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Originally posted by Dr. Evil
I think that scene was representative of the theme of this film, which was a Western with transplanted '90s values. A town in 1880s Wyoming banning handguns as a solution to gun violence? Not very likely!
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Actually quite likely and not uncommon. A lot of towns in the old west did, in fact, ban firearms within the city limits.
The gunfight at the OK started as a result of the Earps attempting to enforce such a law (or maybe because they were using the law as an excuse to pick a fight with the Clantons and McLaury's) but there was such a law.
Of course, to enforce a law like that, the sheriff had to be a pretty tough and ruthless son-of-a-bitch, like the real Wyatt Earp and Little Bill in
Unforgiven.
Quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Evil
The "crying" scene was yet another instance of the filmmakers attempting to impose European bourgeois values on a culture and era where raw courage and casual violence were still considered normal, respectable behavior in many quarters. The culturally imposed revulsion of violence that had been achieved in the U.K. and other long-established European societies had taken 700+ years of civilizing, and the American frontier, where the law came after, not before, the settlers, would not reach that stage until some years afterwards.
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I disagree. Even back in 1880's America, there would be people who never killed anyone and who, if they did, would be repelled by their own actions. And I would ask people living in India or other European colonies about their "revulsion" toward violence. They might have a different opinion.