Paladin Plays the Field: 1950s Television, Masculinity, and the New Episodic Sexualization of the Private Sphere

Abstract

A silver knight emblem fills the screen. The camera dollies backward, first revealing the knight symbol as an adornment of a black leather gun holster, then pulling back farther to show the holster attached to an imposing black-clad male pelvis. The gun, a shiny black pistol, is removed by the anonymous man’s hand from its holster, cocked, and pointed at the viewer. A voiceover begins:

I’d like you to take a look at this gun. The balance is excellent, this trigger responds to a pressure of one ounce. This gun was hand-crafted to my specifications and I rarely draw it unless I intend to use it.

After an establishing shot of the ritzy Carlton Hotel, with requisite street signs and bright lights placing us in San Francisco, the camera follows a Chinese bellman holding newspapers into the lobby, as a glamorous man in a slim white suit leads a beautiful, black-gowned, and bejeweled blond down the hotel staircase. They pause at the foot of the stairs, and she whispers with hand over mouth into his ear. He laughs heartily; she smiles at what she said, and the two part ways, the gentleman still chuckling to himself and the viewer. He buys a stack of newspapers from the bellman and crosses the lobby to read them on an opulent divan, stopping to look—and be looked at—seductively by a sumptuously dressed young Mexican woman, after which they both smile knowingly.