Red River

Red River is a very interesting tale; it portrays many aspects about the westerns. It shows us the typical alpha male attitude, it shows a different point of view of the alpha male and it shows us a side of the woman I have never before seen or heard of in Westerns.
It was clear that the alpha male in the movie, the dominant man was Dunson. He was a warrior, a cowboy; he had started his own farm in the middle of nowhere with a couple of cows and after approximately 14 years he already had a fully functional and complete farm with over a thousand head. Dunson also had a sensitive side, we see this when he adopts the orphaned son of Dunson’s recently diseased love.
Many factors in this movie made me think a lot about what western’s portray, it seems that as films get modernized certain factors seem to don’t care as much whereas others seem to get stronger. In this movie Matt, Dunson’s adopted son rebels, against him. Even though Dunson promises to kill him and searches him down for taking part of his herd, at the end he forgives him. This is a quality that has been growing throughout time and as films gets more modern, compassion. Another strong point os how the woman’s role changes drastically, the woman is the reason for everything. The female is the reason for Matt’s adoption and the reason for him being forgiven. In this movie the woman portrays a sense of authoritarianism over the men, like if they had a weak spot for them, a cowboy has never shown signs of weakness.
For me this has been an extremely controversial movie since I watched it with a totally male supremacist attitude to completely understand the movie, but it confused me since I was expecting a totally different movie.