Western
Western Type of popular fiction and film, native to the USA, featuring ‘cowboys’ and ‘Indians’ in a Wild West setting. It first appeared in the form of short stories and novels in the ‘pulp’ magazines of the late 19th century. Owen Wister's The Virginian (1902) is perhaps the most defining influence on the form, and Zane Grey its most prolific exponent. The Squaw Man (1914), one of the first Hollywood westerns, set a trend for a whole new breed of movie cowboy, such as Tom Mix, Roy Rogers, Buck Jones, and ‘Hopalong Cassidy’. More recent examples of the genre re-evaluated the treatment of Native Americans by settlers.
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NEARBY TERMS
Western
