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Thursday, July 28, 2011

Heroes, Villains and Society

The Home Fry-ed Movie for July/August 2011 is Angel and the Badman starring John Wayne, rather unconventional western from 1947. The western is Hollywood's most venerable genre, and even though we don't see many of them being made today, the characters and themes developed in the Hollywood western show up in today's action, crime and science fiction films.

During the show I present a pared-down version of Will Wright's classical western plot from his book Six Guns and Society. I thought this might be a good place to give you the whole structure as Wright presented it. First of all, you need to know that classic westerns were all about the interaction between the hero, the villains and society.

(1) The hero enters a social group.
(2) The hero is unknown to the society.
(3) The hero is revealed to have an exceptional ability.
(4) The society recognizes a difference between themselves and the hero; the hero is given a special status.
(5) The society does not completely accept the hero.
(6) There is a conflict of interests between the villains and the society.
(7) The villains are stronger than the society; the society is weak.
(8) There is a strong friendship or respect between the hero and a villain.
(9) The villains threaten the society.
(10) The hero avoids involvement in the conflict.
(11) The villains endanger a friend of the hero.
(12) The hero fights the villains.
(13) The hero defeats the villains.
(14) The society is safe.
(15) The society accepts the hero.
(16) The hero loses or gives up his special status.

The movie that most closely follows Wright's classical plot is Shane, although Shane rides away in the end, bleeding and half-dead, rather than lose his special status.

Other plots described by Wright include these:

The vengeance variation -- The hero is a member of society, but he has harm done to him by the villains, so must go outside society to defeat the villains. (Stagecoach is an example.)

The professional plot -- A group of heroes work together as professionals to defeat the villains. (Rio Bravo)

The transition theme -- Society becomes the ultimate villain to the hero. (High Noon)

To demonstrate how these plots linger in modern movies, think about The Matrix in terms of the classical plot, in which Neo is the hero, Morpheus and his rebels are society and the Agents are the villains. For the vengeance variation, what about Spider-Man, and the professional plot, The X-Men?

Westerns endure!