{"id":145,"date":"2016-10-11T12:13:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T16:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/2016\/10\/11\/how-the-west-was-whitened\/"},"modified":"2016-10-11T12:13:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T16:13:00","slug":"how-the-west-was-whitened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/2016\/10\/11\/how-the-west-was-whitened\/","title":{"rendered":"How the West was whitened"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/entertainment\/archive\/2016\/10\/how-the-west-was-lost\/502850\/\" style=\"margin-left: 1em;margin-right: 1em\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-LlK8c9IDUHQ\/V_0MJi_P57I\/AAAAAAAACoI\/nJG5w1Dow1Uy6m6pKpa09ZaC4UsoFa5qgCLcB\/s500\/denzelismagnificent.jpg\" width=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>The Western genre is having something of a mini-comeback between <i>Westworld<\/i> and <i>The Magnificent Seven<\/i>. (Or, maybe we all just love Yul Brynner?) This year&#8217;s trips to the Old West look a little different than in the past, specifically the actors. Our collective imagined memory of the Western looks white, middle-aged, and male. But if anything, Denzel Washington showing up in <i>The Magnificent Seven<\/i> is closer to the reality of the western than film has us believe.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/entertainment\/archive\/2016\/10\/how-the-west-was-lost\/502850\/\">Leah Williams wrote a great piece for <i>The Atlantic<\/i><\/a> about how classic Western films do a disservice to the historical truth of race in the West. <i>The Searchers<\/i> was inspired by the stories of a black cowboy named Britton Johnson, but the lead role was played by John Wayne, a notorious white supremacist. Casting non-white actors in a Western is often seen as an act of subversion, but if anything, that&#8217;s closer to reality.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, that all-white image is so ingrained in pop culture that it won&#8217;t be erased anytime soon. In another 50 years, maybe Denzel will be the new John Wayne?\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Western genre is having something of a mini-comeback between Westworld and The Magnificent Seven. (Or, maybe we all just love Yul Brynner?) This year&#8217;s trips to the Old West look a little different than in the past, specifically the actors. Our collective imagined memory of the Western looks white, middle-aged, and male. But if [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[86,212,389],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-controversial","tag-links-of-interest","tag-westerns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}