I'm curious about whether young people have even seen a western

[andrewducker]

I wonder at what birth year over half of people have never seen a western.

Obviously very young people won't - but if we look at people age 25-40, who have had a chance to watch a bunch of movies, I wonder if outside of classic movie afficionados you'll have seen many people see any. The last minor resurgence would have been Tarantino's Hateful Eight and Django Unchained, and I don't think either of those were that massive. Before that you're probably back to Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven, which is now around 35 years ago.

Which would mean that the main cultural touchstone for young people would be Red Dead Redemption 2, released in 2018 and the 4th best-selling game of all time.

(Curiosity triggered because in the most recent University Challenge nobody recognised John Wayne.)

Comments

[aldabra]

Do space cowboys count? Westworld?

I would not recognise John Wayne, but back in the day you could put the television on and get a random film to watch, or tennis or sheepdogs or something, and I have a cultural memory of Westerns. But my actual go-to imagery is from Firefly and Westworld.

I have stopped putting the television on at all because it wants me to start by choosing something out of infinitely many-layered menus.

[simont]

Even I, somewhat above your age 40 cutoff, have hardly seen any westerns. They weren't a staple of my childhood. Of course the memes and tropes from them are familiar, but I osmosed those from references in other popular culture.

I've watched one or two westerns since then out of a deliberate desire to see for myself what the memes were derived from. But I too wouldn't have recognised John Wayne. I don't think I watched any of his. Clint Eastwood perhaps.

[agoodwinsmith]

Closest might be Killers of the Flower Moon - which is not a "western" at all, but might be the closest a young person might have seen.

[soemand]

I grew up watching bonanza reruns, and I took my wife to see hildago for one of our first dates.

So I don’t count.

Part of the answer to your question is the 1971 rural purge that occurred on cbs television station. It propagated across the industry. By ‘75 the # of westerns dropped precipitously in tandem.

[gingicat]

There's a series on CBS/Paramount+ called 1923 that seems to be pretty popular. It is *gritty* though, I couldn't watch past the first episode because their very accurate portrayal of a missionary school reduced me to an angry crying wreck.