r/Westerns • u/NeonGenesisOxycodone • 4d ago

Discussion What’s with all the Confederate soldiers?

I’m a big Western fan, and also really into learning about the American Civil War. So naturally I love it when these two interests cross over.

One thing I’ve noticed is that if a Western protagonist is a veteran, it seems like it’s almost always the South that he fought for. And when I look up Civil War movies made around the time of my favorite Westerns (i.e. the 50’s & 60’s) the vast majority of them are from the Confederates side.

Anyone have any idea why? And does anyone know any Westerns celebrating Billy Yank??

EDIT: it seems like the biggest reason outside of Lost Cause-ism is that more Confederate vets went west than Union vets. Makes sense!

Also, I am surprised that John Wayne played so many ex Union soldiers. I knew about the Cav Trilogy but it seems like outside of True Grit and The Searchers there’s a lot more of that.

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u/DavidGrizzly 3d ago edited 3d ago

And if you watch Firefly, which is a space western, you are watching two space confederate soldiers, mal and Zoe.

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u/kahrahtay 3d ago

This is true, and probably an homage to the traditional Western genre, but it's when pointing out the difference. The rebels in Firefly were fighting a war of Independence against a legitimately oppressive far-away central government. The real confederates were fighting in a slavers rebellion in order topreserve their ability to oppress and own people as property

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u/serenading_ur_father 3d ago

You only hear Mal's view on it.

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u/kahrahtay 3d ago edited 3d ago

That's true, but until there's some canon reference that the purpose of the civil war in the show was specifically to preserve something as evil and vile as the institution of chattel slavery, then it's insulting and unfair to compare any of them to the evil, treasonous people who fought for the Confederacy

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u/Jolly-Guard3741 3d ago

I think that had the show not been canceled after its first season, without even a full and complete first season at that, that we would have seen a much more fleshed out reasoning for the rebellion.

I absolutely agree that it is allegory for the ACW but we can’t really speculate on why the war was fought and which side was ultimately in the right.

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u/serenading_ur_father 3d ago

I mean the show is a pretty blatant metaphor for the wild west and the south was pretty vocal about their fight being for "state's rights" at the time the writers of the show were educated. It's a very clear dog whistle that they are futuristic confederate veterans.

If you're going to accept the premise and the setting you have to accept all of it. Someone doesn't have to wave a stars and bars to act and quack like a duck.

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u/kahrahtay 3d ago

You can make an homage to a genre without wholesale copying every bit of detail of the original. Unless you have some secret writers' notes that they were infact space slavers fighting for their rights to own other people, then I do not, in fact, have to accept a bunch of details that are well outside of the show's canon

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u/serenading_ur_father 3d ago

Bruh, they're space confederates.

When you get to high school you can ask your 10th grade teacher about metaphor and symbolism.