The authenticity paradox and the Western

Abstract

Can authenticity be claimed for the Western genre when in Baudrillardian (1994) terms it is its own simulacrum? Despite this authenticity paradox, the Western genre continues to be a draw for film and television/streaming services’ storytellers and directors. When America wants to tell stories about itself, the Western’s allegorical power is harnessed. Keats’ notion of “negative capability” is used to explain how the genre works with its own reel/real contradictions. Focusing on the use of landscape as place and metaphor with an appeal through cinematography to the American Sublime, two contemporary Westerns—The Lone Ranger (Verbinski, 2012) and Hostiles (Cooper, 2017)—are explored in detail to examine how this authenticity paradox is played out. Both films make claims for authenticity, but like many other contemporary westerns the touchstone for this authenticity is not just historical research but a close approximation to the canonical Westerns of the past including The Searchers (Ford, 1956) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (Eastwood, 1976). What role does the genre’s true lies still have to play in national and international myth-making for the current generation?