Cowboy gay men
University Writing Program
Out West: The Queer Sexuality of the American Cowboy and His Cultural Significance
by Hana Klempnauer Miller
Research Paper | UWS 53b Mythology of the American West | Eric Hollander | Fall &#;
About this paper |&#;&#; This paper as PDF | MLA format
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in a scene from&#;Brokeback Mountain.
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Ask anyone who&#;s seen BrokebackMountain() to characterize the film in three words, and you&#;re almost certain to overhear some variation of &#;gay cowboy love-story.&#;&#; While many have lauded the clip, directed by Ang Lee, for its nuanced portrayal of two men&#;s complicated love for each other, the film was subject to scathing criticism at the time of its release. Detractors, largely spearheaded by right-wing and religious groups, quickly and fervently deemed the film&#;s depiction of a homosexual couple immoral, evidence of an attempt to feminize men, and even anti-American. In many cases, critics honed in on the two leads &#; occupations as cowboys, challenging the being alive of a &#;gay cowboy&#; in American history
Gay Themes
Bill_san_Antonio (Bill san Antonio) 1
There was some discussion about queer themes in Adios Sabata on the SWWB a while ago. Personally I’m not sure what to think about this film except that Yul Brunner and some other guys wear costumes out of Village People’s wardrobe. ;D
But I came to think other spaghetti westerns with noticeable gay characters. The most obvious is of course the gay cowboy gang in Django Kill! Also Nino Castelnuovo in Massacre Moment and my favorite gay couple in sw’s: George Hilton and Klaus Kinski who have very twisted relationship in Ruthless Four. Some have even suggested that there’s something sexual between Nino and El Chuncho in Bullet for the General.
There must be others too but can’t recall more right now. What do you think of the subject? Why did they include so many gay themes in spaghetti westerns?
Cian (Cian) 2
I don’t think they were being deliberately queer (apart from Django kill of course). I think the costumes only emerge gay retrospectively years later. I signify, look at what ordinary people were wearing in the 60’s and 70’s
Beyond Brokeback: Gay Cowboys in the LGBTQ Wild West
A lone figure carves his silhouette against the bleeding seam of twilight—boots dust-caked, hat slung low to parry the coming night. The cowboy: America’s sculpted ideal of grit, of stoic resolve whittled down to its calloused core. Yet myth drifts like dust. And if you ride far enough beyond the picked fences of legend, you find a frontier thrumming with stranger truths.
Beneath the polished spurs and sun-split leather, queer pioneers threaded their dreams across expose plains, weaving identities no Victorian parlor could confess. In the wild west of judgment’s arrive, gay cowboys built lives in spite of the frontier’s savagery and because of its refusal to look too closely. They fled the cramped houses help East and rode into spaces vast enough to reimagine themselves, as feral and free as the horses they broke.
To reside on the frontier was to stage a perpetual jailbreak from expectation. But stories of these queer cowboys—their stolen kisses, their renegade households, their soft rebellions stitched into saddle bags—were left
Gay Cowboy
Bisexual shepherds, shut enough.
The mythos of the American Old West, with its aura of ruggedness, danger and adventure, has appealed to many people over the years, including gay men. While they don't have quite as many stereotypical gay associations as sailors and leather-clad bikers, cowboys are nevertheless an important part of macho gay male iconography.
It's more about the look and feel of the cowboy than the facts, so these men can be found in The Wild West, but also in a Territory Western, Cattle Punk, Modern Old West, Samurai Cowboy, or any other cowboy-flavored work.
This trope covers gay or bisexual men who are Western-flavored characters (ranchers, cattle hands, rodeo performer, and country singers) or just fans of the genre.
This is almost always a flavor of Manly Gay.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Jonah Hex:
- In the series, Hex faces off against a Gay Cowboy who goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the town where his