Forward: Simple Conventions of Western Film Genre
The Western Genre is characterized by civilization having conflict with the uncivilized world. Civilization is always saved by an uncivilized hero. The film always opens and closes with the hero wandering out from and then back into the uncivilized world. Typically uncivilized forces are savages or wilderness.

ATypical Western Opinion Paper
The archetype seems to be at odds with Unforgiven’s status as a Western. The movie opens up with a short narrative statement as William Munney works on his farm; wilderness is nowhere in sight. The inciting incident was a when a whore got cut up by a white man; this is not an action caused by the wild or savages (savages aren’t typically white). Munney a man from a farm kills the sheriff, his posse, the bar owner, and the man who helped cut the whore; these are all people from civilization. Then Munney returns to his farm and later to San Francisco with the cut up whore; he moves right back into society. Unforgiven appears not to fit into the Western Genre.
As one inspects this film it is hard to discern who or what is civilized. Every character in the film that has been in the west has a vice; William Munney, Little Bill (sheriff), English Bob are killers; the whores are whores; the saloon owner is a pimp; the face cutters cut up a woman’s face; Ned was a killer; the Scofield Kid is a killer by the end of the movie; the posse is filled with a glutton, a coward, and a vain dude; the writer (his words will become the record of what happened) represents a liar that distorts the truth of what happened. Indeed, every character in the film has some vice, which begs the question “is civilization anywhere in this film?”
Civilization exists in Unforgiven as an ideal; something that must be protected even though it doesn’t exist in a real form. Each character embodies or tries to save a different part of civilization: William Munney, Ned, the Kid, and the whores are seeking justice for the cutting; Little Bill, and his posse seek law and order, the saloon owner would be with them too; English Bob embodies British class and uses a logical system (but he murdered a man because he had a bigger penis); the face cutter sought justice for a whore laughing at his small penis (See Freud or any man driving Hummer); the accomplice felt remorse and sought to make peace for what happened; the writer records the history. These are all coveted ideals of civility but none of the characters are civil.
As the movie starts, William Munney is working on his farm, the farm is just as wild as wilderness because civilization only exists as an ideal not attained. The whore gets cut up, and the whore’s ideal of civility is threatened, which ensnares English Bob, Scofield, Ned, and Munney to seek justice. These men are now assassins this causes Little Bob, and his pose’s ideal of civility to be violated which ensnares them to protect it. Munney and Scofield get the cutters, and then Little Bill and his pose get Ned. This causes a showdown between the two clearly uncivilized parties. Munney kills Little Bob and his pose and resolves the conflict. The movie closes on Munney returning back to his farm and later moving to San Francisco with the cut up whore. He moves back into the wilderness (a world without civility/purity).
Unforgiven fulfills the genre archetype for a western. The uncivilized tried to protect the civil. An uncivilized man comes from and leaves after the resolution to the uncivilized or wild world. All of the characters were uncivilized and, thus, savages. Though Unforgiven doesn’t seem like a typical Western, it fits the conventions of the typical Western in an atypical way.

I’m pretty sure that there is basically no one reading this but me.  However, I would like to inform my reader that I am now in school again, and that there will be papers published here.

I’m finally realizing and articulating what I’ve been doing okay at and want to do at a high level. Now it’s just an organizational issue to do things more efficiently.

Paintball
Whiffle Ball
Rain
Late Nights
Ideas
Fun

Wonderful days are founded in doing what I love to do, and doing that without shame. Shame is normally present because I’ve been shown that what I do isn’t worth anything to anyone and until recently not even to me. I’m learning to listen to my heart like I’ve learned to listen to my stomach. I’m going to do what I love and not do what I don’t want to do. I’m going to tell people when I’m uncomfortable. It’s important that I’ve said that because I need to.

I’m starting to realize that I’m not young. Though, I must admit that I’m not old either. I must be in the mid twenties doldrums, where self is awkwardly moving forward while occasionally looking back to see the surprising lack of progress while an exceptional amount of time has passed. As I write this I am realizing that it has nothing to do with being in the middle of my twenties and everything to do with the lose of focus on the possibilities of tomorrow, that and not being forced to sit through hours and hours of school. Tomorrow I turn twenty four and I am looking forward toward a day when I can use my natural abilities in a efficient way. I am going to live with eyes on the future but my nature always in mind. I will do the things that I would do anyway, only I will do them better.

For Mother’s Day I wanted to make something special for my Mom because we had an extremely emotion talk the night before.  The talk wasn’t about my Mom but actually about my Dad and how he tried to in vain to instruct me.  There has been a lot of pain through the years as the cycles of instruction never changed through my childhood and even into adulthood other than them becoming less frequent.  When that pain was displayed my mother wept.  She felt that she had failed.  I made this card to show her that she hadn’t.  I made it to show her that laughter, comedy, and good old crafting has helped me develop into a person that isn’t helpless but is proud and actually capable.  I wanted this card to be the embodiment of why my mother did he job well.  My mom would never proudly say those words to the world, but it was her laughter with my jokes that were certainly more crude or vulgar than my mother is that kept me feeling loved, happy, and accepted.

Ironically, or not, I had the epiphany about this concept while in the bathroom.

Today is a day where I have something to say. Something to point out. I think that originality in absolute forms is impossible. That’s why I chose to say I will point something out. Isn’t that what we are doing when we make new art. We are pointing out something that we like in our lives or in our dreams. The things we write or depict or design are reflections or refractions of the universe around us. In that way nothing we do can be original. I guess we’ll all just need to cope with that fact that the O in OG isn’t a good descriptor gone.

I guess that’s something I would like to point out as well. If you’re wonder what “that” is. This is it, we often refer to a person’s work as original and if it’s good enough we call it genius. These words often inflate the ego of the person that is being called that. When you really think about it, we really can’t take ultimate credit for our own art. The things that make something original or genius are the things that are eternal about it, and eternity spans before the art and artist were created.

*end rant*