How does the movie, Tombstone, portray common frontier stereotypes, myths, and virtues?

Question

How does the movie, Tombstone, portray common frontier sterotypes, myths, and virtues?

for example: the violence and gambling of the West are portrayed.

Answer 1

If you've seen the movie Billy Zane's character actually has a scene where he answers that very same question to Dana Delaney's character regarding Wyatt Earp.

Answer 2

As the poster above notes, Tombstone is a more accurate portrayal of the frontier west than many of its kind, particularly when it comes to the specific facts of the Earp story (although it also contains plenty of exhaggerations and outright falsehoods there as well).

In terms of broader stero-types and myths about the American west:
Probably the biggest myth and sterotype is that Tombstone portrays gunfights as 'noble duels' where the opponents are equally matched, give each other time to get prepared and the 'good guys' always wait for the 'bad guys' to go for their guns first. This sort of classic stand-off gunfight has been shown in countless westerns (twice in Tombstone - once at the OK Corral and once at the Holliday-Ringo duel) and rarely, if ever, happened in real life.

Most gunfighters did whatever they could to gain the upper hand and survive and an off guard or outgunned oppoenent was greatly preferred. At the OK Corral, two of the cowboys did not have side-arms on them (Ike and one of the McLaurys) and Holiday came to the fight with a shotgun out and leveled at them from close range. The Earps came prepared for a fight while the cowboys were getting ready to leave town (and two of them had spent the night recovering from serious hangovers). While the OK Corral was much closer to the classic battle than many (hence its fame), it was not as even a fight as portrayed in the movie.

The duel with Ringo in the movie is even worse since it plays the 'noble duel' aspect to the hilt when in fact nobody knows who shot Ringo (he was found shot in the head - possibly a sucide), it was certainly NOT Holiday who did it (he was known to have been in Colorado at the time). Josephine Earp later claimed that Wyatt shot him, but this is very doubtful, and even she describes it as an ambush with several people jumping a surprised Ringo.

Other stereo-types in the movie is the relative lack of prostitution and the few prostitutes that are shown (Big Nose Kate) are relatively attractive, articulate and nicely dressed. Prostitution was wide spread in Tombstone - and most boom towns - and they would have been seen all over the Crystal Saloon, Bird Cage Theater and other places shown in the movie. Most would have looked a bit less neat and tidy than the 'Miss Kitty' from Gunsmoke look. For that matter, Wyatt's wife at the time - Mattie - was a retired prostitute (she resumed when Wyatt left her) and there is a good chance that Josephine was as well.

Also Tombstone continues the trend of portraying the American west as being almost entirely white. Tombstone and other southwest boomtowns has substantial Hispanic populations, but this is not shown beyond the made-up massacre of a Mexican wedding at the beginning. There were also large populations of Chinese in Tombstone (in fact, there was a whole little 'Chinatown' area) but this is only hinted at with a brief scene at an opium den and Behan's remark about the 'Anti-Chinese Committee'.

Probably the best portray of what a frontier boom camp was really like is HBO's Deadwood. Although it somewhat exhaggerates the violence, uses modern swear words, and does not strictly follow the true history of the town, it DOES do an excellent job of portraying what the towns looked like (crowded, muddy, littered), the moral ambiguities of the people (not the over-exhaggerated black-and-white, evil-vs-good), the rough and ugly life of prostitutes and the excessive drinking and occasional drug use.

Answer 3

Well, the overwhelming prevelance of violence, shootings, gambling and drinking would be the most likely. All these occured often in the West but not to the level that most people imagine.

The portrayment of Wyatt's revenge rise is not very impartial, most of the killings were unlawful and Wyatt and most of his posse had to leave states to evade murder charges consequentally. Also a far number more deaths than there is evidence for appear. Also a complete lack of the court system from the movie, besides the conversation concerning the death of the Sheriff is somewhat out of place. The courts were used fairly heavily although their rulings were somewhat different than those of today due to lack of forensic science.

As far as Westerns go "Tombstone" is actually fairly historically acurate, Good luck on your paper.

Answer 4

The biggest one I've heard over the past two decades is the silly assertion that we Wiccans worship the Devil. There is no Satan, in Wicca. Satan is a Christian deity. Wicca has nothing whatsoever to do with that Christian anti-god, and the fact that Wiccan ethics are very life-affirming and peaceful ought to be more than enough proof.

Answer 5

Everything can be settled with gunplay (it can;t but that's the myth)