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OATER (OH-tuhr)

A movie or television show about cowboys and frontier life
Common clues: Western; Grade-B western;
Shoot-'em-up; Horse opera; Any Roy Rogers flick; Film with a stage?
Crossword puzzle frequency: 2 times a year
Video:
John Wayne Is The Last Shootist


Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid – John Wayne


The Western is an American genre in literature and film. Westerns are art works – films, literature, television and radio shows, sculpture (particularly that by Frederic Remington), and paintings – devoted to telling stories set in the 19th Century American West (and sometimes Mexico, Canada or the Australian Outback, during the same time period), with the setting occasionally portrayed in a romanticized light.



Justus D. Barnes, from The Great Train Robbery


The popular perception of the Western is a movie that centers on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or a gunfighter, whose possessions include a canteen; period clothing that might include a large Stetson hat, a bandana, spurs and buckskins; a revolver or rifle; and a saddle, but not necessarily a horse. The horse itself, the "faithful steed", can be a major character in the story.


The technology of the era – such as the telegraph, printing press, and railroad – may be evident, usually symbolizing the imminent end of the frontier. In some "late Westerns", such as The Wild Bunch, the motor car and even the aero plane are referenced. Weapons technology is very evident and a recurring theme is the merit of the latest piece of "hardware", be it a repeating rifle produced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company or a Colt Single Action Army handgun.


The Western takes these elements and uses them to tell simple morality tales, usually set against the spectacular scenery of the American West. Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in a desert-like landscape. Specific settings include isolated forts, ranches and homesteads; the Native American village; or the small frontier town with its saloon, general store, livery stable and jailhouse. Apart from the wilderness, it usually the saloon that emphasizes that this is the "Wild West": it is the place to go for music (raucous piano playing), girls (often prostitutes), gambling (poker or five card stud), drinking (beer or whiskey), brawling and shooting.



This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Western (genre)".