Women in the Western - by Sue Matheson (Paperback)

About the Book

Explores the changing roles of women to the Western and offers new approaches to what has been a male-centred genre

Book Synopsis

In Westerns, women transmit complicated cultural coding about the nature of westward expansionism, heroism, family life, manliness and American femininity. As the genre changes and matures, depictions of women have transitioned from traditional to more modern roles. Frontier Feminine charts these significant shifts in the Western's transmission of gender values and expectations and aims to expand the critical arena in which Western film is situated by acknowledging the importance of women in this genre.

From the Back Cover

'In 1992 Jane Tompkins in West Of Everything raised the disturbing question of why there had not been a focus on women in the Western genre when they were obviously such key characters. Thankfully, Women In The Western, with its eighteen articles, selected filmography and two selected bibliographies about film and television Westerns provides the first sustained, scholarly answer to that important question almost thirty years later.' Michael Marsden, St Norbert College As the Western matured, women's roles became more complex and modern - transmitting a subtle cultural coding about the nature of westward expansionism, heroism, family life, manliness and American femininity. In Women in the Western, a range of international scholars explores the changing roles of women in the genre through case studies of classic films like Broken Arrow (1950) and The Searchers (1956), and contemporary films and TV series like Wind River (2017) and Justified (2010-15). Considering traditional and intertextual representations of women in the Western, the book charts the significant shifts in Hollywood's transmission of gender values and expectations. Sue Matheson is Associate Professor English at University College of the North, Canada Cover image: Jean Arthur in The Plainsman, Cecil B. DeMille, 1936 (c) Paramount Pictures/Photofest Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-4413-2 Barcode

Review Quotes

In 1992 Jane Tompkins in West Of Everything raised the disturbing question of why there had not been a focus on women in the Western genre when they were obviously such key characters. Thankfully, Women In The Western, with its eighteen articles, selected filmography and two selected bibliographies about film and television Westerns provides the first sustained, scholarly answer to that important question almost thirty years later.--Professor Michael Marsden, St Norbert College

About the Author

Sue Matheson is Associate Professor of English at University College of the North, Canada. She teaches American literature, Canadian literature, and film and popular culture. Her many interests in film, culture, and literature may be found in more than fifty essays published in a wide range of books and scholarly journals. Currently, she specializes in the Western. She is the author of The Westerns and War Stories of John Ford (Rowman & Littlefield 2016) and the John Ford Encyclopedia (Rowman & Littlefield 2019), as well as the editor of Love in Western Film and Television (Palgrave 2013) and A Fistful of Icons: frontier fixtures of the American Western (McFarland 2017).