Hud: Bucking The Western Film Stereotype

Hud: Bucking the Western film stereotype

Hud (1963) starring Paul Newman is a film about a man who works on his families' ranch along with his nephew Lonnie under his father Homer's direction. When the cows on the ranch become ill with foot and mouth disease, Homer must make a tough decision to kill them. The film depicts the struggle between Homer and Hud over the future of the ranch.

Thinking about popular culture imagery of Western movies evokes many thoughts in American minds: guns, cowboys, Indians, and horses. According to Wikipedia, the Western movie genre is classical Hollywood depiction of the established 19th century Western literature. Hud is truly a coming of age film for the Western genre itself. This movie uses many of the elements both described in Wikipedia and "Movie Chronicle: The Westerner" by Robert Warshow to categorize it within the realm of Western films. While this film shines as a contemporary Western movie, it displays far too many variances to be stereotyped as a simple Western.

Wikipedia states that classical Western films are generally set within the time-period of the American Wild West era of the late 19th century. The viewer quickly ascertains that Hud is clearly outside of this time frame. The filmmakers have set this work in a time of modern accoutrements, such as paved roads, automobiles, horse trailers, and transistor radios. Modern industrialism had already taken place. We do not see Indian wars, saloons or horse drawn carriages as you might in a more stereotypical Western movie.

In most cases, Western films usually have a protagonist that has had something wrong done to them in their past and they spend the story trying to overcome this through vengeance or vigilantism. The character of Hud does have a past grievance within his psyche; but instead of using that to overcome adversity, it further fuels him as the antagonist of the film. Instead of learning from the death of his brother, he simply becomes a selfish and callous character. This example illustrates the fresh approach of the filmmakers and distinguishes itself from the classic examples as described by Warshow.

Warshow explains a Western as having a melancholy man who is often forced into violence, but understanding the necessity for it. The character of Hud contradicts this example by seeking trouble, displaying traits that are aloof, oppugnant, yet charming and vain. A scene early in the film shows Hud and his nephew Lonnie being asked to watch a dead cow by his father Homer. Instead, Hud displays an aloof trait by leaving Lonnie by himself to tend to the dead cow while he goes off to philander with a married woman.

A scene in the film depicts Hud using Lonnie as bait to intentionally start a bar fight for his own thrills. Lonnie starts a conversation about wanting to get involved with women and Hud encourages Lonnie to talk to a specific woman who is sitting by her apparent partner. Hud fully understands that this will more than likely cause a ruckus. As Hud predicted, the partner of the woman starts an adversarial conversation with Lonnie. Hud decides to sucker punch the man and a bar fight breaks out. This clearly illustrates that Hud deliberately enters into mercurial situations and is not forced into them.

Hud is a womanizer, often sleeping with married women for the sake of his own ego. Homer has disdain for this behavior and points out that Hud's philandering is something that makes "the kids wanna be like him." This example shows that when kids want to be like Hud, it gives some validation to Hud and inflates his ego.

Despite the examples used showing that Hud contradicts Warshow's description of a classic Western character, one could argue that this behavior could be considered "outlaw" making Hud an anti-hero. Wikipedia states that many Westerns made in the 1960's and 1970's often have a more pessimistic view, glorifying a rebellious anti-hero. Hud certainly is pessimistic, making his own rules by rebelling against the social norm of that era in the film. Viewers could see Hud's philandering as a taboo but likable trait.

Although the time-period of the movie is set in the modern era, much of the mise en scÐ"Ёne of the film is obvious to the audience that Hud is a Western. We see horses, cattle, guns, Texas road signs, cowboy hats, open range and hear characters with southern accents. Those elements described clearly do define the film as a Western, but if we look deeper within the story, you will see the elements that blur the lines.

The film does not have a clichÐ"©d difficult physical journey; instead, it shows the historical journey of the Western man. It shows the struggle of industrialization of the west. Homer embodies many traits of what Wikipedia calls a 1940's and 1950's Western genre film, which emphasizes honor and sacrifice. Honor and sacrifice is fiercely antipodal to Hud's traits.

Both characters possess personas intrinsic to different production eras of the Western genre itself, which again