The alpha male cowboy and his sidekick in Unforgiven display characteristics that are common in revisionist westerns. However, they are depicted as men who are very different from the ones we usually see in classic westerns.
Clint Eastwood, who is William Munny and also the alpha male cowboy in this movie, is a very morally questionable character. The revisionist westerns are casting alpha male cowboys in this light of crudeness. Munny admits to being drunk at the time of all his killings, and that already casts him into a bad light. In this western, we see an alpha male cowboy who clearly has flaws. He doesn’t protect a town, like the other alpha males in the westerns that we have seen, but rather he uses it. The revisionist western takes everything to a new level, where the alpha male doesn’t feel obligated to wait for a man to be armed in order to shoot him. This is clearly shown in the shootout in the saloon, where Munny shot five men without thinking twice. This scene was also very dark and took place on a rainy day, which displays revisionism. We no longer see men fighting out in the open sun, but now the violence takes place in the dark saloon on a rainy day. The new revisionist way of looking at the alpha male cowboy may be seen as a better way of interpreting the Old West or just as a critique of the classic Westerns. One thing is for sure, Munny is a different sort of alpha male cowboy. We see him in the beginning of the movie, as an ex-alpha male cowboy, who has a family and doesn’t kill anymore. This very aspect of the movie is making the audience see a different sort of alpha male. The alpha male cowboy who we see in this revisionist western is a critique of the alpha males we see in classic westerns.
Furthermore, we see a new type of sidekick in Unforgiven. Ned Logan, who is played by Morgan Freeman, is an African- American man. At several times throughout the movie, Logan is seen as equal to Munny. Munny seems to truly care about him and treats him like a partner, not as inferior or a sidekick. The revisionist western brings in the acknowledgement of another race, unlike classic westerns that only had people of other races as background. However, in this revisionist western, the white man is still the center. We also see how racial discrimination still exists, even in 1992, which is when the film was made. Logan was the only African American man in the movie, but he was also the only one who was brutally beaten and killed. Unfortunately, we can see that there is still some racial tension even into the nineteen nineties. We can see an African American man in a new light, as an important part of the movie, which is already a drastic change in the Western film genre.
This movie really brings about a lot of different issues. It was made in 1992, but still displays the racism and discrimination that still existed in the United States. It is almost as if the filmmaker is trying to say, "Look. We have not solved the whole civil rights issue!". This is very interesting to think about, because I thought that by 1992, all the racial issues were resolved. Furthermore, we see a lot of violence in this western. The alpha male cowboy that we are used to seeing in the traditional western is very violent and driven by the need for money. This just goes to show that he isn't just a hero who needs to make justice anymore. The alpha male cowboy is just interested in doing what he has to do and getting paid for it. This aspect of looking at the Western makes us think about what that says about Americans at the time. It means that this country was moving in the direction of being money-hungry. Unforgiven really displays the problems that America was facing still in the 1990s.
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