Neo-Westerns and the Gilded Age

Time flies, but the ASA Annual Meeting is happening in NOLA in a little more than a month (Nov. 3-6). I’m excited to be on a panel with Susan Stryker, Maura Finkelstein, and Ian-Khara Ellasante. I know. Stars. Luminaries.

The topic of our panel is “Fungible Landscapes, Haunting Presences: Contesting Settler-Colonial Imaginaries,” and I’m supposed to be presenting on something like “Land-Body-Erotics”.

One of the catalysts for the panel is a sense that there are a few strands of “American” culture that are returning, or resurfacing, which have to do with the appropriation of land and the making-ghostly of Indigenous people, particularly in contemporary film and television.

I am a 19th century queen by training, so I have a sensitivity to/interest in period pieces and fin de siècle dramas. And as the cultural winds would have it, one of the trends we are seeing right now IMHO is a return of the Golden Age as a setting, theme, and discourse. Think: The Gilded Age series on HBO, the 2022 film Downton Abbey: A New Era, or even Peaky Blinders on Netflix. Also, the soon-to-be-released Babylon, featuring an all-star cast and set in early Hollywood.

Another of these strands is the return of the Western, LOL. Think: Yellowstone, 1883 (a prequel to the Yellowstone series), and the 2021 film The Power of the Dog. I would also add to this list the 2020 film Nomadland.

Gold. Ghosts. Decadence. Westerns. Queers. Violence. Indians.

I want to propose an experiment: Since I’m going to write something specifically for this panel, I thought it would be interesting to do so as a series of posts (here) first. I don’t know if this will work, and I’m imagining that I’ll need to watch or rewatch a few of these shows and films, but maybe I can draft a response or reflection on them as I go along—keeping in mind that I’m trying to think about land-body-erotics (and Indigeneity, or the erasure of Indigeneity) in these works.

If I post one per week for the next month, then I should be in good shape. Something like 750 words per installment. A little work-in-progress experiment.

The idea for the ASA panel actually started with a conversation about The Power of the Dog, so I think I’ll start there. I promise I will not watch whole seasons of these shows to do this, but I do want to kind of allow myself some space to just think out loud here. And share it as I go along.

Its just an idea, so if you think it is a good or bad one, feel free to let me know. If you want to think along with me about some of these films and shows, I can try to post what I’ll be writing up next next time.

So, for now, my challenge is: next Friday a brief reflection on The Power of the Dog, and how it is not as revolutionary as people have made it out to be.

Credit: Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee in The Power of the Dog (Netflix)