Cowboy, Western

The Western is an American genre in literature and film. more...

Westerns are art works – films, literature, television and radio shows, sculpture (particularly that by Frederic Remington), and paintings – devoted to telling stories set in the 19th Century American West (and sometimes Mexico or the Australian outback, during the same time period), with the setting ocassional portrayed in a romanticized light.

While the Western has been popular throughout the history of movies, it has decreased in prominence since the late 1970s.

Definition

Westerns, by definition, are set in the Western United States, generally between the 1860's and 1900. Some incorporate the Civil War.

Westerns often involve semi-nomadic wanderers, often cowboys, whose sole possessions consisted of clothing, a revolver, and (optionally) a horse.

The technology of the era – such as the telegraph, printing press, and railroad – may appear, usually symbolizing the coming end of the frontier.

The Western takes these elements and uses them to tell simple morality tales, usually set against the spectacular scenery of the American West. Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in a desert-like landscape. Specific settings include lonely isolated forts, ranches, the isolated homestead, the saloon or the jail.

Read more at Wikipedia.org