A Cowboy Is More Than Its Stetson

Feeling a little lost this week and bored with the standard writing challenges, I decided to jump down a couple of rabbit holes for inspiration. There are times when it can be hard to find your voice. I have been writing for Vocal for about seven months. I am a total amateur with far more bad habits than good, but I have had moderate success and have been improving.

Please bear with me as I explain my journey. I ended up with the rationale that a Men’s Community was needed for Vocal.

My first steps led me to look up some old Western movies—not entirely sure why. It brought back a memory of my father doing a John Wayne impression.

Okay, King Kaye

Probably a terrible misquote by Trevor my Dad

He would do the stance and the over exaggerated shuffling swagger of a gunman getting ready for a shoot-out. If my mother was in earshot, she would scrunch her head up to deepen her voice and say

Get on your horse, and drink your milk

Possibly a second terrible misquote by Mary my Mum

The second impression was always so bad. Nevertheless, we would all be laughing.

I decided to look up the quotes on YouTube thinking it would be a funny start to an essay. There was very little there. So I looked further. The truth is John Wayne has been cancelled. His voice is no longer valid. Some of it seems justified; some of it needs more context.

So in an afternoon I had gone from looking at prompts from a writing platform called Vocal, to looking at Westerns, to reminiscing about my parents, to researching John Wayne, to stopping because the voice I wanted to use was cancelled. Vocal to non-vocal it felt like a circle. So I closed my laptop and went and did something more practical.

So out behind me on my big field I worked with my sheep, checking on them and getting them ready for vaccinating later this week. Some of us in the countryside have been dealing with double vaccinations long before the world’s current focus on it. All the fields had been cut, they come when called and often fan out into a line like some epic John Ford shot. We had recently vanquished a wild boar that had been terrorising them and had killed a couple of the flock. Back during the first lockdown I even made a mock western trailer of them. At that precise moment with the wind in my hair I felt like a cowboy.

The thing is like other old cowboy’s I also felt like maybe my voice was no longer valid.

I returned to my laptop and opened up Vocal’s Community page. I struggled to see a community out of the thirty-nine on offer where my voice fit. There was a diverse range of voices on offer. Viva for women, Pride for the LGBTQIA+ community, Beat for the musician, Geeks for the uber chic nerd.

They had done a really positive challenge for mother’s day, yet declined to offer a similar opportunity for father’s day.

June was Men’s Mental Health month, a lot of work had been done over the past few years to promote this but Vocal did not highlight a single relevant story.

The truth is, it was just bad timing. June had become prominent for a number of organisations, stories and themes. This is just life, sometimes you can get lost in the noise of the crowd.

In June I wrote this.

I love the voices on Vocal. I also wholeheartedly support the platform for raising a spotlight upon all of these communities. I still however could not find a home for my voice.

As a middle aged, overweight, white male the world did seem to have less time for my voice. It had something to do with my privilege. My voice was no longer independent, singular and personal. It had become part of a collective voice, part of a communal problem. I had been bundled in with John Wayne and was guilty of his crimes through identity and association. Maybe, I should get on my horse and drink my milk.

It was then still feeling a little lost and like a dinosaur that I opened up this article looking for a new creative output.

The 4 Golden Rules Of Writing A Western by Robert Wood.

The idea was to lose myself in a specialised section or sub-genre of fiction. Something, nostalgic, safe and escapist. The more I read about the article, the more that idea of my voice and it’s validity kept coming to the forefront. In reading how to write a forgotten form, I found something that spoke to me. My voice is valid, I do have something to say and it is contained in the Old West. The first section even gave me the title of this article.

Rule #1 – A cowboy is more than his Stetson

When we think of the Western genre, the first thing we picture is its unique aesthetic. Dusty Old West towns, sheriffs wearing tin stars, and cowboys with wide-brimmed hats, spurs, and trusty six-shooters.

Robert Wood

The piece starts by dispelling a myth, the iconic cowboy is an unrealistic mix of some truth and cultural inventions. The horse is a symbol of the earth and a connection to nature, the unpretentious revolver is about an honesty, limited firepower and time taken to reload. Some stories will make the hero with his modest gun face an aggressive villain representing modernity with a Gatling gun. The simplistic, hard worker against the lazier automated alternative.

I don’t think of myself as old. I am 43. But the world has changed incredibly in my life time. Never had a computer growing up and never really used one at school. I was twenty before I got to understand the internet and even then it was just text. My experience included no social media or videos. At university I had to type my essays in the second year; I used a word processor, an electronic typewriter! I also had a pager, that was considered current and up to date. If you wanted to get in touch with me, you phoned an operator told them a message and they sent me a text.

This is Mum, hope you are good, can you phone home xxx

The western is not about the outward appearance of things. It is not about superficial exteriors; it is centred primarily around themes. Westerns based on aesthetics are parodies and limited to comedic stories. Will Smith’s 1999 ‘Wild, Wild, West’ a remake of the 1960s TV series, 'The Wild Wild West' is not a true Western.

My identity is not a collective, it is extremely singular. My life is a collection of experiences and through that diversity I have a very particular and curious outlook. I am definitely more than the sum of my parts. I am not John Wayne.

...the cowboy ‘look’ isn’t what makes a Western, then most of what matters about the genre can be exported out of the time period and, yes, even the geographical setting of the American West.

Robert Wood

Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is a western through the director’s influence by John Ford. It is also the template for John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven. Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men or Jason Aaron’s Scalped are also westerns. The first one is a police drama set in the ’80s and the second a contemporary crime story following an Indigenous American lead. Four vastly different voices, sharing a theme but expressing themselves differently.

My identity may be currently treated two dimensionally in political and mainstream thinking but that is just my generalised exterior. I am not saying my ‘look’ does not have value. The core of the individual ideas and themes running underneath is a far more complex story to listen to. Like the western I am defined by more than the isolated ideas of people outside of my world.

Rule # 2 – Anachronism is key

There are definitely movies out there that are Westerns that don’t have cowboys, and horses, and ghost towns. … It really is more about the scope, and the characters, and the story lines of being on the frontier where there are rough men and rougher women and, you know, that kind of stuff. When we talk about Westerns, we talk about movies that take place in the American West from 1820 to 1860, and that is going to fade with time.

– Josh Dickey, ‘Genres That Need to Make a Comeback,’ CineFix

The second rule is focused on the western narrative being a cultural expression of ‘anachronism fiction’. The American West is the perfect setting for an old world clashing and having to meet the changes of a new world that has come to replace it; Modernity overtaking a less complicated form of life.

The male voice in this context becomes a valid narrator to a changing world. The political change happening in the last five years is extraordinary. The old male voice may be the ‘hero of the desert’, forsaken in his traditions as the technological cities expand across the frontier and overtake his world. Yet the refusal, reluctant acceptance or willing struggle to adapt; all become stories worth telling. The struggle to keep one foot in both camps, is possibly the most intriguing story of all.

Western stories are about the conflict between old and new, making them fertile ground for many different kinds of narrative

Robert Wood

My favourite phrase in this section is the insistent new against the persistent old.

In the western, the hero serves as a counterpoint to the new way. They are never allowed to truly triumph. Rooster Cogburn at the end of True Grit has to die. He has to die in a miserable, forgotten, tragic way. The death has to be ignoble. The triumph is not in a fairy tale ending but that despite it all society will triumph and continue marching forward but somewhere in all of that some of the old ways still have value and should never be forgotten completely.

Rooster Cogburn can’t be thanked by the young woman he helped because it would undercut the idea that his world has been eroded by the new. Instead, the reader is shown that her life has been influenced by him – the past has shaped the future, but it is still irrevocably gone.

Robert Wood

Different outlooks don’t harm us, they make us smarter. They enable us to see the object we are focusing on from all sides.

The male voice has a unique perspective on current change.

Rule #3 – Explore the conflict of change

Knowing that Westerns are ‘about’ anachronism is all well and good, but it’s putting this knowledge into practice that will create something amazing.

Just as not all westerns are set in the West, not all westerns have a primary focus on masculinity.

'Jane Got A Gun' starring Natalie Portman.

'Dances with Wolves' starring Kevin Costner.

'Dead Man' starring Johnny Depp.

The male voice can also be so much more than just a tale about masculinity.

It is also impossible to deny that a large number of westerns are bound up with the concept of masculinity and how it plays out in its surrounding world. Masculinity is the reverse side of femininity on the coin. In some shape or form it will always be around. Silencing it will never ever truly come to pass.

Robert Wood in the third section of his essay says that this is one of more interesting concepts that are explored in the western.

That’s not to say that masculinity is a dead concept, but that it is one which has been subject to constant change.

Robert Wood

He does a wonderful analysis of Jack Schaefer’s Shane.

Shane follows a gunslinger caught up in a conflict between honest homesteaders and a gang of criminals.

Shane is uncomplicated, the definitive man’s man, and yet his necessary violence unsettles the lives of the family who are boarding him. First, through the potential revenge of the criminals he confronts, and then later through the more complex idea that his perfect masculinity is tempting the married Marian. Interestingly, Marian, her husband Joe, and Shane all understand why this is, and work calmly to negate its expected outcome. Shane selflessly leaves the family, his old-fashioned masculinity having been the perfect tool to get them out of trouble but also something which has no place in their everyday lives. The couple’s son, Joey, rounds out the critique – he sees something in Shane he desperately admires, but he lacks the maturity to differentiate between the gunslinger’s valuable legacy and the danger of his continued presence.

Robert Wood

His analysis of Shane translates so well into my search for the validity of voice in the context of identity. It is a discussion of masculinity, but it is abundantly clear that it does not mean masculinity is the ‘be-all and end-all’. The current changing world maps into this narrative.

All you need is a lone protagonist, emblematic of a changing system of belief, who can be used to explore both the benefits and problems of a set of ideas.

Robert Wood

He then takes his strangest western pick of the whole essay, Michael McDonagh’s movie Calvary.

Set in modern-day Ireland and exploring the role of the Catholic Church.

Father James is viewed with new suspicion and hostility in the wake of the sexual abuse revelations surrounding the church. In fact, one of his parishioners has threatened to kill him – a fate he can easily escape, but only by abandoning the principles he’s trying to keep alive. At the end of the movie, James saddles up for a final ‘shoot-out’ – just like Shane, he’s not expecting to change the world, but the point he proves may just keep the best of the old ways alive.

Robert Wood

He ends this section with an amazing statement. He talks about how westerns fail. That a compelling case for personal morality and how your opinion is a basic truth. How when this becomes a tale of ‘this is how it should be’ that leads to a less convincing narrative.

This is a definite lesson I could embrace in how I view the world. While it is fine to tailor your voice as an outlet for your own opinion; that opinion should not be something carved into stone but a route to explore the world you are navigating. By offering that potential to translate and transform there is an authenticity to your message.

Rule #4 – Do your research

His fourth rule is useful to every voice.

Before setting out on any journey it is important to get all your ducks in a row. To be able to see the arguments from every angle.

Westerns are about the conflict of change. The more sincerely you explore both sides of that change, the more fascinating the conflict becomes.

Robert Wood

Saddle up

I started by saying that I felt my voice was not valid. Some of that comes from writing for a platform called Vocal, which at times can make you feel some voices are more valid than others. I definitely feel that this is true in context. On some issues some voices are more valid than others and I don’t truly have a problem with that. It is imperative to have spaces for all voices on a platform called Vocal. There are times when every voice should be able to be heard.

One of the most attractive features to the western is the everyman, a stock character enveloped into events as an unlikely character to take the hero’s journey. Our worlds are populated by ‘everymen’, let’s give them a saloon to shoot the breeze.

A community for the male voice would be a valuable addition to any stable. The world is full of brothers, cousins, fathers, uncles, male friends. It is an identity that exists and a place for people who feel connected to that identity to talk is valuable.

I would call the community Stetson.

The final reason for its existence is not for any reason that can be wrapped up in a sweet nostalgic cowboy analogy. The male identity has been suffering its own pandemic for a number of decades.

The largest killer of males between 18 and 45 is suicide. This is not a fact that feels like a privilege to have.

A great organisation in the UK run by the ex-rugby league player Luke Amber called Andy’s Man Club has a powerful message.

It’s okay to talk.

This whole piece is about finding a home for a voice. I do not want that voice louder than all other voices. I want to take the facet of that identity that is a male voice and place it in a forum of other male voices of every different possible type imaginable. The purpose has to do with living the most present, fulfilled life the owner of that voice can. A place that cuts out the voice bouncing around alone inside that head and releases it to a place to grow and shape. Where ideas to help can mature. It should not just be a place to speak, but also a place to listen; somewhere ideas from others can influence. There has been a lot of isolation and distance created in the world over the last two years, not everybody's voice has found that place to flourish.

If you build it, they will come

Kevin Costner Field of Dreams

This last part about mental health is the real motivation behind this article.

If you are in the UK and know someone who needs help please visit this phenomenal organisation for immediate help.

If you are in North America connect with these guys

There is help there please seek it. Wobbles and blips are okay but we need to treat our mental health as important as any other aspect of our health. Please never feel you are alone there are more organisations out there, reach out and connect.

If you think this message is valid share it. Please it is so important.

I publish my stuff independently for no other reason that I would rather these strange ideas that rattle around my head from time to time have a place to go. Hey, better out than in.

I have more strange musings here, Enjoy.

If you are also interested in publishing your own ideas here on Vocal and getting paid for it, I can get you a cheaper introductory rate by clicking here. This gets me a small affiliate payment from the platform.

Thank you for reading my story

1st published on Vocal August 2021