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Sixguns and Society: A Structural Study of the Western, by Will Wright
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From the Preface:The purpose of this book is to explain the Western's popularity. While the Western itself may seem simple (it isn't quite), an explanation of its popularity cannot be; for the Western, like any myth, stands between individual human consciousness and society. If a myth is popular, it must somehow appeal to or reinforce the individuals who view it by communicating a symbolic meaning to them. This meaning must, in turn, reflect the particular social institutions and attitudes that have created and continue to nourish the myth. Thus, a myth must tell its viewers about themselves and their society. This study, which takes up the question of the Western as an American myth, will lead us into abstract structural theory as well as economic and political history. Mostly, however, it will take us into the movies, the spectacular and not-so-spectacular sagebrush of the cinema. Unlike most works of social science, the data on which my analysis is based is available to all of my readers, either at the local theater or, more likely, on the late, late show. I hope you will take the opportunity, whenever it is offered, to check my findings and test my interpretations; the effort is small and the rewards are many. And if your wife, husband, mother, or child asks you why you are wasting your time staring at Westerns on TV in the middle of the night, tell them firmly--as I often did--that you are doing research in social science.
- Sales Rank: #114284 in Books
- Published on: 1977-09-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .63" w x 6.00" l, .64 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 232 pages
From the Inside Flap
"In this structural study of the Western, sociologist Will Wright proposes that a clear pattern of change and development in the financially successful Western films of the last 40 years correlates with basic changes in American society. Applying structural analysis to Western plots, Wright distinguishes four historical periods of the sound Western . . . A highly intellectual and sophisticated presentation, the book should appeal to film enthusiasts as well as to critics, historians, and theoreticians. It may very well become a classic in film literature." --Choice " ... Has the great merit of showing lucidly how westerns (and by implication other films and other forms of popular entertainment) offer versions of social thought, that is, are not merely reflections of prejudice or fantasy but are narrative vehicles for the display and displacement of what worries us. 'Myths and traditions,' Wright says, echoing Levi-Strauss, 'are not opposed to reason but are forms of reasoning.' "--New York Review of Books "Will Wright has done an impressive job of making structuralism available to Americans in a sophisticated and ingenious book that will be of interest to pop culturists, film critics, students of median and communications, social scientists, and all those interested in westerns . . . Wright studied the top-grossing western films from 1930 to 1972 and as the result of his syntagmic analysis found that there are four basic plots in these films: the classical plot, the transition theme, the vengeance variation and the professional plot. Furthermore, he has found an evolutionary movement from the classical plot to the professional plot that corresponds to what he asserts to be a change in American society ... It is a stimulating adventure to follow Wright as he wanders in this so-called virgin land of the American imagination. Like the gunslinger of old, he is willing to pick fights with anyone from the venerable Henry Nash Smith to the master, Levi-Strauss himself." --Journal of Communication
About the Author
Dr. Will Wright is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Colorado State University. Before joining the faculty at CSU-P in 1986, he taught at several universities including the University of California, Northwestern University, Wesleyan University, and the University of Arizona. Dr. Wright, who was formerly the chair of the sociology department, has written four major books The Wild West: The Mythical Cowboy and Social Theory, Sage Publications, 2001, Wild Knowledge: Science, Language, and Social Life in a Fragile Environment, University of Minnesota Press, 1992, The Social Logic of Health, (with new Introduction) Wesleyan University Press, 1994, (First edition: Rutgers University Press, 1982), Sixguns and Society: A Structural Study of the Western, University of California Press, 1975. Dr. Wright’s Sixguns and Society is widely considered a classic in its field and despite its publication over 30 years ago remains in print and in the library of every serious student of the Western movie. His work on Westerns is widely cited internationally and his theoretical analysis of the genre is summarized in detail in a number of prominent texts on film and society. Dr. Wright’s scholarly articles on theory, popular culture, and film have appeared in a variety of academic journals including Journal of Popular Film and Television, War, Literature and the Arts, Contemporary Sociology, The Social Text, and New Society. He has also contributed a number of chapters to edited books.
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Three Stars
By Rachel D
Interesting view.....Don't agree with everything, but interesting, none the less!
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Smply Brilliant
By Douglas Steeples
Thirty years ago, while a dean in Colorado, I added Will Wright to the faculty of the College of Liberal and Fine arts at the University of Southern Colorado. This book, his first, promised more outstanding scholarship to come. He filled that promise with zest and insight, setting an example for faculty colleagues as well as students. This is one of the most perceptive works written on the west in U.S. cultural history, a fit companion for Henry Nash Smith's Virgin Land.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
An Intriguing Analysis of the Western Film
By Roger D. Launius
This is an enormously significant and provocative book that deserves sustained consideration by anyone interested in the serious study of the history of film. Will Wright undertakes a structural study of the westerns made by Hollywood from 1930 to 1972, concentrating on the top moneymakers in the genre. He treats westerns as the depiction of myth, occupying space between individual and societal norms. He believes that for these films to be popular they must "appeal to or reinforce the individuals who view it by communicating a symbolic meaning to them" (p. 2). A take-off of the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Wright extends symbolic meaning to represent and reflect the social institutions and attitudes that create and sustain myth. He notes that myth shifts in response to the social world in which it exists. As he explains it: "My argument, then, is that within each period the structure of the myth corresponds to the conceptual needs of social and self understanding required by the dominant social institutions of that period; the historical changes in the structure of myth correspond to the changes in the structure of the dominant institutions" (p. 14).
Less psychological than Lévi-Strauss, Wright uses a tribal myths concept to explore the sociology of the Western film. He creates a typology of the western genre, emphasizing the development of four recurring plot structures that repeat themselves with variations throughout the history of the Western film: classical, vengeance, transitional, and professional. Western films have evolved through these plot structures, and Wright seeks to demonstrate a correlation between the films, their plot lines, and the larger society that embraced them. Offering short plot synopses as examples, Wright then explores the structural meaning of these films. The classical plot is represented in such films as "Shane," and emphasizes the separation of the hero from the society around him and the strength of the individual to aid that society. The vengeance plot of such films as "One Eyed Jacks," a variation of the classical plot, has similar elements but casts the hero outside of society, and never capable of living in it. The transitional plot, such as "High Noon," anticipated new social values while forcing the hero to stand against both evil and the society at large. Finally, the professional plot, such as depicted in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," suggests that companionship comes only in the banding together of skilled groups who sell their services and remain loyal to each other but no others.
Will Wright concludes: "In the sixties and seventies, the traditional conceptual conflict between the idea of society and the idea of the individual has been transformed into a conflict between society and an elite group. This is perhaps one of the most significant consequences of the emergence of capitalist technology as a social and ideological force" (p. 184).
This is an important and provocative book. It has received both praise and criticism for its attempt to place the Western film into this rigid structural analysis. There are good reasons to be skeptical of some of its ideas. There are also very good reasons to accept much of what Will Wright says in this challenging book.
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