History Summarized: The Wild West

Articles referenced — Because Gun Control and Black Cowboys sound incredulous on paper so I can see why you wouldn't believe me but it's real and there's tons of proof:

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[OverlySarcasticProductions]

If you really want to see the Spaghetti Western taken to the next level, check out "Bang!"
It's a tabletop game so enthusiastically Spaghetti Western in tone, the cards are all written in Italian.

What's your favorite bit of Wild West pop culture? No wrong answers!

[ZZRose-xkss]

plot twist: this big enough for the both of us

[HyruleSwordsman]

In my opinion, the archetype of a cowboy is popular for the same reason the archetypal pirate is popular: They both represent strong individualism in a harsh environment, with only your wits and your trusty sidearm to get by. The historical inaccuracy, and it does pain me to say this as a historian, is irrelevant. The idea of the archetype speaks to something instinctual, the desire to go out and make it on our own has a more lasting impact on the collective consciousness than what being a cowboy was actually like. Not that that doesn't make the archetype dangerous if not viewed with a grain of salt.

[daltonfilho]

Tbh RDR2 (and even RDR1) breaks away from a lot of those misconceptions, the cast of protagonists is really diverse, the native American genocide, racism, sexism and xenophobia are all addressed, gun violence is shunned down by the law, there's a lot of emphasis on farms, ranches and cattle, and it is said multiple times (using side quests, Arthur's journal and Dutch's speeches) that the vision they have of a "wild west" is pure fantasy, there were no heroes and the government was always there. In RDR1 there are even cattle herding missions and an achievement called "Manifest Destiny" that you unlock after killing all the 20 bisons in the game, to reference the bison extinction caused by the US government.

[cyancyborg]

A nocturnal cowboy once said, "It's high moon."

[codeofclaw]

The old west cowboy is just the American version of the British medieval knight.

[ianplocki]

The first lesson every film student learns in film history: Edison was an asshole.

[BLP]

In my opinion, RDR2 is the perfect example of being in the fine line between historical accuracy and dumb fun

[kevinsullivan]

Mammoth Arizona in the early 1900s was everything you see in a Spaghetti Western. Mining town, more bars than Churches, or any other businesses, cowboys riding into town armed and looking for a good time, riverboats and riverboat gamblers, and gun fights in the streets on a regular basis. Some areas of the Wild West were actually Wild.

[Obi-Wan_Kenobi]

*"Luke, you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.”*

[thevioletlightning]

God, Ennio Morricone's music is so ludicrously good.

[JM-bbxi]

I'm surprised you didn't talk about the Mexican American War more.

[afrikasmith]

I see the Wild West myth as a Fable instead of a misleading stereotype.

[Volper]

On the gun control thing, true. But it was very specific. “No one’s saying you can’t own a gun. You just can’t bring your gun in town.” To quote a great western. Guns were legal, necessary and largely unregulated.

[ZombieChimpanzee]

I imagine Edison just staring with some big binoculars at Hollywood like "damn, it's too far away. I'll get them eventually." or like the grinch.

[terrybullspellr]

There was gun control in the west...so r u saying that there wasn't a gunfight scheduled every high noon? If they didn't do that then how they figure out what time it was?

[deathbower]

"Literal Decimation" - no. Decimation means one in ten is killed.
For the natives, one in ten SURVIVED.

[hanyuu]

We're here to appreciate the accurate history of the Wild, Wild, West. But I'm mystified over Blue getting off the chair

[JhonFlynn]

I actually ended up doing a ton of research on the Wild West for a game I ran a while back and I came to a realization:
The reason why the Wild West had this mythological, almost legendary status appear that tells wild tales of wild men and their lives despite this seemingly not actually being the case is because of a very interesting circumstance:
Wild Bill, Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Seth Bullock, Calamity Jane, and nearly all of the other Heroes and fabled figures of the Wild West were all alive and active during one specific time period: the years between 1870 and 1890. Many of them would die in this time period too. So, while the Wild West itself never actually existed as the movies and dime novels would have us believe, there was a fleeting moment: a single lifetime of a mere 20 years, when it really did. All these movies and stories of the cowboys and their adventures actually happened in a very narrow time frame between when the west was first getting settled and when the Federal Government was actually able to exert control over the frontier and bring about law & order.
Naturally, with so many huge figures of the era all living in a single slice of time for that era, that's the specific time frame that got immortalized due to their doings, and thus it's the one that most of the world knows due to its impact on popular culture then and now.

[apollooxygentank]

Hey, nitpick - a lot of the Spaghetti Westerns were made by Italians in Spain, not Italy. It's got really nice Western-y landscapes. If I remember correctly the entire Dollars Trilogy was shot there.