{"id":66,"date":"2015-01-29T19:30:25","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T00:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/?p=66"},"modified":"2015-01-29T19:30:25","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T00:30:25","slug":"shane-manliness-and-independence-by-lea-millio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/2015\/01\/29\/shane-manliness-and-independence-by-lea-millio\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane: Manliness and Independence by Lea Millio"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a random selection, I chose to watch the Western film Shane<\/em>. I have never taken the opportunity to watch a Western film but I had some idea about what I was going to see in this movie. \u00a0The first scene was exactly what I expected to see: mountains, horses, a big blue sky, and a cowboy.<\/p>\n

To shortly\u00a0\"w-shane\"summarize the film: The cowboy, Shane, is wandering through the West on his horse as he comes across a family living on the homestead. \u00a0Shane befriends the family, especially the little boy, Joey. Joey thinks Shane is invincible and is mesmerized by him. However, Shane is very mysterious and the father of the family, Joe, is reluctant to trust him. There are also some subtle feelings between Shane and Joe\u2019s wife, Marian. \u00a0The movie includes classic Western scenes of saloon fighting and drinking just as I had expected it would. The family that Shane meets is struggling to keep hold of their \u201cclaim\u201d (land) along with other people on the homestead. A greedy man named Ryker claims that Joe is on his land and he has come to take it back. One by one, other families on the homestead leave their land but Joe is determined to stay. \u00a0Ryker recruits a notorious gunman, Jack Wilson, to help him fight off the people on \u201chis land\u201d. \u00a0Joe plans to fight Ryker and Wilson but Shane\u2019s inner cowboy and previous gunfighting experience surfaces as he knocks out Joe and goes to fight Ryker and Wilson. Shane ends up killing Wilson in a saloon shootout. \u00a0To Joey\u2019s disappointment and Marian\u2019s relief, Shane rides off just as any true cowboy would too. \u00a0\"w-shane-9\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Two themes that I found most prevalent in Shane<\/em>, are manliness andindependence. \u00a0There are two instances in the film when Shane is asked to leave the saloon because he is not fit to drink with the men. \u00a0It is obvious that the Western men pride themselves on their \u201cmanliness.\u201d \u00a0I\u2019m assuming that most of them have built their homes and started their families out west. \u00a0This also fits in with the theme of independence. \u00a0The men on the homestead want to be independent and keep their \u201cclaim\u201d without being controlled by land barons. \u00a0Also, Shane is very independent. He enters this story alone, and leaves alone.<\/p>\n

Significant images and icons I identified were horses, guns, mountains, saloons, whiskey, cowboy attire including hats, and wagons. \u00a0All of these images are consistent throughout the film and are what I would describe as classic Western images.<\/p>\n

Because I can identify these images as \u201cclassic Western\u201d images, I stand by my opinion that the\u00a0West is an icon. I already knew what to expect before I watched this film and I think that says something about the West being an American icon. \u00a0The West has its own style and iconic images that the majority of people across the United States and elsewhere could identify.<\/p>\n

Picture Sources:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/shauncostello.com\/tag\/lawrence-kasdan\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a random selection, I chose to watch the Western film Shane. I have never taken the opportunity to watch a Western film but I had some idea about what I was going to see in this movie. \u00a0The first scene was exactly what I expected to see: mountains, horses, a big blue sky, and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1329,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,8,12,10,7],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-independence","tag-masculinity","tag-shane","tag-the-west","tag-westerns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1329"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}