without prospects. Therefore it was heartbreaking to her mother that she would enter into marriage with William Munny, a known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition. When she died, it was not at his hands as her mother might have suspected, but of smallpox. That was 1878.

[last title card]
Title card: Some years later, Mrs. Ansonia Feathers made the arduous journey to Hodgeman County to visit the last resting place of her only daughter. William Munny had long since disappeared with the children... some said to San Francisco where it was rumored he prospered in dry goods. And there was nothing on the marker to explain to Mrs. Feathers why her only daughter had married a known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition.

John Fords' The Man who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Ransom Stoddard: [Doniphon has just told Stoddard what really happened the night Liberty Valance was shot] But, Tom, what you did, it was...

Tom Doniphon: Murder, pure and simple; but I can live with it. Hallie wanted you alive. You taught her to read; now go back in there and give her something to read about.

Ransom Stoddard: You're not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?

Maxwell Scott: This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Jason Tully: Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance.

That single quote, uttered by newspaperman Maxwell Scott (Carlton Young), encapsulates the primary theme of John Ford's last great Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Truth is only meaningful as long as it agrees with what the public wants to hear. When heroes don't exist, it is necessary to invent them. And, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. A clear-eyed deconstruction would likely reveal that what most of us accept as "history" is a patchwork of real events, exaggerations, and tales so tall that Paul Bunyan would likely blink in amazement.

What many Americans know about the Old West, they learned through movies directed by John Ford starring John Wayne. Over a period of more than three decades, these two men collaborated on about twenty features, many of which not only fell under the umbrella of, but helped to define, the Western genre. Indeed, every Western made after Ford's era (which ended in 1964 with Cheyenne Autumn) was inspired or impacted, in one way or another, by Ford's contributions. Sergio Leone was as influenced by Ford as by Kurosawa; Peckinpah's films include nods to Ford; and even the best of the "revisionist" Westerns exist in large part to rebut Ford's canon."

"In the film's pivotal scene, Ransom confronts Liberty in a duel. Inept with a gun, Ransom is badly overmatched. Yet, almost inexplicably, he manages to get off a shot that seemingly strikes with deadly accuracy. He is hailed by everyone as a hero, with one exception: Tom, who watched the encounter from a secluded spot, then used a rifle to bring down Valance before the outlaw could kill Ransom. By timing his own accurate shot to coincide with Ransom's misdirected one, Tom was able to create the illusion that Ransom triumphed. He accepts no glory then or later, and when he dies, only a handful of people know the secret. Now, Ransom decides to disclose it to newspaper writer Scott. But that man, mindful of the importance of Ransom's reputation, declines to print the truth. "

"One could argue that there's nearly as much going on in the subtext of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as in the text. Ford's casting choices are the first place where this is evident. Neither James Stewart nor John Wayne is cast against type. Stewart plays the bumbling--but-earnest Everyman in a manner that evokes memories of George Bailey and Mr. Smith. Wayne brings Tom to the screen in much the same way he did for all of his bigger-than-life characters – an imposing figure whose heart of gold belies his gruff, tough exterior. In the normal course of things, Wayne would be playing the hero, and, in a sense, he is. After all, Tom is the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. But the glory and the girl go to Ransom. So, the epitome of Cowboy Masculinity dies in obscurity while the Everyman rises to prominence and prosperity. Stewart and Wayne therefore engage in a strange role-reversal by being themselves."

James Berardinelli Review of The Man who Shot
Liberty Valance

More: The Legendary Western Hero

"The "Western" hero, in particular, is a protagonist in a novel set in the American frontier. A hero or heroine is morally responsible and lives by a Code of Ethics. He is compassionate toward the downtrodden and takes their side in a fight for survival. He's loyal to his friends and to his leader, whether it be his Country, his President, the Texas Rangers, or the riders of the Bar Eight Ranch. Above all, he's Idealistic. He knows the difference between right and wrong, and strongly believes that Good should triumph over Evil. In fact, he will take the initiative to see that Good triumphs. He'll go out of his way and make incredible sacrifices to do so. He will risk his own best interests to shift the balance toward Good, even in situations which are none of his business. "

More: Why Americans Love Westerns

As far as appearance goes, men like William Frederick Cody aka Buffalo Bill, born in 1846, probably influenced how we first perceived the western hero. Cody worked as an army scout and hunted buffalo for railroad camps, but later he organized and then toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Up to that time, we had borrowed styles from Europe and admired the class of European entertainers who came across the Atlantic to put on shows, but Buffalo Bill's style was 100% American and gave us an image to identify with.