THE SCARRED WOMAN BEHIND THE GUN: GENDER, RACE, AND HISTORY IN RECENT WESTERNS

Pivotal motivating scenes in two recent Westerns involve mutilated faces of women. In Tombstone (1993), Virgil Earp looks at the scarred face of a woman whose child he has just saved from reckless criminals: this sight moves him to become marshal of Tombstone, which then involves him in the OK Corral gunfight and its aftermath, including his own mutilation. In The Unforgiven (1992), a prostitute's face is savagely slashed by a client after she laughs at his small penis, and this sets the entire plot into motion, causing Will Munny (Clint Eastwood), a retired assassin, to return to his profession. Tombstone is a conservative Western, drawing upon and reinforcing established codes of the genre, many of which mask basic problems and contradictions within it; The Unforgiven exposes some of those contradictions and problems while still reinforcing basic norms of the genre. This article will use the two scarring scenes as a jumping off point to examine basic tensions in the genre, particularly with relation to its use of violence, gender, race, and history. These films were part of a revival of industry investment and popular interest in the Western in the early 1990s after more than a decade during which the form was considered dead. There were, during that moribund time, a number of attempts to jump-start the form, most notably Pale Rider (1985) and Silverado (1985). But the period is perhaps most significant for the appearance of Westerns that made new ethnic inroads into the genre. Films such as Seguin (1981), The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982), and Old Gringo (1989), for example, not only featured Chi cano actors but also explored Chicano history in less Anglo-centered ways than had previously been done. Later, Posse (1993) would represent African American actors and history in a com parable way, but Posse appeared during the Western revival. The form's renewed box office vitality perhaps began in 1988 with films such as Young Guns and then with Young Guns II in 1990, each of which grossed over $44 million. In 1990, Dances with Wolves grossed over $184 million. Two years later, The Unforgiven made over $101 million and, the following year, Tombstone made over $55 million. In 1994, Maverick grossed over $101 million. In 1994 there was a volume of films produced with Western themes that was inconceivable a decade earlier. Some examples of these films are Wyatt Earp, Bad Girls, Lightning Jack, Wagons East, The Cowboy Way, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and two films (one made for TV) about Geronimo. (See Variety, June 1994, p. 9; and Jan. 9-15, 1995.) Furthermore, the genre again became viable on television, aided by the high ratings and prestige given the mini-series Lonesome Dove and the popularity of the "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" series.