High Noon and The Ballad of Little Jo

The role of women in the two movies we watched, High Noon and The Ballad of Little Jo, shows a changed attitude towards females. Women no longer represent the quiet, inferior sex. Instead, they stand up for themselves. In High Noon, the two women play very significant roles. Amy Kane is a big part of the marshal’s life. She marries him and convinces him to move away with her. When the marshal has to stand up and fight the criminals, Amy comes back and helps her husband survive by killing one of the men trying to kill him. Ramirez also plays a revisionist role because she owns a saloon. She is a business woman. Ramirez in particular has a personality that we have not yet seen in a woman. She talks back to men. She puts them in their place. Ramirez does not need a husband because she takes care of herself.

In the second movie, The Ballad of Little Jo, the idea of the alpha male cowboy is overshadowed by the character of Josephine. Her character is one of a woman who pretends to be a man. This is a newly introduced concept for the role of a woman in a Western. Josephine plays the role of a man so well that she is not suspected by most people. She rides a horse like a man. She handles a gun like a man. She “talks the talk” like a man. Josephine is the first woman who slips into a man’s way of life and pulls it off. This shows that the role of the alpha cowboy is disappearing, and, in a movie like The Ballad of Little Jo, he is just not present because his place has been taken by a woman. The idea that “women must use words as their chief weapon” no longer applies to the more modern roles that we have seen women take on (Tompkins 66). They know use their mind, words, knowledge, and body to build a stronger persona. Women are no longer the same as they used to be presented in the older movies. They have a strong presence and represent very important and main roles in the newer westerns.