“Maybe we ain’t nothing but whores, but by God we ain’t horses.”   The righteous proclamations from Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher), a madam in Big Whiskey, Wyoming recreates the female prototype in a Western genre—one that defies the acceptable mores of gender, particularly in Clint Eastwood’s 1991 Western revisionist Unforgiven. Unforgiven examines the moral struggles of a reformed gunslinger and outlaw, William Munny (Clint Eastwood), who was prompted by marital duty and loyalty to his late wife to abandon his old gunslinging ways. It is also a parable that challenges the justice system of the Old West, especially for outsiders in the community such as the prostitutes of Big Whiskey.  Strawberry Alice and her cohorts of prostitutes are outliers in the community in spite of the fact they have participated in one of the oldest professions for women, a service willingly and unashamedly paid for and profited by men.  However, when an angry cowboy disfigures one of the prostitutes for laughing at his diminutive penis, Strawberry Alice and the rest of the prostitutes want justice.  Regardless of their marginalized status in the community, they are entitled to lawful restitution.   Striving for vengeance and justice is necessary in the preservation of their own humanity and civil standing in the community.  Through this, Unforgiven breaks ground in exploring the role of the female Westerner, outside their traditional and acceptable confinements such as passive wives and peacekeepers—all of which embody the traditions of evangelical and idealistic femininity.  They orchestrate the necessary morally vindicated actions—even if it means hiring a former outlaw to carry out the fair execution of law and order, especially for those on the lower echelon of the community.  They are the non-gun-toting “law women” who orchestrate the combat on the battleground, which, in turn, challenges the existing archaic laws that dismiss a woman’s demand for justice.  Therefore, Unforgiven re-visions and revises the female Westerners—rising from victims of misogyny, violence, sexism, and objectification to revisionists themselves in their willful passion for the reformation of defunct laws of the Old West that perpetuate the violence and mistreatment of women.  

Unforgiven begins by reminding us of past female prototypes in the narrative’s preface where morality is weakened by acts of violence regardless of the reasoning.  The late wife of William Munny, Claudia, is mythologized and glorified as the saintly ideal of the Old West.  She is vehement about the use of violence to resolve matters regardless of the reasoning.   Her angelic goodness is strong enough to soften the most hardened man and “cure” William Munny of his drinking and maniacal violence.  Her death is due to smallpox and not by her murderous husband, as many would assume.  She carries a legacy of the peacekeeping woman.  Yet such an ideal is on the brink of being defunct and waning even in the eyes of the most traditional of women.   Amy Fowler Kane (Grace Kelly) in Fred Zimmerman’s 1952 High Noon exemplifies the dichotomy of the old versus new female Westerner.   At first, she is the quintessential female character, a Quaker who is newly married to the professional Westerner, the marshal, Will Kane (Gary Cooper), who is on the cusp of retirement.  However, his retirement is delayed as Will Kane must engage in a final solitary shootout at noontime with a criminal he has placed in jail five years ago, Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), and his cronies.   Unlike Claudia, Amy weighs in on two polarizing reactions when it comes to violence:  will she support him in his decision to engage in one last shootout or will she leave him because she refuses to be a widow?  The Mexican saloon owner, Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado), is indignant about a wife supporting her husband.   She tells Amy Fowler Kane to stand by her man.  She also chastises Amy for wanting to leave her husband for choosing violence and carrying out his duties as a lawman to protect the community—in spite of the fact that the community refuses to help him in this daunting task.   

Helen Ramirez without any qualms pushes boundaries when it comes to gender roles by chastising Amy Kane for her lack of support for her husband:  “What kind of a woman are you?  How can you leave him like this? Does the sound of guns frighten you that much?”  At first, Amy crosses her by insisting guns should not be the answer to solve problems, which is why she became a Quaker in the first place.  It is also “because every other religion said it was all right for people to kill each other.”  But Helen tells her that the circumstances are different because as his wife, she must support him, even if it means holding a gun to protect her husband:  “If Kane was my man, I’d never leave him like this.  I’d get a gun.  I’d fight.” Amy eventually, takes the gun and fires a fatal shot at one of her husband’s enemies.  Unlike Claudia, Amy’s character, under Helen Ramirez’s guidance and urging, is transformed from the peace-loving wife and non-violent wife (the Claudia ideal) to a gun-holding law woman who takes it upon herself to help her lonesome husband in the showdown. In addition, “both women take action in the narrative and power over their bodies, and neither is sacrificed in the film” (Forster 2).  This also coincides with the prostitutes of Big Whiskey.  In this milieu, the justice system has failed in preventing unlawful acts.   In High Noon, the failed institution has allowed the unfair release of sentenced killers in spite of the fact that the sentencing was carried out originally by respectable, legitimate, and community elected marshals such as Kane.  Because of this, Kane must use his gun again to rid the community of outlaws to rectify what was wrong with the justice system.  Amy’s unconventional action is a dichotomy of the peacekeeper and the woman who supports her husband, even if it means picking up a gun and firing it to prevent her husband from being a victim of poorly executed laws that allow an outlaw to run amok again.  In essence, she realizes there is an exception to violence, especially when there is no other way to rectify lawlessness.  Bloodshed and death effectively render order and the protection of the community—even if it shatters the community’s ideals when it comes to evangelical ideology that vehemently rejects violence and killing in general.

Symbolically, the Big Whiskey community is enshrouded in darkness—literally and figuratively—emphasizing the moral conundrum and moral ambiguity when it comes to the use of violence to execute appropriate justice.   In comparison to the brightly lit countryside, away from stringent laws that are biased and contemptuous of those who are not considered esteemed community members, Unforgiven provocatively explores two morally polarized worlds.  The citizens of Big Whiskey, especially the lawmen, choose to remain in the dark—particularly when it comes to human dignity, human rights, and lawful restitution.  Instead, the primary focus is on capital gains and the preservation of monetary investments.  When Munny, Ned, and the Schoefield Kid “ride into the Wyoming town of Big Whiskey on that rainy night, they find a corrupt version of American society, driven by a capitalism blind to human values” (Plantinga 69).   Conversely, Ned and Munny’s choice of residence is on sunny countryside, away from the strict laws and hypocritical ideologies that supposedly protect civil liberties.

Claudia is the “healer” of violent tendencies, a foil to Amy and to the prostitutes of Big Whiskey.  The laws’ ineffectiveness and their tendency to perpetuate a misogynistic and money-hungry culture are unfathomable to Claudia.  Because of this, she does not understand that there are exceptions to violence in which reformed gunslingers such as William Munny is needed in order to carry out the prostitutes’ demand for justice.  In Big Whiskey, the laws do not protect the prostitutes—nor their own rights as “working” women even though they are part of the mechanisms of a capitalistic institution with a legitimate employer—a saloon owner such as Skinny (a pimp-entrepreneur) who also reaps in the monetary benefits of having prostitutes at his saloons.  Such belief typifies the challenges of many Westerns not only on a morally thematic level but also on nationalistic civil ideals, according to film critic Thomas Schatz’s Hollywood Genres.  He asserts that “an element of our national mythology, the Western represents American culture, explaining its present in terms of its past and virtually redefining the past to accommodate the present” (Schatz 58).    Historically, lawful institution is flawed in Unforgiven.  Thus, the film questions the biases of archaic laws, especially for whom it will provide compensation, whether it is for a human being (e.g., Delilah) or for a property owner (e.g., Skinny).  It also questions the power of a professional Western-lawman susceptible to being exploitive and, thereby, blurring the lines between good and evil.  The lawmen are far from the archetypal Marshall Kane from High Noon where there is a clear demarcation between good and evil, between lawman and lawless respectively.  This is not the case with Little Bill.  Little Bill is a bully lawman, corrupt and obsessed with violence and machismo—even on a hypocritical level.  Although a no gun mandate makes sense when it comes to maintaining order in a community, his punishment for the offender is far from acceptable.  He shames an English assassin, English Bob (Richard Harris), through excessive violence, and “steals” his biographer, W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek), for his own masculine gain as well as to heighten his self-importance and lawful prominence in the community—especially as a formidable sheriff who executes the laws with an iron fist. Through this, he is obsessed with guns insomuch that he confiscates the guns from his citizens and only the privileged-select, that is, those under Little Bill’s tutelage can arm themselves, leaving the rest of the men devoid of any will or even the gall to inflict harm in self-defense, and most importantly, to fight for what is right.  

Because Little Bill is the community “elected” lawman, he is intolerable of gun use, especially from assassins. He relishes in excessive violence when it comes to enforcing rules by creating gory and fear-inciting spectacles of the punished who is beaten to a pulp for breaking the anti-gun law.   Through this battery, the gunslinger is impotent and emasculated.   For instance, English Bob is a celebrity assassin, lured by the prostitutes’ bounty, comes to Big Whiskey only to be beaten well before he thinks about using his gun.  Little Bill returns English Bob’s gun mangled before sending him back to where he came from.  His manhood is offended and broken—much like his gun.  Thus, Little Bill’s zealous actions draw shade to his moral candor because he is eager to capitalize on masculine bravado while proudly wearing his sheriff armor.  Clint Eastwood mentions that “’Little Bill was a sheriff but he was really just a killer who happened to have the law on his side’” (qtd. in Tibbets 11).   His questionable actions as a true moralist or good lawman are also illustrated in the bar scene where he approaches a sickly, fever-weary William Munny at Greely’s Saloon whom he physically abuses once he suspects that he is armed with a gun.  Corruption, spurred by an obsession with masculine power while practicing the laws, commands a concession to execute violence in the most zealous way—and Little Bill epitomizes such horrendous perversion of power.

Unforgiven begs the question:  how relevant is Claudia in an ever-changing milieu where the laws that are supposed to mirror moral values are in a constant state of flux, especially in Big Whiskey?  Little Bill refuses to protect and serve the prostitutes of Big Whiskey.  Although Claudia is well into her grave, Ned (Morgan Freeman), Munny’ former gunslinging partner, speaks for her because he, too, has a wife, Sally Two Trees (Cherrilene Cardinal), who continues to harbor the same sentiments towards violence and guns as Claudia.  Upon Munny’s arrival at Ned’s farm, the camera lingers on Sally Two Trees’ hostile stoicism or “evil eye” as Munny calls it.  This reveals her apprehension and disdain for Munny.  Sally Two Trees does not accept the fact that Munny is a changed man.  With a wife who is still living and has converted her husband into a gentle farmer, Ned reminds Munny about his wife’s “cure” and that he would not have consider taking the whores’ bounty if Claudia were still alive.  He asserts that they are farmers now and not “bad men.”  Although Munny needs the money since he is an impoverished farmer who barely has enough to feed his two children, he sees the need to respond to the prostitutes’ bounty—hence his name Munny (the capital gains) and Will (that is, the will to do so).   He proceeds to convince Ned to be his partner by telling him in graphic detail what the cowboys have done, that is, “Cut up a woman.  Cut her eyes out, cut her tits off, cut her fingers off . . . everything’ but cut up her cunny.”  The crime is more egregious than the trivial such as “cheat at cards, steal some strays, spit on a rich fella” as Ned assumes initially.  This warrants another exception to violence that serves the prostitutes’ pleas for vengeance and justice, causing Claudia’s vehemence for violence irrelevant in the “New” West.  She along with Sally Two Trees represent the Old West.  By contrast, Amy Kane represents the transformation of the female Westerner.  In High Noon, Amy Kane cries out “there must be some other way” other than violence to put a stop to an outlaw, but she realizes later that there is no other way.  Claudia and Sally Two Trees have not made the same transformation and, therefore, may or may not forgive their husbands.  “Placing Claudia contextually alongside the prostitute, Unforgiven alludes to the typical portrayal of women in Westerns as either angelic ladies of virtue or fallen ladies of the night” (Kupfer 111).  The either/or Western prototype is now blurred as Zimmerman’s Amy Kane paves the way to this dichotomy in Westerns to follow, giving her qualities that harbor both the masculine and feminine qualities that are considered a defiance to the preordained gender roles, particularly when it comes to male dominance in instituting the law. More significantly, the issues on morality and violence, takes place befittingly in Big Whiskey, Wyoming, a symbolic historical setting when it comes to women’s rights.  Wyoming was the first state that allowed women to vote, thereby, making Unforgiven’s moral exploration on the relationship between women’s justice and violence an affront to archaic male-created laws that perpetuate authoritarian men and misogyny.  The prostitutes are not only catalysts for revenge and justice—they are also catalysts for the modernization of laws. Their actions are progressive rather than regressive.  

Thus, the avenging prostitutes dismantles the social rigidity, especially in the expectations of gender roles and their placement on the social echelon.  The old West affirms a female Western prototype—peacekeeping, motherly, demure—women who remain on the periphery, watching their male counterparts engage in violence in spite of their protests.  By contrast, “the whores are, by definition of their social role, women who have no families; thus they can function differently from other women” by engaging in sexual relationships where family or the creation of family is not the essential goal (Buscombe 42).   Because of their unorthodox use of their sexuality, they “may advocate and finance the committing of violent acts without disrupting the basic structure of the Western:  men-violence/women-peace” when it comes to gender prototypes (Buscombe 42).   In other words, the institution of prostitution, from a traditional sense, exempts them from the traditional peacekeeping female molds—but at the same time, it does not necessarily mean that a peaceful compensation for the crime that was committed is ruled out completely.  If Little Bill had not downplayed the punishment for the cowboy’s transgression, the prostitutes would not have resorted to violence.  Even Delilah, the cut-up whore, was in disbelief that the bounty carried out the initial task of killing her attackers.  Strawberry Alice’s retorts, “They didn’t come all the way out here to fuck us.” Her remark reveals her cynicism towards moral justice soon after being denied numerous times. Thus, violence is not an easy decision for anyone—even for the avengers.  Strawberry Alice knew the dire consequences the bounty would lead to if the laws were insufficient.   Although shaken by the true reality of a cowboy’s death under the prostitutes’ direction, Strawberry Alice, the spokesperson of the group, yells self-righteously at her male harassers who were against the assassins’ killing, “he had it coming!”  The attackers had their well-deserved, eye-for-an-eye comeuppance—according to the prostitutes.  In spite of this, violence is never wholeheartedly accepted but only used as a last resort in order to right a wrong and to reinforce the notion that laws are made for all citizens in the community and not for some.  Thus, peace would have prevailed and a bounty attached to violence would not have ensued if the negotiations on the punishment for the cowboy who cut up the prostitute were unfairly lenient.  

Unforgiven indulges in a provocative Western narrative that criticizes the ugliness and destruction of violence in which most Westerns gloss over in their narratives.  The prostitutes do not consider violence as an impulsive act of vengeance; they are, in actuality, reluctant to instigate violence.  Moreover, “one of the purposes of the laws . . . is to limit revenge through the institutionalization of retribution.  However, the institution fails ‘if punishment no longer satisfies vengeance, if it ignores not only the rights but the emotional needs of the victim of the crime’” (qtd. in Plantinga 68).  Strawberry Alice is well aware of this insufficiency.  Strawberry Alice insists on capital punishment, a hanging for the cowboy’s egregious infraction, but Little Bill considers a whipping instead because “they ain’t loafers nor tramps nor bad men” but “hard working boys.” Strawberry Alice remains indignant and calls out the laws’ faults, hypocrisies, double-standard nature, and inconsistencies, particularly when Little Bill has situated the cowboys somewhat above the law, since they are not whores “given over to wickedness.”  The heated disagreement between Strawberry Alice and Little Bill regarding an adequate punishment for the cowboys reflects the biases of the law.  The existing laws do not protect or compensate those on the bottom social strata.  They are figuratively “under” the law—not visible and not recognized.  In the name of justice, they are voiceless.  Skinny tells her to shut up when she is expressing her anger for not punishing offenders adequately.  Later he calls them bitches for luring assassins in the community through sex.  Strawberry Alice is well aware of the lawful breach, particularly when the severity of punishment is contingent on the victim’s place on the social strata.  Because of this, she is not afraid to voice her vehemence or to push back on the men who try to silence her.   

Most importantly, a lesson will never be learned when it comes to harming a prostitute or enforcing laws that concern the welfare of the prostitutes’ working conditions.   This is mainly because the actions of the lawman do not see their occupation as respectable to begin with.  In spite of this, Strawberry Alice remains indignant and emphasizes the severity of the crime and the inhumanity inflicted upon Delilah a second time:  Delilah no longer has a face, her only asset that has given her capital “value” in the community.  To add insult to injury, an exchange for a pony later becomes the final compensation as opposed to any substantial punishment.  Strawberry Alice responds to the inadequate repayment for the cowboys’ transgressions: “She ain’t got no face left and you’re going to give her a mangy pony?”  Such vehemence from Strawberry Alice demands a lawful precedent that must be set for wrongfully injured female workers.  Delilah is scarred forever by the trauma—and the prostitutes will continue to contend with work-related abuse. The weak punishment is both deplorable and objectionable on multiple levels:  it perpetuates the “facelessness” of the prostitutes in which they are invisible to the idea that they are legal standing, community citizens, supported by willing participants, that is, paying men engaging in unchristian carnal debauchery. Therefore, the prostitutes are not treated as respectable human beings, making them ineligible for any protection from the law.   Their only purpose is to satiate a man’s carnal urges—and to continue with property gains for those who have invested in them such as Skinny, the saloon owner.  His saloon is the prostitutes’ place of employment.  Yet, a disfigured prostitute reduces a man’s sexual appetite.   Thus, her disfigurement makes her “damaged property”—and forces her out of her profession.  Thus, attractiveness is considered commodity.  This explains why Skinny is more concerned about the destruction of his property as opposed to Delilah’s welfare.  She is considered an “investment of capital” whom he has purchased as a working whore to lure male consumers into his saloon for both lustful and recreational pleasures.  Branded as unmarketable, Delilah functions as the saloon’s housekeeper while her boss berates her for not wearing a veil to hide the scars he finds repulsive.   She is degraded even more so—not only as a prostitute but also as an ugly one.

Thus, “The film emphasizes the mistreatment of women in an unconventional, slyly and subversive way.  The wronged women are, after all, prostitutes, with so little social or legal standing in the West that they are treated as the property of men.  And this surely moves a peripheral player in Western mythology to a more central position” (Kunner 107).   Strawberry Alice is one who reads the law and Munny executes it in an unorthodox manner, making her both an observer and doer who harbors both masculine and feminine traits when it comes to protecting and promoting what is fundamentally right—that is, the preservation of one’s dignity and rights—regardless of the lowly occupation she partakes in.  She takes on the role of a law-wo(man) in a hyper-masculine, misogynistic, and patriarchal universe.   Thus, she is not a sidelined character, watching the horrors of a gunfight but rather, an orchestrator of a gunfight.  She hires someone who knows how to use a gun and sets the revenge plot for justice in motion.  From this, she works as a fighter in the shadow of the gunman Westerner.  She may not be Amy Kane in High Noon who picks up the gun to fight but pays for the violence instead.  In fact, the prostitutes’ method of fighting back is through the perversion of their womanhood in which sex is used as weaponry. This ultimately poses a threat to male control over the justice system.  The sexual metaphor behind the prostitutes’ vengeful actions makes the revenge both brazen and bawdy. Film critic and director Stanley Kauffmann makes it more explicit when he states: “The whores’ offer of a bounty tells us about the revolt of women against suppression and about the vagina as purse” (Kauffmann).    The prostitutes round up a slew of payees (along with potential assassins) in Big Whiskey to boost enough cash flow for a lucrative bounty—an egregious violation of the community’s law.  The abuse towards the prostitute does not stop there. The “law abiding” Skinny is upset, as potential assassins are making their way into Big Whiskey and eventually to his “law-abiding” saloon.  He lashes out on the prostitutes “What are you gonna do when somebody comes to collect?  Fuck ‘em? Fuck ‘em a thousand times?” when he suspects that the prostitutes are working diligently in order to squirrel away enough money to carry out a murder-for-hire.   Little Bill physically abuses Strawberry when he suspects that she has been making deals with potential gunmen. Because the prostitutes have been wronged by misogynistic and corrupt lawmen, they take the laws into their own hands but in a shrewd manner that even their male counterparts cannot fully harness.   

Therefore, Unforgiven explores the nuances of women’s roles that goes beyond the indignation of female victims. In Westerns, “Women’s roles are explored from diverse perspectives:  as the Redeeming Feminine (allied with nineteenth-century evangelical Christianity), as prostitutes and property, as threats to male power and the male ego, as victims of patriarchal capitalism, and as a utopian subgroup valorized for its communal practice” (Plantinga 68).   More specifically, they are not afraid to decry male control over the law.  Such revolutionary act from the prostitutes is emblematic on many layers regarding male-female dynamics.  After all, what initially sets this motion of retribution and vengeance stem from a man feeling emasculated by a woman, Delilah, who ends up laughing at a man’s miniature “pecker.”  Her “transgression” (in which “she didn’t know any better” due to her lack of experience according to Strawberry Alice) was considered egregious from a man’s perspective.  Consequently, “the slasher acted out of hurt male-chauvinist pride: sexism and supremacism out of male inferiority feelings, Freud enlisted in the feminist cause” (Simon).  Furthermore, the men who fail to assert lawful control are in a sense, emasculated by the prostitutes’ unwavering protest, as they cannot get the women to accept male authority as well as their final word on the law.

In this subversive as well as revisionist Western, it takes the lawless, outsiders such as reformed and retired gunslingers, in this case, Munny and Ned to sympathize with the prostitutes’ marginalization and rejection—as they, too, can identify with such marginalization by being outcasts themselves as gunslingers in the greater community.  Because they know how the evil world operates, the reformed gunslinger (who can also be considered as an antihero as well) is the most equipped to take down and rid the community of outlaws—but at the same time, such action cements their inability to integrate in the community.   They are often men of “action and of few words, with an unspoken code of honor that [commits] him to the vulnerable Western community and at the same time motivates him to remain distinctly apart from it” (Schatz 51).   Munny sees the prostitutes’ profession as oppressive and morally cruel, making them susceptible to male violence.  He tells Ned “it ain’t right paying for flesh.”  He sees them as good human beings.  For instance, after waking up from a fever that broke, he initially thought Delilah, who has nursed him back to recovery, an angel.  Therefore, he elevates her on the same plane as his wife, Claudia, the image of the idyllic Western female that typifies the feminine Christian.  Munny speaks of his wife as an angel as well when he tells Delilah that Claudia is a guardian angel watching over his little ones while he is away. (At this point, Delilah is unaware that Munny’s wife is dead).   Munny also humanizes Delilah and refuses to subject her to sexual objectification.  When Delilah is willing to give him an advance in payment (in exchange for sex), he refuses— not because of her disfigured face but rather his loyalty to his wife.   He assures her:  “You’re a beautiful woman and . . . if I was to want a free one, I guess I’d want you more them others [whores] . . . I can’t have no free one on account of my wife.”   If there is any indication that his wife has “straighten him up” it definitely has manifested in his respect for women whom he has indiscriminately killed in the past as a ruthless gunslinger.  More significantly, he is able to sympathize with Delilah’s marginality—as being looked upon as morally and sexually deviant.   He, too, knows what it is like when it comes to being stripped from any legal influence in a community.  He commiserates with her by stating, “What I said before, how I might look like you . . . I didn’t mean you was ugly like me, hell no . . . I only meant how we both had scars.”  Munny’s scars are from inflicting violence on others, a stained conscience that continues to haunt him, whereas Delilah’s scars are from the violence inflicted upon her.   Although the origins of their scars contrast by lawlessness and victimization respectively, they are on the same level—as community pariahs suffering the consequences that follow—particularly, one that brands them with no right to justice.   Both are aware of their rejection from the community. 

With gunslingers and prostitutes calling for justice, Unforgiven offers a subversive exploration on what is moral law and the rights to moral law while taking into account gender roles within the context of male and female Westerners.  As male and female outcasts, their roles are to a certain extent, ironically complementary—the prostitutes use flesh for capital gains and the hired assassins such as Munny, Ned, and the Schofield Kid are willing to destroy flesh for capital gains.  From this, Unforgiven recreates a moral universe where the lawless and those not legally recognizable citizens such as gunslingers and prostitutes are the ones who enact laws that seek restitution.  Such “laws” have their own justification for warranting capital punishment.  Ironically, both Munny and Ned, must become lawless again to carry out law and order that is fair and humanistic, especially for the prostitutes.  This coincides with the Westerner’s personal reckoning in which “the Westerner is motivated to further the cause of civilization by his own personal code of honor, which seems to be existentially derived.  Often this code leads him to an act of vengeance” (Schatz 57).  Their violent actions transcend capital gains, setting a new precedence on how those on the lower echelon are treated.  Ned’s fatal punishment from Little Bill’s iron fist and the prostitutes’ demand for justice for the assault motivate Munny’s thirst for violence.  

Munny’s final shootout at Skinny’s saloon not only typifies the Western genre, it also sets a different precedent when it comes to revenge and the violence that ensues.  Even the bloodbath in the saloon leaves no room for hero worship or glorification. Much like Marshall Kane in High Noon who leaves the community in disgust, Munny leaves the community with repulsion, especially after realizing that Ned’s fatally beaten body is used as a fear-mongering mascot displayed in front of Skinny’s saloon.  Unlike Marshall Kane, Munny transforms into a shadowy, demon-like figure, shaking onlookers to their bones, as his return to drinking whiskey has emboldened him to go on a shooting rampage.  He does not carry the same heroism as Marshall Kane—being purely good and his nemesis being purely evil, and, therefore, making the violence completely justified.  We cannot help but offer allegiance to the clear-cut hero such as Marshall Kane without any qualms.  However, Unforgiven denies any heroism in the “New” West since Munny’s morality remains on unstable grounds.   Even Eastwood makes it clear that Munny is not an entirely good man.   He declares, “Will Munny was also a killer, and in the showdown he wasn’t going to do any of this ‘you draw first’ stuff.  He reverted to his violent ways”—much like a “’kind of machinery of violence’” (qtd. Tibbets 11).   Because of this, Munny first kills an unarmed man, Skinny, who has offended his late friend, Ned.  Immediately after, he kills everyone else who points a gun at him at the saloon, including Little Bill.   After the showdown, he hurls a final warning to the community:  “you better bury Ned right.  You better not cut up no whore.”  Here, through violence, he declares and enforces a new “law” and new type of justice for all.  It is a different kind of Wild, Wild, West.  As violence legitimatizes the new law, prostitutes and characters such as Amy Kane are catalysts to mark this progression.  They have participated in the masculine universe (i.e., the politics of law) that tries to shut them out.  Furthermore, “the oppressed and disenfranchised prostitutes, here representing the community benefiting from the gunslinger’s brand of American justice, come out to look at him in fear and admiration” (Cloutier 10).  The prostitutes receive the vindication they yearned for but through an unorthodox handling of justice. In the past, “the Western had too much invested in masculinity and its discontents to spend much time on what women want,” and “the Western is not celebrated for favoring women.  Traditionally, there’s a limited range of roles to offer (young marriageable girl, wife, schoolteacher, whore), all of them subordinate” (Buscombe 21).  Unforgiven defies this trope when the prostitutes’ revolt shakes up the masculine world, especially when it comes to the institution of law governed by men.  In regards to feminist film theorists such as Betty Friedman in her book The Feminist Mystique, film critic Shohini Chauhuri explores her work in terms of women’s cultural obligatory roles in order to meet the social needs of American culture.   She states: “the feminine mystique has socially conditioned women to consent to their roles as mothers and housewives, becoming the ‘cherished and self-perpetuating core of American culture’, and making women feel guilty for taking a job outside the home—guilty for ‘undermining’ their husbands’ masculinity and their own femininity, and for neglecting the children (Chaudhuri 17).  The prostitutes’ initial inability to get the law on their side in Unforgiven offers a different defiance when it comes to conceptualizing the feminine mystique, especially as working women.   Instead of undermining husbands, they undermine their community’s lawman (Little Bill) as well as their employer (Skinny).  Through this, they are unequivocally revolutionary in their rebellion towards the existing establishment, especially one that goes beyond husbandry and marriage.

Munny and Ned—as assassins and gunslingers—differ greatly in moral standing in comparison to English Bob—in which the “angelic” female Westerners such as Claudia and Sally Two Trees fail to distinguish because of their tendency to homogenize and generalize gunslingers.   Retired gunslingers such as Munny and Ned have never glorified violence.  By contrast, violence was never a vehicle to capitalize on masculine prowess in which Little Bill and English Bob have gratuitously embraced.  In fact, alcoholism, money, and/or just uncontrolled rage have motivated Ned and Munny’s deplorable actions in the past.  The fact that they are gunmen who no longer have the muscle to kill indiscriminately, they have reckoned with the fact that their alcoholism and bad judgment in the past do not provide an excuse for their deplorable actions.   Even after marrying the traditional Western female prototypes who harbor angelic values, a more defined moral conscience becomes part of their identity and the urge to engage in violence requires some sort of moral rationalizing—whether it is carried out for money, vengeance, and/or for justice.   Thus, the “reformed” gunslingers carry on a new dimension when it comes to identity—one with a conscience, one who questions his own actions to kill before actually pulling the trigger, one who must demarcate good and evil and not just kill indiscriminately.  It is also the traditional female Westerner thar paves the way for an untraditional outlaw, a rare prototype that is rarely dwelled upon in a typical Western, that is, the guilt-ridden and morally conscientious outlaw and assassin.   The angelic female prototype is responsible for softening the rugged Westerner and providing them a sense of humanity.  As a result, the gunslinger becomes a dichotomy of humanity and savagery, ultimately leaving him to choose which side to stand.  In a way, the traditional woman, that is, the evangelical Christian female model is a necessary counterpoint to the prostitute’s attitude towards violence.  The Christian female model in a Western helps shape the male Westerner’s sensibilities when it comes to rethinking violence before actually pulling the trigger.  And we learn later on, Munny’s return to violence definitely goes beyond profit.

The morally conscientious assassin is illustrated in multiple cathartic scenes. Ned and Munny, as hired assassins, were able to face the ugliness of their past as they carry out their duties for the prostitutes.  Ned could no longer finish off the offending cowboy writhing in pain after he falls off his horse and breaks his legs, making him an easy target.  The Schofield Kid (the want-to-be or aspiring gunslinger) is indecisive and hesitant before fatally shooting a cowboy and needs several confirmations from the experienced Munny on when to shoot the cowboy.  But he knows his “mentor” has a conscience and is aware of the dire consequences to follow—that is, an overwhelming feeling of guilt.  In addition, Munny’s violent past haunts him in his nightmares with the ghost of his wife appearing before him with her face covered with worms.  He also dreams about a man he shot in the face, causing his teeth to come out from the back of his head.  Munny, in particular, contrasts greatly with the “legendary” English Bob who boasts about his violent exploits while cementing his “legacy” with this biographer.  English Bob is motivated by celebrity status and masculine prowess; Munny is motivated by money, revenge, and justice for a woman brutally assaulted.  With the help of Claudia instilling a conscience in him, he evolves morally but his evolution does not completely change him in the same way he believes Claudia has “cured” him.  He ultimately breaks his promise for revenge and justice—and even for money.  Therefore, Munny’s redemption is not wholly achieved and is acutely aware of it after his final shootout while numbing his conscience with another swig of whiskey.   Once he removes himself from civil domestication and mainly his wife, he returns to violence, making Claudia’s “cure” irrelevant and ineffective outside of the domestic setting.   The situation also begs the question: will Claudia forgive him as she watches over him like a guardian angel?

Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven breaks ground in depicting female prototypes in a Western—especially the commonly known misfits, outcasts, and lowly citizens who defy the conservative values of the West.  It is also a revenge story carried out by female outcasts who are not valued by the greater community but are later able to demand and establish a different type of value—in this case, respect and human dignity.  Unforgiven does not wholly dismiss the idyllic peacemaker and violent women as they are credited for recreating a morally conscientious gunslinger.  However, what really prevails and triumphs are the drive for human dignity and human rights by revising archaic laws under the direction of the “lowly” women—the prostitutes of Big Whiskey.   From this, they have risen above the moral and social strata amid their quest to challenge the conventional establishment.  Indeed, it takes a different type of female Westerner without any legal standing to revise the legality of their existence in the community to break the legal rigidity that is necessary in order to demand a much-needed justice for all.  

Dedicated to the Film Studies students class of 2021 and 2022 who share a passion for the Western genre.

July 17, 2022

Works Cited

Buscombe, Edward. Unforgiven. British Film Institute, 2019.

Chaudhuri, Shohini. Feminist Film Theorists: Laura Mulvey, Kaja Silverman, Teresa De Lauretis, Barbara Creed. Routledge, 2009.

Cloutier, Jean-Christophe. “A Country for Old Men: Unforgiven, The Shootist, and the Post-Heyday Western.” Cinema Journal, vol. 51, no. 4, Summer 2012, pp. 110–29. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2012.0074.

Foster, Gwendolyn. “The Women in High Noon: A Metanarrative of Difference.” Film Criticism, vol. 18/19, no. 3/1, Spring-Fall 1994, pp. 72–81. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=31374648&site=ehost-live.

Kauffmann, Stanley. “Clint and Gore.” New Republic, vol. 207, no. 16, Oct. 1992, pp. 36–38. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=11930605&site=ehost-live.

Kupfer, Joseph H. “The Seductive and Subversive Meta-Narrative of Unforgiven.” Journal of Film and Video, vol. 60, no. 3/4, University of Illinois Press, 2008, pp. 103–14, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20688605.

Plantinga, Carl. “Spectacles of Death: Clint Eastwood and Violence in Unforgiven.” Cinema Journal, vol. 37, no. 2, Winter 1998, p. 65. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.2307/1225643.

Simon, John. “Unforgiven? For What? By Whom?” National Review, vol. 44, no. 18, Sept. 1992, pp. 63–66. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9209213693&site=ehost-live.

Schatz, Thomas. Hollywood Genres. McGraw-Hill, 1981.

Tibbetts, John C. “Clint Eastwood and the Machinery of Violence.” Literature Film Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 1, Jan. 1993, p. 10. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9608080161&site=ehost-live.