BY JORDAN KELCH

THE MAN WITH

NO NORM
An Analysis of Gender in Selected Western Films

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INTRODUCTION
The topic for this research project will be the changing depictions of masculinity in
selected western genre films. Given the breadth of potential material, I will be making these
selections from a subset of films starring Clint Eastwood, an iconic actor in the category. The
discussion of gender in film, and in western films particularly, has changed significantly over the
years. The genre has existed for as long as American film has existed, and its essential structures
and themes are little changed from its earliest days. This is not to accuse the genre of being
overly formulaic. Rather, the early entries into it were unusually complex. The stories were
drawn from, to name a few, American, Japanese, Italian, and Mexican folklore. The tropes and
archetypes that these cultures bear in common are so striking that Fistful of Dollars is
effectively a shot for shot remake of an Akira Kurosawa samurai film called Yojimbo (1961)
without seeming out of its intended sociocultural space. Ironically, the deconstruction of the
Clint Eastwood character played in Fistful of Dollars was translated back into Japanese with
the 2013 remake of The Unforgiven (1992) by Japanese director Lee Sang-il.
The characters in westerns bore significant similarities to archetypal heroes and villains
from literature and other cultural traditions. The cowboy movie has changed less in terms of
substance than in terms of complexity, both of narrative and characterization. It is this change
that invites sociocultural analysis. This analysis could answer a fundamental question. How is
masculinity portrayed in the western genre of film? The widespread and disparate influences
already mentioned would indicate that this portrayal speaks to deeply ingrained social facts
which bear upon the way gender is constructed.
The real potential for insight in this subject, and from this data, comes from the fact that
westerns are inherently archetypal. They function by providing, as protagonists and antagonists,

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almost pure ideal typical masculine characters. To borrow the term, they are movies that follow
mens men interacting with other, similarly stereotyped, men. With few exceptions, and those
exceptions purpose built negative cases, female characters tend to be little more than props or
incentives. This is, without a doubt, a narrative weakness inherent to the genre. Non-hegemonic
males and females could no doubt provide fascinating archetypal heroes or antiheroes
themselves, and could certainly be excellent foils if they were given a more multifaceted
characterization. However, in terms of a content analysis, this has a distilling effect on the
subject of study. The archetypes, as narratively one dimensional as they are, are completely
purified. They are reflections of the way that society has viewed men and masculinity over the
years, reflections which are completely unfettered by the realities of gender.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The history of humanity can be said, without much exaggeration, to be the history of
patriarchy. It is an unfortunate fact that gender has played a large part in determining who was
able to obtain a seat at the table in many, if not most, fields of endeavor. Entertainment has not
been an exception to this rule. That said, if a trend can be identified through the course of this
history it points towards egalitarianism. Hegemonic masculinity is far from slain, and may never
be, but one might go so far as to say that some of its influence has been challenged. The
influence of conflict theory and its relevant paradigms in the academic world, and the egalitarian
social reality made possible by sociopolitical and sociotechnical advances in developed
economies have mitigated some of the less subtle issues arising from this hierarchal structure.
The western film genre might be considered one of its last holdouts. Even in this, the most
nakedly manly of genres, research has begun to identify a perspective shift. In this section, the
preeminent ideas and themes present in research on hegemonic masculinity will be discussed.

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More specifically, it will explore the connections that ideas connected to this concept have on
society at large, pop culture, and film. It should provide some insight into how masculinity is
portrayed in the western movies.
It is important to first establish a clear set of definitions for what is essentially a fluid
term, masculinity. Some researchers take great care to delineate a typology and an hierarchy
within it. This concept, called multiple masculinities, casts aside the universalist approach that
nearly stereotypes gender roles in favor of a culturally centered and more nuanced approach.
There are simply too many different ideas around the world about the acceptable sex and gender
roles of men to keep them under one conceptual tent without resorting to sweeping
generalizations. (Connell, 2001) Frequently, the greatest distinction is made between
hegemonic masculinity and subordinated masculinity. The former is the more important
concept because it becomes normative. The alternative definition structure applies certain
attributes to gender identities. Typically, qualities related to aggression and ambition are applied
to men and qualities relating to emotional intelligence are related to women. This model is
criticized heavily as being overly deterministic and ultimately simplistic by many more modern
researchers. (Wilkinson, 1985) The multiple masculinity model is very different from more trait
oriented models, but it does apply some overarching generalizations across the entire gender
based on the idea that subordinated males rely on an internal concept of self-dictated by
hegemonic masculinity. In this way, the general prevalence of violent contact sports among
those typically played by men is explained, for instance. Even though the total population of
hegemonic males is probably very small, they exert a tremendous influence by determining the
parameters of manhood to all men. (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005).

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The setting of western films is not incidental to the way in which they treat masculinity,
and it is an important indicator of how we as a society view masculinity. They tend to depict
extremely rural environments. Edward W. Morris notes that ideas in rural settings about the role
of men in the family and in society tend to be much more oriented towards this hegemonic
masculinity concept than they do in either wealthier or more cosmopolitan environments. (2012)
Children, for instance, widely hold the view that men should be responsible for producing an
income to support their families. Westerns are not just placed in rural environments, they tend
also to be located in the southwestern united states, hence the label. Thus, ideas about
masculinity are also informed within the films by those ideas prevalent in the south and the
frontier west. Moreover, they inform popular culture by interpreting those ideas to the audience.
Even today, quantitative data suggests that while the south is as egalitarian as it has ever been,
patriarchal and hegemonic conceptualizations of gender are still present. (Rice & Coates, 1995)
Discussions about the rule of law in poorly regulated territory indicate that said rule was oriented
towards an honor foundation rather than a dignity foundation. This is to say, westerns tend to
occur in environments in which typically masculine attributes, from the trait-oriented school of
definition, are held in high esteem by the legal system set into place. (Kamir, 2006)
This genre of film has shown the capacity to be incredibly subversive towards dominant
ideas about gender and masculinity, even when it seemingly promotes ideas that propagate the
status quo. In the film Brokeback Mountain, for example, traditional ideas about men are
challenged by the advent of a homosexual love affair between cowboys. (Keller & Jones, 2008).
This film is interesting because its subversion is drawn from the fact that the protagonists, save
for their sexual identity, exemplify hegemonic masculinity. In particular, the patriarchic social
structure of the rural environment of the film is propped up by the capacity for and the

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commitment of acts of violence. Countless researchers have studied the role of violence in
media, and the role of violence in masculinity, and the role of the media in supporting a
dependence upon violence within our conceptualization of masculinity. Addressing concerns
about the then recent Columbine shooting, Drs. Eschholz and Bufkin found a compelling
relationship between masculine characters in film and violence. (2001) More theoretical work
relates specifically the western genre to Campbell-esque hero constructs, in which the
protagonist inevitably succeeds in his quest by virtue of acts of violence. (Erisman, 2000).
This material all seems to suggest that the idea propagated by media is that masculinity is
a status that can only be obtained through the capacity to do harm. It is, in keeping with the
multiple masculinity theory discussed earlier, an integral part of the belief structure we have built
around men in our society. Western movies are mirrors of a sort that specifically reflect
masculinity, either as a cartoonish misrepresentation or a basic essence depending on ones
perspective. The representation of male characters in western genre films is, then, a
representation of hegemonic masculinity. The research following will attempt to determine
whether these conclusions are correct.
DATA AND METHODS
I will be using 4 films as primary sources of data; A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a
Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), and The Unforgiven
(1992). The first three comprise the Dollars trilogy, and are all directed by Sergio Leone.
They are strongly representative of both Clint Eastwood westerns and the subgenre of Spaghetti
Westerns. The final entry is directed by Clint Eastwood and can be interpreted as an effort to
deconstruct the character he portrayed early in his career. The logic behind the first three
choices is fairly obvious, they were created during the heyday of the genre and by a prominent

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figure in the field. The fourth is included, in no small part, because of its relationship to the
others. Ideally, it will function as a control. As a deconstruction of the character, it should
exclude a temporal dimension from the study results. It was made in an entirely different social
environment than its predecessors, but with those films in mind. The archetypes and
representations within The Unforgiven are quite possibly more valuable than those in the other
chosen films because it was made to deliberately undermine the social environment that created
the archetypes and representations they depicted.
My method for carrying out this research will be to watch and code all of the films. I will
list each character, and then I will observe how the male characters behave typically or atypically
in relation to their gender stereotype. I will be looking for instances in which male characters
exhibit stoicism, independence, or commit an act of violence. In effect, I will try to ascertain the
emotional intelligence, agency, and aggression of the characters. The extent to which the
characters diverge from the gender stereotypes that place them on the extremes of each spectrum
will be my metric for measuring the sum of the changes which occur over time. Ideally, this will
enable me to derive conclusions about changes in the way gender has been portrayed in my
sample population.
This study has limited scope insomuch as it relies upon a trait oriented methodology.
There is room for further analysis, on a grander scale, which would include a more nuanced and
inclusive spectrum based interpretation of the depiction of men in film. In order to complete
such a project, one would need to significantly expand the sample size as well. A genre as
expansive in both time and theme as the western would require a researcher to compile details
from a massive number of films in order to compile something like a representative sample. In
effect, by relying on movies produced by two directors and starring one actor, this analysis might

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be said to concentrate on a sub-genre rather than the genre as a whole. The only realistic
counterargument is that the films in question have withstood the test of time, the directors
involved have been well received critically, and the movies themselves are considered to be
important. (Erisman, 2000) A spectrum based study would also require the researcher to
identify solid end points upon which to base relative masculine and feminine behavior in
characters. This is a difficult task in and of itself, without addressing concerns involving the
placement of behaviors on such a scale. Men are, after all, capable of projecting typically
feminine attributes and women are capable of exhibiting typically male attributes. Identifying
these attributes as either typically male or female, given their non-exclusive representation
among either gender, is inherently sexist.
DATA ANALYSIS
The three categories, the emotional intelligence, agency, and aggression identified above,
effectively represent three themes that are pervasive both in the academic study of hegemonic
masculinity and in the representation of men in film. (Kamir, 2006) Each film has numerous
examples of stereotyped behavior equitable with what might be considered male spectrum
behavior in each category, and only the last film contains extensive behavior which might be
considered female spectrum. These terms are meant to represent a totality of the trait based
model of gender, rather than a position on the spectrum based model, regardless of the chosen
terminology.
The examples of emotional intelligence included in the analysis relied heavily on
incidences of intimacy. The male protagonists ability to relate to members of the opposite sex
or non-hegemonic male type supporting characters defines his aptitude in this arena. Male

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antagonists ability to do so was also coded and quantified, but occurred with significantly less
frequency than the alternative.
Incidences quantified under the heading of agency included virtually all such times at
which a male character operated in a manner not dictated situationally. This was a difficult
metric to follow, as many supporting characters often appeared to do just that. However, when
the incidences were reduced to times at which actions and reactions to plot devices specifically
drove other characters to act or react, it became clear that two things were true. First, primarily
(but not only) male characters were capable of true agency in each film. Second, only
protagonists and antagonists were truly capable of agency.
The last category, aggression, was the most typically male attribute listed by trait oriented
gender scholars, and the most typical attribute exhibited by heroes and villains in the studied
films. The willingness to commit, and the competency exhibited at committing, acts of violence
strongly differentiated male and female characters in all of the movies. It also strongly
differentiated hegemonic and non-hegemonic male characters. It seems clear that, in the arena of
western genre films, the ability to commit these acts of violence is deeply embedded with the
ability to exhibit agency. Many of the plot devices which were driven by character action were
also driven by the commitment of some extreme act of violence.
Take a drink, kid Theme 1: Emotional Intelligence
A Fistful of Dollars (1964) is a somewhat unusual film in that it has no real love
interest. The preeminent female character in the movie is married to a man who is not the
protagonist, and shows no real interest in the protagonist. She is effectively driven by
stereotypically female incentives. That is, she has been involuntarily separated from her

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children. She might be thus interpreted as a mother archetype. The protagonist, an unnamed
stranger played by Clint Eastwood, is drawn to her not out of some romantic ideation but
because she is in distress. To the extent that this inclination demonstrates the ability to relate
emotionally and empathetically with another human being, this is a demonstration of emotional
intelligence. The fact that it requires such a stretch to link this inclination to emotional
intelligence is an indication of how little emotional intelligence the protagonist requires by virtue
of his status as an avatar of masculinity.
The immediate sequel to this film, For a Few Dollars More (1965), changes the
paradigm significantly. It doubles it, in fact. There are two primary protagonists, played by
Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. Both retain their archetypically masculine identities
throughout, but Lee Van Cleefs Mortimer bears a striking difference from Eastwoods Manco.
He is motivated by fraternal love. His quest for vengeance is on behalf of a female character
seen in flashbacks. Manco, conversely, is seeking effectively the same goal for the potential
monetary reward. This said, there is a major thematic difference between this and this first film
for Eastwoods character (presumably the same character from the first film). Where in A
Fistful of Dollars all of his actions are predicated upon opportunity cost, in A Few Dollars
More some of them are based upon loyalty. During the climactic gun battle at the end of the
film, he gives his gun belt to Van Cleef after neutralizing an unfair advantage previously held by
the main antagonist. Some interpretations of western films concentrate on the phallic symbolism
of the handgun, so this act might represent a subtle subversion of heteronormative tropes in
western films. Even if the action is taken at face value, it is an example of a hegemonic male
giving away something integral to his identity. This action represents a relatively high degree of
emotional intelligence, given the ideal type being presented.

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The third film in the immediate series is the widest ranging and epic in nature. The
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) represents the culmination of the Man With No Name
opus. It both furthers the pattern of the first two films, by expanding the cast of protagonists to
three, and muddies it, by reducing the difference between protagonist and antagonist. There is,
in effect, no clear antagonist in the film. In terms of demonstrations of emotional intelligence,
this film is something of a desert. There are no female characters which play important roles
within the film, so the already archetypally masculine threesome runs somewhat amok. Quite
possibly the only thing that might conceivably be counted as an act of friendship or empathy
occurs at the end of the film, when Eastwood shoots an enemys hanging rope before he actually
expires.
The Unforgiven (1992), as is likely to be the pattern forthwith, is the odd man out.
There are numerous examples of emotional intelligence depicted within this film. Clint
Eastwoods William Munny is deeply attached to a dead wife throughout the film. He is also
drawn to a prostitute who has been brutally assaulted, the incident which triggers the action in
the film. In addition, he is very close to both an old friend portrayed by Morgan Freeman and a
young companion portrayed by Jaimz Woolvett. His impetus for actually becoming a part of the
plot is obligation to his surviving family, two young children. In essence, he is portrayed as
being both haunted by his violent past and completely capable of making firm and meaningful
connections with people in the present. He displays a high level of emotional intelligence. He is
also incredibly, and increasingly throughout the film, stoic. There are few incidences in which
the character dialogues more than is absolutely necessary.
This is the essential contradiction beneath the theme of emotional intelligence.
Eastwoods characters could all, presumably, be like William Munny. That is, seething with

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empathy and emotion beneath the surface. Only in The Unforgiven (1992) are we given a
more holistic view of the protagonist.
All I can tell you is whos gonna be last Theme 2: Agency
The Dollar trilogy represents agency about the same way across the board.
Protagonists, who are all male, have it exclusively. All other characters are either reactive, in the
case of antagonists, or inactive, in the case of secondary individuals. The only possibly
exceptions are off screen activities of antagonists that precipitate the plot. For instance,
Mortimers involvement in A Few Dollars More (1965) is so precipitated by the murder of his
sister by the antagonist. Every incident of initiative, the exemplifying attribute of agency, is
committed by Eastwoods characters in the three films. In A Fistful of Dollars (1964), he
begins the film by shooting four men and inadvertently unbalancing a war between two rival
criminal entities. In A Few Dollars More (1965), he causes each stage of the action to proceed
by manipulating both his supporting protagonist, Mortimer, and the antagonist. In The Good,
the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), he initially causes the vendetta that precedes the treasure hunt
around which the movie focuses by betraying an unethical business partner.
In The Unforgiven (1992), however, agency is largely distributed. A fairly minor
character, killed during the course of the film, instigates the action by mutilating a prostitute.
The primary antagonist exacerbates this offence by failing to institute a fair and egalitarian
punishment, which forces the girls friends and coworkers to exhibit agency of their own. They
entice gunmen to take revenge on the mutilator on their behalf with money. The protagonist, if
one is to accept these two events as the primary exhibitions of agency in the film, is mostly
reactive rather than active. He does eventually reverse this paradigm. At the end of the film,
rather than reacting to the series of events begun by the bounty and culminating in the death of

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his close friend, he chooses to become an active player. He attacks and murders a significant
portion of the residents of the town in which the story mostly takes place.
Deserves got nothing to do with it Theme 3: Aggression.
This analysis would never end if every incidence of aggression in every film was
detailed. In the interest of being succinct, a description of the beginning and end of each film
should provide the necessary information. A Fistful of Dollars (1964) begins with the callous
killing of four men by the protagonist, and ends with a showdown between the same and the
most equally hegemonically male antagonist. A Few Dollars More (1965) begins with the
callous killing of a nameless stranger by the secondary protagonist, and ends with a showdown
between the same and the most equally hegemonically male antagonist. The Good, the Bad,
and the Ugly (1966) begins with the main antihero firing a rifle towards a secondary antihero,
for the purposes of freeing him from a noose, and ends with the same. These incidences bracket,
of course, the main protagonist committing a callous murder and then engaging in a showdown
with his most hegemonically masculine equals. The Unforgiven (1992) begins with the brutal
mutilation of a prostitute by a drunken cowboy, and ends with the brutal massacre of perhaps a
dozen townsfolk.
The mentioned incidences arent, in most cases, the most extreme examples of aggression
displayed by male characters in these respective films. The incentive that provokes the violence
differ from film to film, but more often than not it is financial rather than emotional. In the first
of the Dollars series, the initial series of killings is provoked by a joke. The short lived
antagonists make a jape about Clint Eastwoods characters mule, and that is sufficient to seal
their doom. It is worth mentioning that the word callous is not used hyperbolically. Eastwoods
immediate reaction to killing four people in that film is to make a joke to the undertaker.

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CONCLUSIONS
There is a tendency to view the representations of masculinity in older films as essentially
old fashioned. This is a view that ignores both the continuity of social ideal types through
history and their ability to evolve. We are both not very different at all and very different indeed
from our predecessors for whom the Dollars series was made. Given the similarities and
differences between that series and its follow up, The Unforgiven (1992), several conclusions
can be made regarding the three thematic elements of masculinity represented in the films.
First, representations of masculinity in western films include low levels of emotional
intelligence. Even when it is clearly present, it is not clearly expressed. Therefore, it is an
accident of narration when the viewer becomes aware of it, not a relevant plot artifact. Western
movies would have us view men as people who may or may not feel things, but never let their
feelings drive their actions regardless.
Agency is, as mentioned, a difficult thing for which to establish a metric. It involves a
significant amount of narrative, as well as character, analysis. That said, even in the latest of the
four films wherein the protagonist was most strongly reactive, the active periods for him were
more significant than those for any other character. Cowboy films establish both masculinity as
a prerequisite for agency and agency as a prerequisite for masculinity. It is important, within the
boundaries of this archetype for men to not only be significant forces within their own universes,
but to be the most potent and important force on the dramaturgical stage at any given time.
Violence is, without a doubt, the most obvious indicator that western genre films portray
a demonstrably hegemonic iconography of masculinity. Within them, you simply cannot be a
man unless you are not only capable of committing acts of violence, but possessing of an almost

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otherworldly competence in their commitment. Men are represented in these films as

caricatures, but to varying purpose. In the Dollars series, the depictions of violence are
arguably elevated. It is, to put it into poetic terms, heros work. In The Unforgiven (1992), it
is almost disgusting. Even the character who is most capable of inhabiting the archetype seems
to find that capability repulsive.

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REFERENCES
Connell, R. W. 2005. Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking The Concept. Gender and
Society 19(6):82959.
Eastwood, Clint, Clint Eastwood, and David Webb Peoples. 1992. Unforgiven. Warner Bros.
Erisman, Fred. 2000. CLINT EASTWOOD'S WESTERN FILMS AND THE EVOLVING
MYTHIC HERO. Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies (HJEAS) 6(2):12943.
Eschholz, Sarah. 2001. Crime In the Movies: Investigating the Efficacy of Measures of Both
Sex and Gender for Predicting Victimization and Offending in Film. Sociological
Forum 16(4):65576.
Hickey, Ann Marie. 2001. Reaction To R. W. Connell's Understanding Men: Gender
Sociology and the New International Research on Masculinities. Social Thought &
Research 24(1/2, The Politics of Gender):3335.
Kamir, Orit. 2006. Honor And Dignity in the Film Unforgiven: Implications for Sociolegal
Theory. Law & Society Review 40(1):193233.
Keller, James R. 2008. Brokeback Mountain: Masculinity And Manhood. Studies in Popular
Culture 30(2):2136.
Leone, Sergio. 1964. A Fistful Of Dollars.
Leone, Sergio. 1965. For a Few Dollars More.
Leone, Sergio. 1966. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Produzioni Europee Associate.

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Morris, Edward W. 2012. 5: Rednecks And Rutters: Rural Masculinity and Class Anxiety.
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Rice, Tom W. 1995. Gender Role Attitudes In the Southern United States. Gender and
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Wilkinson, Karen. 1985. An Investigation Of the Contribution of Masculinity to Delinquent
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