What is the appeal of cowboys?

[Bobular]

So Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming out/out[footnote]I've honestly not been paying attention to it so not sure if its actually out or just YouTubers playing early[/footnote] and suddenly it seams to be everywhere again.

Its got me thinking, why? I played the first game, didn't enjoy it, just the whole cowboy thing seems kind of dull, none of my friends have played it and the only person I know in real life who seams to be interested in it my brother who is only interested because someone else he talks to is overly hyped for it. Yet online its a different story, I've seen loads of articles about it before it came out, loads of discussion, trailers and now reviews so I've got to wonder, is it just an American thing?

Its not just games, I've tried to watch a few cowboy films and I've never actually watched one all the way through because I just got bored with them. I honestly can't see what part of cowboys is supposed to be fun/interesting so I thought I'd ask, why is Red Dead Redemption popular?

 

[Worgen]

Well, an easy answer is because its a Rockstar game and those tend to always be hyped. I'm not sure if its the cowboy theme that sells it as much as the name of the dev house behind it.

 

[Marik2]

From what I've seen, it's because it's one of the few decent cowboy games out there. Most cowboy movies are uninteresting to me, but the landscape and aesthetics are pretty decent.

Red Dead Redemption knows how to make the wild west atmospheric and cozy.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I wish I could tell you.

Like I know why Red Dead Redemption 2 is so hyped. It's the sequel to a beloved game that had a fantastic story to tell, and was all around great, made by Rockstar, who are known for making great games. I totally get why it's hyped up.

But cowboys? No idea.

I'm guessing it's the whole "Back when man was free to explore and the law was in his own hands, and you were measured purely on how much grit and guts you had" fantasy that the wild west has going for it.

Personally, it does nothing for me. A friend was going to run a Deadlands (wild west but with spooky monsters and so on) tabletop campaign a few years back and the only thing that got me on board was the possibility that I'd be able to play as a full on mad scientist making gadgets out of demon rocks. The wild west just ain't for me.

I prefer full on fantasy games where there really CAN be dragons around the corner, or the freedom of open space where anything can happen from any angle, and so on. What I'm saying is, if I'm gonna play escapist fantasy about freedom and "grit", I want the fantasy to be as cool and epic as possible, unconstrained by the real life limitations of the wild west. And at least recent Far Cry games have the decency to throw in rocket launchers, flamethrowers, fragile/explodey vehicles and wacky off the wall plots to spice up the mundane-ness of the real world.

 

[Bobular]

To frame this in terms of Red Dead: Redemption 2 involves replacing ?cowboys? with ?westerns?. It?s a classic American archetype that?s like nothing else. The freedom of an open landscape and a pure sense of purpose before life turned into a chaotic bill paying slog filled with traffic and talking heads telling you how to live every second of every day.

There was a study done recently where they found that people demonstrated significantly better mental health when their commutes home from work involved scenic nature settings vs. buildings and other man made distractions. It?s important to commune with nature at least once in a while as a way to refresh the mind, body and spirit. The Wild West setting is a more specific and somewhat extreme example of this, but that unbridled feeling of a simpler life is often what people - especially stressed out males - crave.

 

[Saelune]

The Wild West is the American folk setting. We don't have the history that Europe, Egypt or Asia has. Cowboys are to the US as Knights are to England and France.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

There's actually very little appeal to cowboys, it's more the appeal of the wild west setting.

Very rarely are "cowboy" movies and games actually about cowboys. They're usually about bounty hunters, law men, gamblers, gunfighters, treasure hunters, bandits, etc. They're almost never about actual cattle farmers.

The reason the wild west has appeal as a setting is that rule of law was fairly minimal in some areas, and order was put into the hands of normal citizens. Everyone was armed, conflict was often settled by a pose, and laws were treated more like guidelines the further away you got from large cities. You can basically take Mad Max, replace the cars with horses, and have a pretty good western with minimal changes.

 

[Dalisclock]

The Wild west are the arch-typical American Fantasy Genre. The idea of heading into the wilderness and surviving against all odds to build something your own, which kinda dovetails with a lot of the appeal of Mideveal European fantasy, except the American West 150 years ago was a lot less built up then Europe was 1000 years ago. There's also particular appeal to stereotypical American culture such as the power of the gun and rugged individualism triumphing above all.

Ironically, Cowboys are rarely focused on in such works because Cowboys were, as the name implies, Ranchers and Cattle herders. Most Westerns tend to focus on gunslingers, which ironically weren't all that prevalent and the famous gunfights that the west is known for are exceptional because they rarely happened.

Unfortunately, it also tends to have the baggage of that West wasn't empty, because other people did live there and those people were royally screwed over by the encroachment of settlers, including Native Americans whose ancestors had already moved west because they've been pushed off their original lands and they were hoping to escape. And then there's the whole "Remember when the Southwest was part of Mexico until we took it from them in a way started for dubious reasons"? Yeah, Manifest Destiny wasn't fun for a lot of people who weren't American settlers.

Whereas European Fantasy usually just uses Always Chaotic Evil Orcs/Goblins as villians which usally don't map to any particular ethic group in that era(unless they're supposed to be stand-ins for the mongols or something) and feels fairly distanced from the real places and events of that period.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Westerns are awesome. If you disagree it's because you're not awesome and you will never be. It's the true truth.

 

[Squilookle]

It reminds me of Scarface- I never got that either but I think both give the audience a glimpse into a situation where they can do pretty much whatever they want and (mostly) get away with it. It's a setting for people who hate cops I guess, idk

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

>>Very rarely are "cowboy" movies and games actually about cowboys. They're usually about bounty hunters, law men, gamblers, gunfighters, treasure hunters, bandits, etc. They're almost never about actual cattle farmers.

This.

Me specifically, I like the Spaghetti Western sub-genre, and RDR takes quite a lot from it.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

I prefer full on fantasy games where there really CAN be dragons around the corner, or the freedom of open space where anything can happen from any angle, and so on. What I'm saying is, if I'm gonna play escapist fantasy about freedom and "grit", I want the fantasy to be as cool and epic as possible, unconstrained by the real life limitations of the wild west. And at least recent Far Cry games have the decency to throw in rocket launchers, flamethrowers, fragile/explodey vehicles and wacky off the wall plots to spice up the mundane-ness of the real world.

Would you take well to a fantasy western ala Deadlands?

 

[Majestic Manatee_v1legacy]

It's the setting not the cowboys. They can be thrown down a dry musty well as far as I'm concerned. The themes of humanity at its' most morally dubious. Tragedy, struggle and suffering throughout. Horrific acts that were all too real conflicting with other people doing the best they can. The vast wilderness and beautiful landscapes hardly touched. Nature is undeniably pleasant and easy to get lost in. It's only worth it when it's not trying to be black and white with its morals and doesn't shy away from the overall horrid behaviour involved, I should clarify. As with all genres, there are plenty of bad examples that do put people off. To focus on it being about cowboys is to assume all sci-fi appeal is about plasma weaponry and Patrick Stewart wearing a dumb sweater.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Would you take well to a fantasy western ala Deadlands?

Hahahaha, dude, I literally mentioned Deadlands in the very same post!

A friend was going to run a Deadlands (wild west but with spooky monsters and so on) tabletop campaign a few years back and the only thing that got me on board was the possibility that I'd be able to play as a full on mad scientist making gadgets out of demon rocks.

So yeah, I only was interested when I found out I could be a goofy mad scientist.

 

[Dalisclock]

>>Very rarely are "cowboy" movies and games actually about cowboys. They're usually about bounty hunters, law men, gamblers, gunfighters, treasure hunters, bandits, etc. They're almost never about actual cattle farmers.

This.

Me specifically, I like the Spaghetti Western sub-genre, and RDR takes quite a lot from it.

True. Those westerns in particular are very, very grey in their morality, especially since very few of the protagonists can be considered heros by any stretch. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly especially is notable for being less about good guys and bad guys and more about three gunslingers willing to do pretty much anything to get a ton of missing cash, and occasionally stuck in the middle of a morally dubious war(The American Civil War).

 

[PapaGreg096]

The Wild West is the American folk setting. We don't have the history that Europe, Egypt or Asia has. Cowboys are to the US as Knights are to England and France.

They're more like Ronin

 

[sXeth]

The Wild west are the arch-typical American Fantasy Genre. The idea of heading into the wilderness and surviving against all odds to build something your own, which kinda dovetails with a lot of the appeal of Mideveal European fantasy, except the American West 150 years ago was a lot less built up then Europe was 1000 years ago. There's also particular appeal to stereotypical American culture such as the power of the gun and rugged individualism triumphing above all.

Ironically, Cowboys are rarely focused on in such works because Cowboys were, as the name implies, Ranchers and Cattle herders. Most Westerns tend to focus on gunslingers, which ironically weren't all that prevalent and the famous gunfights that the west is known for are exceptional because they rarely happened.

Unfortunately, it also tends to have the baggage of that West wasn't empty, because other people did live there and those people were royally screwed over by the encroachment of settlers, including Native Americans whose ancestors had already moved west because they've been pushed off their original lands and they were hoping to escape. And then there's the whole "Remember when the Southwest was part of Mexico until we took it from them in a way started for dubious reasons"? Yeah, Manifest Destiny wasn't fun for a lot of people who weren't American settlers.

Whereas European Fantasy usually just uses Always Chaotic Evil Orcs/Goblins as villians which usally don't map to any particular ethic group in that era(unless they're supposed to be stand-ins for the mongols or something) and feels fairly distanced from the real places and events of that period.

^As he puts it. Its the American (and maybe Australian) mythology. Folklore of a (theoretically) free era with heroes and villains that individually mattered and could shape matters.

Westerns are, in general a pretty idealized and far from historically accurate depictions as much as medieval knights (and samurai/ninja) usually are in media.

Of course, not many tend to break out of a fairly narrow mold of pseudo-realism or small stakes. Which can be an appeal or a negative depending on your taste. Since the US is an offshoot of Europeans, fantastical mythology like Dragons, or Golbins, and the like doesn't really exist within Americana with few exceptions. Similarly, other then maybe a handful of battles with Spain or Mexico, there's no grand-scale epic battles to be waged (or against Native Americans which would be a can of worms to delve into)

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

They're versatile enough as a narrative device that they can inspire an array of filmmakers as talented and diverse as John Ford, Howard Hawkes, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone, Alejandro Jodorowsky, John Carpenter, Quentin Tarantino and the Coens. Cormac McCarthy's written his best novels as Westerns. What's not to like?

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Westerns are awesome. If you disagree it's because you're not awesome and you will never be. It's the true truth.

What if you factor in the fact that if I was placed in those times, I would be less than human, given no rights, and no real way to get Justice, no matter what Django Unchained would have anyone to believe?

Still not awesome?

 

[Something Amyss]

We have a fetish for criminals. Surely, the honourable thief won't come for my money....