Westerns

I hate westerns.  Yes.  Hate.  Normally, I would use the words “strongly dislike”.  But those words aren’t strong enough to describe my feelings towards westerns.

I suppose it has something to do with my mother and her dislike for them.  I grew up with a critical eye of westerns, and now, I can’t stand them.  My dad and sister love them.  Blech. 

It’s the same thing over and over.  Indians or have a conflict with whites, whites make peace with Indians.  Same thing over and over and over.  I know that there are variations with the townspeople, and in fact, you could probably even name THREE variations. 

I hate westerns for three reasons.

Westerns become boring because they are so filled with action.  That sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s not.  It’s like playing a piano piece as loud as the piano will play for the whole piece.  Very boring.  It’s like cheerleaders doing the most exciting moves over and over.  It’s like playing an egg toss where the egg always breaks the first time.  Boring. 

There are too many different emotions and scenes in westerns.  This must be why I love opera so much.  One opera is all about love, one is about hate, one is about war, one is about nature.  In westerns, there’s all of that and much more.  Much much much more.  There’s the wagon train, there’s the love life conflict, there’s the war, there’s the relations back home, there’s the emotional conflict within.  It’s too much to be effective.

This next problem is an opinion.  There is way too much gushy stuff in westerns.  It’s annoying.  Yes, I love opera, but within opera, it is not adoration after adoration.  There is a slow progress towards love.  In westerns, there is no progression.  I do not like it.       

John Wayne, I apologize.