The Twenty-First-Century Western: New Riders of the Cinematic Stage

Focusing on twenty-first century Western films, including all major releases since the turn of the century, the essays in this volume cover a broad range of aesthetic and thematic aspects explored in these films, including gender and race. As diverse contributors focus on the individual subgenres of the traditional Western (the gunfighter, the Cavalry vs. Native American conflict, the role of women in Westerns, etc.), they share an understanding of the twenty-first century Western may be understood as a genre in itself. They argue that the films discussed here reimagine certain aspects of the more conventional Western and often reverse the ideology contained within them while employing certain forms and clichés that have become synonymous internationally with Westerns. The result is a contemporary sensibility that might be referred to as the postmodern Western.

Douglas Brode, now retired, was the Creator/Coordinator of the Film Classics Program for The Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, USA. He is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright, film historian, multi-award winning journalist, and multi-award winning educator. His previous books include studies of director Steven Spielberg, Shakespeare in the Movies, Star Wars and Star Trek, Walt Disney, the Western genre, and the D.C. Universe, among more than fifty others. Recently, Brode was selected by the Popular Culture Association of America as person of the year for his lifelong list of contributions to the form.

Lynnea Chapman King teaches film and literature at Butler Community College.

Jim Daems teaches in the English Department at the University College of the Fraser Valley, Canada.

Sue Matheson is Full Professor of English at the University College of the North in Manitoba, Canada. She is the author, editor, or co-editor of more than sixty articles and a dozen scholarly volumes specializing in American popular culture and film.

Rosanne Welch is Executive Director of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting, USA. She has TV writing credits on Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, Nightline and Touched by an Angel. Her award-winning publications include When Women Wrote Hollywood (2018) and Women in American History (2017). She has additionally written American Women's History on Film (2023) and The Civil War on Film (2021).