Episode 2: The Real Wild West: Hollywood's Favorite Historical Playground

Alex Calder examines how Hollywood transformed a brief, complex period of American frontier history into an enduring mythology that bears little resemblance to historical reality. The episode contrasts Hollywood's mythic West of dramatic gunfights and rugged individualism with the historical frontier's diverse population, strict gun regulations, economic motivations, and complex relationships with Native American nations. Alex explores how this mythology developed through dime novels, Wild West shows, and thousands of films, becoming a framework for American identity that continues to influence politics, international perceptions of American character, and cultural values. Through revealing the stark differences between Hollywood's West and historical reality, the episode demonstrates how entertainment can create powerful cultural memories that overshadow actual history while serving contemporary political narratives about American character values.

This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Um picture this a dusty main street in a frontier town.
Tummilweed's roll by as two men face each other, hands
hovering over their six shooters. The clock strikes noon in

(00:22):
a flash, both draw their weapons, but only one man
is left standing when the smoke clears. This iconic scene
has played out in hundreds of Western films and television shows.
It's probably the first image that comes to mind when
you think of the wild West. It's also almost entirely fictional.
Welcome to history, rewritten the myths we believe about the past.

(00:47):
I'm Alex Calder. In our last episode, we explored how
quotes are misattributed to historical figures who never said them. Today,
we're saddling up to examine how Hollywood transformed a brief,
complex period of American frontier history into one of the
most enduring mythologies in our culture, a mythology that bears

(01:09):
surprisingly little resemblance to historical reality. The Wild West, as
most Americans imagine it, that lawless frontier of cowboys, gunfightights,
stagecoach robberies, and Indian raids is largely a creation of
twentieth century entertainment. It's a bit like believing medieval Europe

(01:30):
was exactly as portrayed in Game of Thrones, minus the dragons.
The real American West was simultaneously more mundane and more
complex than the version that's been burned into our collective
consciousness through thousands of films, TV shows, and pulp novels.
Let's start with one of the most iconic elements of

(01:52):
Western mythology, the gun fight. Those dramatic high noon showdowns
with two gunslingers facing each other in the middle of
the street, drawing and firing in the blink of an eye.
They almost never happened. Historian Robert Dickstra spent years studying
homicide records in famous cattle towns like Dodge City, Abilene,

(02:14):
and Wichita during their supposed heyday of violence. What did
he find. Dodge City, perhaps the most notorious of the
violent frontier towns, averaged just one point five homicides per
year in its wildest period. In fact, many frontier towns
had stricter gun control laws than we have in much
of America today. Visitors to Dodge City in the eighteen

(02:38):
seventies were greeted with a sign reading the carrying of
firearms strictly prohibited in Whichita, Kansas, you had to check
your guns with the police when entering town. Tombstone, Arizona,
sight of the famous Ok Corral shootout, had ordinances prohibiting
carrying firearms within city limits. The iconic shootout itself was

(03:02):
actually an attempt by lawmen to enforce these gun control
regulations against men who were violating them. As for those
face to face quick draw duels, historians have found almost
no evidence they ever occurred. The few real shootouts that
did happen were usually chaotic, drunken affairs where accuracy was
an afterthought. The romanticized quick draw artists is about as

(03:26):
historically accurate as believing Renaissance artists were actually teenage mutant
ninja turtles. So where did this mythology come from? It
began surprisingly early, with dime novels published while the Frontier
was still being settled. Writers like Ned Buntline were creating
sensationalized accounts of the West even as it was developing.

(03:50):
Bunt lines wildly exaggerated stories about Bufflo, Bill Cody and
wild Bill Hiccock established a template for Western fiction that
valued excitement over accuracy. William Buffalo Bill Cody took this
myth making to another level with his famous Wild West Show,
which toured America and Europe from eighteen eighty three to

(04:10):
nineteen thirteen. Buffalo Bill had been a real frontier scout
and bison hunter, but his theatrical show, featuring staged Indian attacks,
sharp shooting exhibitions, and re enactments of famous battles, blurred
the line between history and entertainment. It was essentially historical
fan fiction performed for audiences by some of the actual participants,

(04:33):
who were now incentivized to make their own lives seem
more dramatic and heroic than they had actually been. European
audiences were particularly enthralled by these shows, which is one
reason why Western mythology has such international appeal. German writer
Karl May produced immensely popular Western novels despite having never

(04:55):
visited America before writing them. His books featuring the Say
warrior Winnedu in his White Blood Brother Old Shatter Hand,
sold millions of copies and shaped European perceptions of the
American frontier for generations. The invention of film brought Western
mythology to new heights. The Great Train Robbery of nineteen

(05:17):
oh three, one of the first narrative films ever made
was a Western. From that point on, the genre became
a staple of American cinema. During the nineteen twenties through
the nineteen fifties, westerns could account for up to thirty
percent of all Hollywood films produced in a given year.
John Ford, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood. These filmmakers and actors

(05:41):
didn't just portray the West, they created our collective memory
of it. So what was the real West like if
not a constant series of gunfights and Indian raids. First,
it was far more diverse than Hollywood traditionally portrayed. Approximately
one third of cowboys were black or Mexican. The word
cowboy itself is a direct translation of Vaciero, highlighting the

(06:06):
Hispanic origins of American cattle ranching. Chinese workers were crucial
to building the Transcontinental Railroad. Native American nations weren't the
homogeneous group of tippey dwelling, horse riding warriors depicted in films,
but hundreds of distinct cultures with different languages, governance, structures,

(06:26):
and ways of life, many of which didn't involve horses
or tippies at all. Women in the real West weren't
limited to being schoolmarms, prostitutes, or farmers wives in need
of rescue. Women ran businesses, owned property, and played significant
roles in settling the frontier. Wyoming Territory granted women the

(06:48):
right to vote in eighteen sixty nine, a full fifty
one years before the nineteen Amendment granted it nationally. This
wasn't because Western men were necessarily more progressive. It was
partly a practical matter of trying to attract more women
to regions with significant gender imbalances, and partly political calculation

(07:10):
as territories sought statehood. The real Frontier was primarily an
economic story, not a story of rugged individualists seeking freedom.
The Transcontinental Railroad, mining operations, cattle ranching, farming. These economic
activities drove Western expansion, supported the massive government investment and

(07:34):
corporate development, the Homestead Act, land grants to railroads, military
campaigns against Native Americans. The federal government was deeply involved
in Western settlement, contradicting the myth of self sufficient pioneers
carving civilization out of wilderness through sheer individual effort. Speaking

(07:55):
of wilderness, much of what European settlers perceived as untamed
nature was actually landscaped that had been actively managed by
Native Americans for thousands of years. Many of the open
meadows and parklands that seemed so inviting to settlers had
been created and maintained through controlled burning practices by indigenous peoples.

(08:19):
The idea of the West as empty land waiting for settlement,
what historians call the myth of the Empty Continent, erased
thousands of years of human habitation and environmental management. The
relationship between settlers and Native Americans was also far more
complex than the simplistic cowboys versus Indians narrative. There were

(08:42):
certainly violent conflicts, but there were also periods of trade, cooperation, intermarriage,
and diplomatic relations. Some native nations allied with settlers against
rival indigenous groups. Others incorporated European technologies and practices while
maintaining their cultural identities. The real story involves adaptation, resistance,

(09:05):
as compromise, and tragedy, not just arrows and cavalry charges.
Even iconic Western figures like Whitet Erp, Billy the Kid,
and Jesse James bore little resemblance to their fictional counterparts.
Erp spent more of his life as a gambler saloon keeper,
and referee for boxing matches than as a lawman. Billy

(09:27):
the Kid killed fewer men than legend attributes to him,
and was as much a participant in a complex political conflict,
the Lincoln County War as a random outlaw. Jesse James,
far from being a Robin Hood figure, was a pro
Confederate guerrilla fighter whose robberies often had political motivations related

(09:48):
to postwar attentions. So why has the mythologized version of
the West persisted so powerfully in American culture despite its
historical inaccuracy. What purpose does this mythology serve? For one thing,
the mythic West provides Americans with a compelling origin story.

(10:09):
In this narrative, the nation's character was forged on the frontier,
where it self, reliance, courage, individualism, and practical ingenuity were
essential survival traits. As historian Frederick Jackson Turner argued in
his famous eighteen ninety three Frontier Thesis, the experience of
continually advancing settlement helped define American democracy and character. The

(10:33):
Western myth took this academic theory and transformed it in
a visceral storytelling that reinforced a particular vision of American identity.
The period of actual frontier expansion was relatively brief, from
roughly the end of the Civil War to about eighteen ninety,
when the US Census declared the frontier closed because settlement

(10:56):
had become sufficiently continuous across the continent. But the mythologizing
of this period began almost immediately and continues to this day.
It's as if ancient Rome had started producing epic films
about Caesar while he was still alive and never stopped
making them. There is something revealing in this instant mythologization.

(11:19):
The Western arrived at a time when America was urbanizing
and industrializing rapidly. As more Americans moved to cities and
worked in factories, the fantasy of open plains and rugged
individualism became increasingly appealing. The Western myth offered a nostalgic
counterpoint to modern industrial life, even as it helped to

(11:41):
justify the very expansion that made that life possible. This
timing also helps explain one of the most historically inaccurate
aspects of Western mythology, its treatment of firearms. In classic westerns,
guns are portrayed as essential tools of survival and justice,
wielded by heroes to protect the innocent and establish order.

(12:05):
The reality, as we've discussed, involved much stricter regulation of
firearms in actual frontier towns than the mythology suggests. This
discrepancy reveals how Western mythology has often been deployed to
support contemporary political positions. The image of the self reliant,
armed citizen defending liberty against tyranny, whether from corrupt local officials,

(12:30):
criminal gangs, or threatening outsiders, resonates with certain strains of
American political thought. The fact that this image is largely
fictional hasn't diminished its rhetorical power. Rais and gender in
Western mythology also reflect the periods when the myths were
created more than the historical reality they purport to represent.

(12:53):
The sidelining of women. This stereotyping of Mexican characters and
the portrayal of Native Americans either savage obstacles to progress
or noble but doomed relics, had more to do with
the social attitudes of early twentieth century filmmakers than with
the diverse reality of the frontier. Hollywood's evolving approach to

(13:14):
Westerns reflects changing American attitudes over time. Early silent Westerns
often portrayed Native Americans as straightforward villains. By the nineteen fifties,
films like Broken Arrow began depicting Native characters with somewhat
more sympathy. The nineteen nineties brought revisionist westerns like Dances

(13:36):
with Wolves and Unforgiven, which critiqued the mythology while still
operating within its framework. More recent films like The Revenant
or News of the World attempt greater historical accuracy while
still maintaining the genre's dramatic appeal. But even these more
nuanced modern westerns operate within a mythological framework established over

(14:00):
century of filmmaking. The Western is less a historical genre
than a set of iconic elements and narrative structures. The outlaw,
the sheriff, the saloon, the showdown. These elements have become
so embedded in American storytelling that they appear in science
fiction think Star Wars or Firefly, corporate dramas, the business

(14:24):
world as the New Frontier, and even superhero films the
lone hero bringing justice to a community. This flexibility is
key to the westerns ensurance. It provides a recognizable framework
for exploring timeless themes justice versus vengeance, civilization versus wilderness,

(14:45):
individual freedom versus community responsibility. The historical inaccuracy doesn't matter
because the Western isn't really about history. It's about American
identity and values expressed through a shared cultural language. But
that doesn't mean the historical inaccuracy is harmless. The mythologized

(15:06):
West has shaped American self perception in ways that can
distort our understanding of our own history and character. The
emphasis on individualism obscures the role of government investment and
collective effort in Western expansion. The marginalization of non white
characters erases the multi cultural reality of frontier society. The

(15:31):
glorification of violent conflict as the primary means of resolving
disputes oversimplifies the complex social negotiations that actually shaped frontier communities.
Perhaps most significantly, the Western myths treatment of Native Americans
has contributed to profound misunderstandings of Indigenous history, culture, and sovereignty.

(15:55):
By portraying Native nations primarily as obstacles to be overcome
in the narrative of American progress, Western mythology helped justify
policies of displacement in the assimilation and cultural suppression that
have had devastating and ongoing consequences for indigenous communities. The
myth of the wild West has also shaped international perceptions

(16:18):
of American character and values. For much of the twentieth century,
people around the world formed their impression of America partly
through westerns. The cowboy became a global shorthand for American identity, independent, resolute,
morally straightforward, and unafraid of necessary violence. This image has

(16:41):
influenced how other nations perceive American foreign policy, sometimes expecting
the US to act as a global sheriff, intervening in
conflicts with clear moral certainty. Domestically, the Western mythology continues
to influence American politics in ways that might surprise the
actual settlers of the frontier. The image of the armed

(17:04):
citizen standing against tyranny bears little resemblance to the strict
gun regulations of real frontier towns. The celebration of rugged
individualism obscures the reality of government supported expansion. The portrayal
of the West as a meritocracy where hard work always
triumphs ignores the roles of corporate power, government policy, and

(17:28):
systemic advantages or disadvantages based on race, gender, and class.
None of this means we should stop enjoying Westerns as entertainment. Unforgiven,
The Searchers, High Noon and countless other Western films are
masterpieces of American cinema, using the gendres conventions to explore

(17:50):
complex themes. The problem isn't the existence of Western mythology,
but the confusion of that mythology with historical reality. Understand
the gap between the mythic West and the historical frontier
doesn't diminish the genre's power. If anything, it makes the
real history more interesting by revealing complexities that the mythology

(18:13):
often flattens. The story of diverse people's negotiating cultural differences,
economic pressures, environmental challenges, and government policies on a constantly
shifting frontier is arguably more fascinating than the simplified morality
tales of traditional Westerns. So what's the takeaway from all

(18:34):
of this? Should we cancel our HBO subscription and spend
our evenings reading academic histories of the American West instead,
though honestly some of those are pretty fascinating. Not necessarily,
but we should approach Western mythology with unawareness of its
constructed nature and the purpose is it has served in

(18:57):
American culture? Recognize using the mythology doesn't mean rejecting it entirely.
Myths are powerful precisely because they express deeper truths about
how societies see themselves, even when they're historically inaccurate. The
Western myth speaks to genuine American values and aspirations justice, independence, courage, community.

(19:23):
The problem comes when we mistake these mythic representations for
historical reality, using them to justify contemporary positions without understanding
their fictional nature. For instance, when politicians invoke the Wild
West to argue against gun regulations, they are drawing on mythology,
not history. When commentators describe the frontier as a triumph

(19:47):
of individual initiative without government interference, they're contradicting the historical
record of substantial federal involvement in Western expansion. When we
conceptualize American identity primarily through the lens of the mythologized cowboy,
we're excluding the diverse experiences that actually shaped our national character.

(20:09):
A more nuanced understanding of frontier history doesn't require abandoning
the Western genre's pleasures. It might even enhance them by
allowing us to appreciate both the artistry of the mythology
and the complexity of the reality it reimagines. We can
enjoy Tombstone while knowing the actual Ok Corral shootout lasted

(20:31):
about thirty seconds and was messier and more politically complicated
than any film portrayal. We can appreciate John Wayne's performances
while recognizing that real frontier figures resembled him about as
much as real spy has resemble James Bond. The next
time you watch a Western, try playing a little game

(20:52):
identify the elements that reflect Hollywood convention rather than historical reality.
Notice how characters speak indistinctly twentieth century idioms and embodied
twentieth century values. Observe how the towns appear much more
developed than most real frontier settlements would have been. Pay

(21:13):
attention to the background characters, who would likely have been
much more diverse in reality. This kind of viewing doesn't
diminish the film's entertainment value. It adds an extra layer
of appreciation for how mythology is constructed and maintained. Meanwhile,
if you're interested in the real frontier experience, there's a

(21:34):
wealth of historical work that paints a much more nuanced
picture than Hollywood ever has. Historians like Patricia Nelson, Limerick
Richard White, and Roxanne don bar Ortis have transformed our
understanding of Western history by exploring perspectives and experiences long
marginalize in both academic and popular accounts. Their work doesn't

(21:59):
replace the medict but enriches our understanding of the actual
historical processes that the mythology reimagines. The American West was
never as simple as Hollywood portrayed. It wasn't just heroes
and villains, civilization versus savagery, or individual courage triumphing over wilderness.

(22:20):
It was a complex convergence of cultures, economies, environments, and
political forces that shaped American development in profound ways. That
complexity doesn't fit neatly into a two hour film or
a political SoundBite, but it's essential to understanding our national development.
The mythic West has given us some of our most

(22:42):
enduring cultural touchstones, from John Wayne to Clint Eastwood, from
High Noon to Deadwood, but the historical West gave us
something perhaps more valuable, a case study in how diverse
people's negotiates shared space and resources, how cultures adapt and
resist change, how economic forces shape human movement and settlement,

(23:07):
and how narratives of progress often obscure complex realities of
displacement and exploitation. Both versions of the West have something
to teach us. The myth speaks to our aspirations and
self image. The history offers lessons about the actual development
of American society. The key is not to confuse one

(23:30):
for the other. In our next episode, we'll examine how
World War Two, a conflict filled with moral complexity, uncomfortable compromises,
and troubling actions on all sides, was transformed into America's
Good War, a simplified narrative of moral clarity that continues
to shape our understanding of both that conflict and America's

(23:53):
role in the world. Until then, Remember, the West wasn't
nearly as wild as Hollywood would have you believe. But
the real story is no less fascinating for being more complicated.
History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, and sometimes what we
think is the rhyme is actually just an echo of
a story we've told ourselves so many times that we've forgotten.

(24:15):
It isn't exactly true. Quiet, please dot Ai hear what
matters