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Mediale Topographien pp 73–93Cite as

From the Myth of the Frontier unto the Rise of Economy: The Western and Serial Complexity in Deadwood

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Abstract

When Robert Altman made McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) his idea was not to direct a Western. In fact he didn’t like the genre at all. Altman always wanted to tell something true about American history. In doing so the setting is an important element. McCabe and Mrs. Miller takes place in a small mining town called Presbyterian Church in the hills of the Northwestern United States.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Deadwood earned 28 Emmy nominations and won the award eight times.

  2. 2.

    The outlaw can be regarded as a major component in global and intercultural perspectives on the Western genre (see Klein 2016a, b, 2015).

  3. 3.

    It is spelt Charlie in Deadwood.

  4. 4.

    Generic stereotypes are understood in the sense of Schweinitz (2011).

  5. 5.

    See for instance Soldier Blue (1970, by Ralph Nelson) or A Man Called Horse (1970, by Elliot Silverstein).

  6. 6.

    Actually, American natives remain present in form of the decapitated head of a dead Sioux that is in a box. Al Swearengen occasionally talks to it during the second and third seasons.

  7. 7.

    This is, of course, also the case in other Western series which take place in a town as for instance Gunsmoke (1955–1975).

  8. 8.

    There are a few exceptions like for instance John Morgan in A Man Called Horse who is stereotypical British.

  9. 9.

    In “Amateur Night” (3.9) Swearengen, alone in his saloon, gives his input to the amateur night of the Langrishe theater with an improvisation of “The Unfortunate Lad”, which is said to be a British version of the British original on the famous American Cowboy ballad “Streets of Laredo”.

  10. 10.

    Cornish American’s origin is Cornwall, England. The region had an important mining industry that declined in the 19th century.

  11. 11.

    The Pinkerton National Detective Agency “was […] the largest provider of investigative and protective services in the United States between 1858 and 1898; it was also the only instrument of police power to function throughout the nation” (Slotkin 1998, p. 139).

  12. 12.

    For two episodes in the last season, Wyatt Earp and his brother Morgan appear in Deadwood. Nobody knows them because their legend is ahead of their time: the gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881.

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  1. Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Thomas Klein

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  1. Thomas Klein
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Correspondence to Thomas Klein .

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  1. Dekra Hochschule für Medien, Berlin, Germany

    Marcus Stiglegger

  2. Geographisches Institut, Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Anton Escher

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Klein, T. (2019). From the Myth of the Frontier unto the Rise of Economy: The Western and Serial Complexity in Deadwood. In: Stiglegger, M., Escher, A. (eds) Mediale Topographien. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-23008-1_5

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