The Old West

[Rob_Royale]

A slight seque on my weird west idea from two weeks ago, I'm also kicking around the idea of doing an old west story, but a very sanitized 50s TV style western.

In this story, because it's erotica, not a serious western, I want to ignore the worst of the truths of that time. Slavery, the genocide of native people, rampant disease, the Civil War, inequlity, racism, sexism, etc.

I don't want to be thought of as dismissive of what happened back then, because I'm certainly not, but I know readers aren't looking for those brutal truths in their escapism. But I find the atmosphere, the adventure of those old west serials very enticing.

As writers, what are your thoughts on this? Even creaing an alternate history or more fantastical world (weird west or steampunk) feels like it could be interpreted as ignoring or white washing reality.

 

[AwkwardMD]

We need a cultural shorthand for "just grab the popcorn this time, ya'll"

 

[StillStunned]

I think there's a margin between "ignoring" and "not highlighting". I think you can incorporate social issues without letting them set the tone.

As a parallel, not every fantasy novel has to be Game of Thrones or grimdark: there's plenty of room for stories that are all about adventure.

 

[CalBishForNow]

My first thought is, go nuts. It's your story, tell it the way you want. I'd recommend a disclaimer/foreword/whatever saying something like what you're saying here, particularly if you're getting dangerously close to the sanitized stuff while still avoiding it, but that's it. It may be a bad sign about society that history is so sanitized and sanitized works are so popular, but it doesn't reflect much on the character of any individual creator.

My second thought is, if you're really sanitizing it that much, what's the point? "Dances with Wolves" was sanitized in some ways, but you don't just say "sanitized," you say "a very sanitized 50s TV style." Most people aren't actually too familiar with old TV like that these days because we know that it's boringly fake. Is this primarily a comedy, like "Pleasantville?" I dunno, maybe I'm reading too much into your specific words, but the way you've described it, I imagine getting bored before I find out whether it's actually glossing over something it shouldn't.

 

[crookedletter]

I don't think writing a western that doesn't grapple with the horrors of the time is any more guilty of "whitewashing" than a fun erotic story set in the present time that doesn't grapple with the horrors happening here and now. Of which there are still plenty.

Readers are fine with that, I think. I like stories that are good and dark, peering into the shadowy corners of history and current events and human nature. I also like to just be entertained, sometimes, and I wouldn't cast judgment on a story that chooses not to peer into that darkness, as long as it's otherwise well done.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Most every TV Western of the 50s, 60 and 70s went that way. Very few were an honest portrayal.


If you thought Bonanza or The Big Valley were how it really was, well ....

 

[Bamagan]

A slight seque on my weird west idea from two weeks ago, I'm also kicking around the idea of doing an old west story, but a very sanitized 50s TV style western.

In this story, because it's erotica, not a serious western, I want to ignore the worst of the truths of that time. Slavery, the genocide of native people, rampant disease, the Civil War, inequlity, racism, sexism, etc.

I don't want to be thought of as dismissive of what happened back then, because I'm certainly not, but I know readers aren't looking for those brutal truths in their escapism. But I find the atmosphere, the adventure of those old west serials very enticing.

As writers, what are your thoughts on this? Even creaing an alternate history or more fantastical world (weird west or steampunk) feels like it could be interpreted as ignoring or white washing reality.

I don't think it'll be an issue at all if the story is more or less self-contained... focused on some people and their sexy times. I mostly set my stuff in a generically contemporary world, which obviously has many fraught issues of its own, but I don't think there's any expectation that such tales should delve into modern injustices (quite the opposite, if anything).
But yes, if you're trying to write something with a more sweeping vista and hoping it reads like historical fiction, you may encounter some pushback for ignoring well-documented realities.

 

[Bamagan]

We need a cultural shorthand for "just grab the popcorn this time, ya'll"

I suggest 'erotic fiction' as a contender for that shorthand.

 

[PennyThompson]

Is this primarily a comedy, like "Pleasantville?"

Pleasantville is what this made me think of as well.

Every story doesn't need to be about genocide or racism, for sure! But in some settings and contexts, at a certain point the lack of "truths," serves to put a bright spotlight on those truths themselves.

Which can be totally an effective tool of satire, if that's what you're after! If Cowboy Slim rides his horse across the open prarie and marvels at how it's entirely uninhabited and untouched by human hands and just waiting to be "discovered," that's definitely conveying a message.

If Madame Suzie makes sure all of her brothel ladies have reliable health care and birth control and the menfolk are clean and polite, that's conveying a message as well

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

A slight seque on my weird west idea from two weeks ago, I'm also kicking around the idea of doing an old west story, but a very sanitized 50s TV style western.

In this story, because it's erotica, not a serious western, I want to ignore the worst of the truths of that time. Slavery, the genocide of native people, rampant disease, the Civil War, inequlity, racism, sexism, etc.

I don't want to be thought of as dismissive of what happened back then, because I'm certainly not, but I know readers aren't looking for those brutal truths in their escapism. But I find the atmosphere, the adventure of those old west serials very enticing.

As writers, what are your thoughts on this? Even creaing an alternate history or more fantastical world (weird west or steampunk) feels like it could be interpreted as ignoring or white washing reality.

I think you've got a lot of leeway. I mean 'Little House on the Prairie' and 'Gunsmoke' handled racism and slavery in quite a different way than 'Django Unchained.'

 

[Jorunn]

When something unusual and sudden happens in Norway, we still say, “That's so Texas”. A tribute to American western TV shows, where reality is suspended.

If your clean world evolved as a world, then it is a fantasy. Write it as you wish. England did not violate treaties, unlike the US. Maybe your cowboy world evolved that way and they live in peace.

Otherwise, do your world based on Hollywood. Nothing is real, just a facade. The bad guys wear black hats, the good guys white. Quite overlooked, would be how the bad guys live normal lives outside this world (being recognized as villains).

 

[PennyThompson]

Quite overlooked, would be how the bad guys live normal lives outside this world (being recognized as villains)

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

When something unusual and sudden happens in Norway, we still say, “That's so Texas”.

And we appreciate the recognition of our individuality.

 

[Wolfie605]

I didn't read through everything but as a fellow western lover, I'd like to throw my cowboy hat opinion in here.

Even though there was that kind of stuff back then, you could very easily make the setting some old west town but it's so far out that really nobody in or close to town are aware of the ongoing. Maybe its like that old abandoned mining town like they have in Montana I think. It is owned by the state and is hidden away but they pay people to live there and it's no where near civilization.

 

[dirk2024]

A slight seque on my weird west idea from two weeks ago, I'm also kicking around the idea of doing an old west story, but a very sanitized 50s TV style western.

Did you ever see the movie Westworld? You could satisfy the western feel and write sci-fi at the same time.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Just write your story and don't worry about it.
A foreword about how you know bad stuff happened etc etc... will turn off as many or more readers than just writing a story and not mentioning it.

 

[MillieDynamite]

The Old West, where women have hair under their arms, the men are men. The Old West, where men drive cattle to market, and the cattle are skiddish from the men being men with them being the women.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Sort of agreeing with @Kelliezgirl, but ... if it bugs you enough to make it hard to write the story without throwing in, say, the massacre of Chinese gold miners, set it in a alternate universe, or some kind of simulation.

--Annie

 

[MillieDynamite]

But seriously, you can portray a sanitized version, or a purer version, where your heroes are fighting the inequities, of course, in the big picture, they fail. However, they can win one battle after another.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Sort of agreeing with @Kelliezgirl, but ... if it bugs you enough to make it hard to write the story without throwing in, say, the massacre of Chinese gold miners, set it in a alternate universe, or some kind of simulation.

--Annie

If the massacre of Chineese gold miners is relevant to your story then by all means include it.
But does anyone seriously think Unforgiven was lacking because Will and Ned didn't tell the Schofield Kid all about the massacre of Chineese gold miners during the ride to Big Whiskey?

 

[MillieDynamite]

On a side note, the radio version (prounced ray-didio) of Gunsmoke the stories were grittier and more in line with the realiaties of the Old West, than it's television kissing cousin. Chest Good was Chester Proudfoot, a Native American who constantly withstood prejudice. Doc's name was never known, but it is known he's a murderer who's been transplanted from his Southern state to Dodge with a wanted dead or alive poster out yonder somewhere. Kitty and Matt are bed buddies as well as friends. And nobody messed with Miss Kitty without Matt taking matters into his hands.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'll say-as I have said in the past-if you are going to start apologizing for writing something before you've even written the damn thing, you're not writing; you're not creating, you're pandering and being disingenuous.

If you want to write a story that takes place in a time period where some shitty things were going on, you can do that without feeling the need to address it and go "OMG this was awful and let me tell you why" Not everything has to be an ideological sermon, we can just write and read a story for what it is.

Apologizing or excessive morality preaching in a story is a turn off to many. We're all adults, we should all know what happened and how we feel about it. I don't need the author to tell me how I should view something.

Whatever you do or don't write, the professionally offended association of victimhood will call you out on something.

So, if you're going to get impotent fists shaken at you no matter what, may as well write the story you wanted.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I'll say-as I have said in the past-if you are going to start apologizing for writing something before you've even written the damn thing, you're not writing; you're not creating, you're pandering and being disingenuous.

If you want to write a story that takes place in a time period where some shitty things were going on, you can do that without feeling the need to address it and go "OMG this was awful and let me tell you why" Not everything has to be an ideological sermon, we can just write and read a story for what it is.

Apologizing or excessive morality preaching in a story is a turn off to many. We're all adults, we should all know what happened and how we feel about it. I don't need the author to tell me how I should view something.

Whatever you do or don't write, the professionally offended association of victimhood will call you out on something.

So, if you're going to get impotent fists shaken at you no matter what, may as well write the story you wanted.

Very true. I appreciate the input from everyone. I've no intention of adding any sort of author note apologizing for anything. I simply wanted to hear from other writers on the subject.

 

[NotWise]

No-one expects a western to deal with those issues, and your story is probably better off if you don't. I doubt that anyone will notice the omission, except you.

You brought this up in the Weird West thread, so I think it's an issue for you. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool westerner, born on the edge of a Reservation and fairly well steeped in it's history. This place was about the last bastion of the Wild West, and by some measures we still have it.

Slavery is one issue you can dispense with. Texas and Kansas were the only western slave states, and the "western" parts of those states weren't settled yet. Most of the west was divided into US territories where slavery was illegal, and what people think of as "wild west" actually came after the Civil War when slavery was illegal everywhere.

Sexism was the norm of the time. It's something you can use in an erotic story if you want to.

You can avoid the genocide aspects by not including Native American's in your story. No-one really wants to hear about rampant disease. Or bad teeth.

Or you can embrace all those problems. Your MMC could be a Buffalo Soldier who rescues an Apache woman from abuse, and there the story goes.

 

[astuffedshirt_perv]

In a world pre- social media, pre-radio, and often pre-newspapers, people's lived experience in the Old West extended no further than their town boundaries. 'Bad things happening elsewhere' wasn't a concern for people trying to ensure they had enough food for the winter.