Both Vienna and Emma in the film Johnny Guitar and Sara in the film Two Mules for Sister Sara offer challenges to their respective alpha males as well as to women in classic westerns. In Johnny Guitar, Vienna is a saloon owner outside of a small town in the west. She has conflict throughout the film with the rest of the townspeople and especially Emma. In her critique West of Everything, author Jane Tompkins writes that, “in the case of women in Westerns generally…there’s nothing to them” (61). This description may fit some women in westerns, such as Debbie Edwards in Debbie Edwards in The Searchers, but it most certainly does not apply to Vienna or Emma. Vienna is a very strong woman, as she owns a saloon and runs it all by herself. She seems to have a power over men, as they both respect and fear her. The final fight in the film is not even between two men; rather Vienna kills Emma in the end. This action alone signifies that women in this film have more power than men have. The climax of the film involves two strong women, and this shows that women can do just as good a job of using guns and fighting as men.
In Two Mules for Sister Sara, Sara convinces alpha male cowboy Hogan that she is a nun in need of protection. Tompkins writes that, “the position represented by language, always associated with women…is allowed to appear in Westerns” (55), and this most certainly holds true in Two Mules for Sister Sara. Sara must use her language to convince Hogan that she is a nun when in fact she is a working girl. She uses her language because her actions sometimes seem masculine and certainly not like a nun; such as when uses a gun, drinks, and climbs up the railroad bridge to plant dynamite. Men are the ones who use guns, drink, and climb tall structures, not women. When Hogan is injured, Sara must aim his gun and plant the dynamite. I can even see this as Sara doing better than Hogan in this situation, which poses a threat to the traditional alpha male cowboy. Just taking part in these actions challenges the alpha male, because she shows that women can do just as much as men can. This defies the traditional alpha male cowboy and blurs the difference between male and female characteristics in Westerns.
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Both Vienna and Emma in the film Johnny Guitar and Sara in the film Two Mules for Sister Sara offer challenges to their respective alpha males as well as to ideas of women in classic westerns. In Johnny Guitar, Vienna is a saloon owner outside of a small town in the west. She has conflict throughout the film with the rest of the townspeople and especially Emma. In her critique West of Everything, author Jane Tompkins writes that, “in the case of women in Westerns generally…there’s nothing to them” (61). This description may fit some women in westerns, such as Debbie Edwards in The Searchers, but it most certainly does not apply to Vienna or Emma. Vienna is a very strong woman, as she owns a business and runs it all by herself. She seems to have a power over men, as they both respect and fear her. The final fight in the film is not even between two men; rather Vienna kills Emma in the end. This film involves two strong women, which seems to argue that women can do just as good a job of using guns and fighting as men. However, the title Johnny Guitar refers to Johnny Guitar, not Vienna. The women in this film still only feature as “others” to alpha male Johnny, and Johnny saves Vienna in the end. This action argues that women still need men.
ReplyDeleteIn Two Mules for Sister Sara, Sara, a prostitute, convinces alpha male cowboy Hogan that she is a nun in need of protection. Tompkins writes that, “the position represented by language, always associated with women…is allowed to appear in Westerns” (55), and this most certainly holds true in Two Mules for Sister Sara. Sara must use her language to convince Hogan that she is a nun when in fact she is a prostitute. She uses her language because her actions sometimes seem masculine and would give her away, like when uses a gun, drinks, and climbs up the railroad bridge to plant dynamite. Men are usually the people who use guns, drink, and climb tall structures, not women. When Hogan is injured, Sara must aim his gun and plant the dynamite. Sara challenges the alpha male because she shows that women can do just as much as men can. She defies the traditional alpha male cowboy and blurs the difference between male and female characteristics in Westerns.