The film “Shane” depicts the unique social structure of the American West in the late 1800s. The use of intense fight scenes and the classic setting of the frontier made this a classic film, but when looking at the film from a socialogical standpoint there is much more to the plot. Of course when comparing the society in the film to the one that we live in today there are many clear differences. However, there are certain similarities that one could find. There’s a social divide between the men from the saloon and the Starrett family, which causes a lot of deaths. The way conflict is handles shows a lot about a society, and the way it was depicted in the film “Shane” seems to be very representative of how the old American West is thought of today.
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2 replies on “Shane Blog Post”
Although I do agree that the film “Shane” represents and depicts certain aspects of the American West in the late 1800s, I am intrigued by the entirely white cast and storyline. In many of the previous Tocqueville readings, specifically chapter 18, the peculiar relationship between the three distinct races who inhabit America is noted as characteristic of the country. “Shane” fails to engage the indigenous people and the black people who also make up American society in addition to those that are white. This could have been due to the racist beliefs that many held at the time and the fact that power was held in the hands of the white citizens. Whatever the reason, while the film depicts conflict between the homesteaders and a cattle baron, it does not depict the imperative issue of race relations that was and continues to be so prevalent in America. Therefore, the similarities that may be present in this film and American society today are seemingly trivial when considering that the presentation of the American West in this film is somewhat skewed and one-dimensional.
I totally agree that due to the lack of racial diversity in the film “Shane” does not accurately represent America today in terms of the wide variety of races and ethnicities that are present in society. To make my comment more accurate I should say the film was a fairly accurate depiction of white culture in the American West. Although this still doesn’t include the indigenous peoples or black people, this is the case because there weren’t really black people in this geographic area at the time. There probably were some native populations around where the film takes place, but they didn’t tend to mix with the white settlers unless they came in direct contact for whatever reason, especially since they lived in such vast expanses of land where people weren’t grouped together as closely.