24 Women in Modern Westerns from In Conversation with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

Transcript:

Host: Didn’t you write a book on westerns?

Rosanne: I’ve written chapters in some books on westerns yes – on women and how women are portrayed in westerns. One of them actually yeah one of them had to do with westerns from the 20th – from 2000 to the modern day and the scary thing was you assume the women would be more powerful and more have their own sort of agency but the most powerful woman I found in a movie from the 2000s to now was in “Rango” and she’s a little animated –– what is she –– I forget –– she’s like some lizard or something her name is Beans and she is the most empowered woman I found in any of the western and “Rango’s” beautifully written film. It’s just so hilarious, plays on all the western tropes, and yet actually tells a heartfelt story. I often have students watch that movie because the very first half hour the Rango character narrates the process of writing a script. He literally says that when this is my midpoint. I wonder what I’ll do from this point on. I mean it’s hilarious. It’s like you have to know screenwriting technique to get the inside jokes in that movie but yeah.