My dad is a big fan of westerns, and he had a lot to say about anger in westerns and about Cowboys & Aliens. According to him, heroes in westerns (at least in the ones he thinks are good) tend not to get angry very often, and when they do, it usually leads to the climax of the film. Then he made my mother laugh when he said that in C&A, Harrison Ford seems to be channeling John Wayne at times; he's always irritated by something, but it's clear that he has power. Dad said I should watch El Dorado (and maybe I will).
My mom came up with an example of Daniel Craig being like John Wayne, and this one I had seen, because it's in The Quiet Man, which she watches every St. Patrick's Day. She reminded me about how John Wayne gets angry with Maureen O'Hara, but doesn't show real anger in front of men until near the end of the film. This seems like the scene in Cowboys & Aliens that I mentioned in my last post, now that I think about it.
So, what I got out of this discussion is that, for men in westerns at least, showing anger in front of men makes you look weak unless it's a rare occurrence. And that's helpful. I wasn't happy with how I wrote about Doc, but from this new viewpoint I think I can do a better job. Doc does come off as weak, because he is angry all of the time, but he can't do anything about it. He's powerless, and it's not until he's gone through the experience of going after the aliens to get his wife back that he becomes strong enough to have some self-respect.
Time to start revising.
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