Part 4 of my seven-part, bi-weekly essay series RHINESTONE COWBOYS is up at The Coil Mag.
Here, I muse about the immigrant experience in Western films and how sometimes it takes an outsider lens to see ourselves clearly (including artwork of Ben Mendelsohn in Slow West):
It is through this perspective that we gain the best understanding of the genre’s importance — it doesn’t really matter what a cowboy is, but what the land and the open space and the attitudes and the ability to cobble a life together, a new, greater life, perhaps, say about becoming an American.
You can read the previous chapters here:
Coming in Part 5: Wes Studi in Hostiles, and Native American representation in Western films.