Just a few years after Dances With Wolves came out, I happened to be in Deadwood, South Dakota, near where they shot the film. I heard that Kevin Costner had bought a casino in Deadwood, so I decided to check it out, not because I’m a fan, because I’m not, but just out of curiosity.
The casino was on the second floor of one of the great old brick buildings on the main drag in Deadwood, and as I ascended the indoor staircase up into the venue, it was hard to overlook the fact that the walls on both sides of the staircase were plastered with pictures of Costner in his various film roles. I thought it was pretty disgusting, but that was just the start of it. When I reached the top of the stairs, I looked around to see that the walls in the entire establishment were filled with the same thing. Some of his costumes also made an appearance, encased in glass, as if they were antiques.
I can’t remember whether I stayed, but if I didn’t despise Mr. Costner already, that sealed the deal. And of course, now I need to explain why.
I was once a fan. Being a baseball nut, I loved Bull Durham and Field of Dreams. I thought No Way Out was a terrific action film, and I thought Costner held his own in The Untouchables. But everything changed with Dances With Wolves. When the buzz about this movie started to go around, I was excited about it for the same reason a lot of people were, because it was going to be one of the first major films to depict Native Americans speaking their own language, and they had also made a commitment to using Native actors. That was compelling.
But while most people raved about the results, I walked out of that movie feeling as if Costner had failed in the one area that is most important if you’re going to claim to represent the West in an authentic way. Dances With Wolves failed the credibility test, and more importantly, after doing a pretty nice job of creating more fully rounded Native characters, the film eventually turned into one more white savior story. I watched the film again recently so I could remember why I hated it so much, and I hated it even more all these years later, because by the end of the film, the entire tribe is doing everything they can to make sure Costner’s character, John Dunbar, is going to get what he wants, including one of their women (although she, of course, was not native). There was apparently not a single member of the tribe who objected to this plan, which like most of the film, was completely unrealistic.
I could go on, but I think I got my point across. Since that film came out, Costner has proven time and again that his range as an actor is pretty narrow. He can’t do accents, so he was awful in JFK, and every film he ever tried to adopt a British accent. Waterworld was the final straw for me. Until I watched the first episode of Yellowstone about a year ago just so I could confirm what I already knew, I hadn’t seen any of his films since Waterworld.
So you might say my opinion is flawed because of that, and maybe you’re right. But when I did watch that wretched first episode of Yellowstone, it confirmed everything I suspected about the direction Costner’s career has taken. It seems that since he bought property in the West (after living part time in Deadwood for a while, he now owns a house in Colorado), Costner seems to consider himself an expert on the West. He didn’t direct any films for quite some time after The Postman was a huge flop, but when he did don his directorial cap again, it was for Open Range, which I admit I’ve never seen. But that film seemed to give him the idea that he has the chops to become the next Clint Eastwood, representing the new face of the American West in film.
This is where my dislike for Costner went to a whole new level, because it’s a huge pet peeve of mine, the fact that so much of the Western narrative has been hijacked by people who don’t have any real concept of what life is really like here. It’s a long-standing tradition, dating back to Owen Wister’s The Virginian, a novel (and eventually a film and TV series) that I believe created the whole persona of the stoic Western male. The Virginian has most of the same qualities we all came to know from almost every Western hero, especially those played by John Wayne and Eastwood. The Virginian is a man of few words, but a man of action, who can outshoot, outfight, and outlady every other man he encounters, without putting much effort into it.
The reason I have become fairly obsessed with this issue is mainly about mental health. My father, and his father, both tried to live up to that ideal, and I think it caused them great inner turmoil. And evidence shows that this is a common problem in the West. It’s become a well-known fact that Montana, and many other western states, always rank very high in suicides. In the early days, it was more common among women, who struggled to come to terms with the isolation of life on the plains, but in recent decades, the percentage of suicides has become much higher for men. And of course, in the West, they almost always commit the act with a gun.
I don’t think films and television shows are just harmless entertainment when they continue to perpetuate harmful messages. And the most harmful message that has often come from Westerns is this idea that men need to take care of their own problems, and that asking for help is a weakness. The results speak for themselves, and sadly, most of the people who have perpetuated these stereotypes never lived the Western life. John Ford was from Maine. Clint Eastwood, California. Owen Wister grew up in Pennsylvania. Zane Grey was a dentist from Ohio. We have had this narrative stuffed down our throats by people who are only interested in giving the public the same cardboard cutouts they’ve come to expect, rather than showing the nuanced, complex lives that people really live here in the West. And Taylor Sheridan is the latest to profit from that.
I was very happy to hear that Yellowstone was about to fold its tent, and was hoping that this would mean that many of my incredible writer friends in Montana would finally get a chance to have their stories brought to the big screen. Because some of the best Westerns ever made were written by Montana writers. My personal favorite is Shane, the screenplay for which was written by A.B. Guthrie, from Choteau, Montana. But there was also The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, based on a story by Dorothy Johnson, and of course A River Runs Through It, based on Missoula native Norman Maclean’s fabulous novella. Even recently, Jane Campion adapted a novel by one of our lesser known but most interesting Montana writers, Thomas Savage, from Dillon, and she won a best director Oscar for the amazing result, The Power of the Dog.
These stories about the West are much more complicated and interesting than anything Taylor Sheridan has ever written. But now, just when I was hopeful that the door was open again, we are about to be subjected to a new trilogy, written by and starring the insufferable Kevin Costner, who had zero writing credits to his name until now. And it will sell millions of tickets. And more of my friends will not have the opportunity to get their stories out there because producers will say “Sorry, but Horizon has taken up our budget for Westerns this year.”
The west has a long history of having our resources exploited to make a profit for others. And our culture, our story, our truth, is just one more example of that.
Between a Republican Party increasingly beholden to moneyed interests and ridiculous melodramas like Yellowstone perpetuating a very inaccurate mythology (and causing people to move here in search of that mythology) Montana has been dealt an odious double-whammy. Nebraska (the movie) is far more the real Montana (and adjacent states) than anything Costner has given us. And far more real for most of us than the lifestyles of the moneyed carpetbaggers who have taken over the state. You hit the nail on the head, Russell.
Holy buckets, you made us suffer through a regurgitation of Kostner films to get to the good juice of the post, hehe. Yes, spot on, Mr. Rowland, it's the story of Hollywood and nice that you gave shoutouts to so many remarkable Montana writers. Like you, having lived in known artsey states like CA & NY, Montana may have the highest number of chiseled jaw, tall, dark 'n silent ;-) creative types per cap of any place in the country. All the hours of windshield time, tractor jockeying, and sittin' horseback gives people time to daydream. We live among a special population, thanks for enumerating some.