I was raised on Westerns like Wanted: Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen, and all those John Wayne Westerns from the 1930s and 1940s. I think those shows and movies were a large part of the makeup of my character. Sure, my parents raised me to be moral and scouting encouraged morality, but there was nothing like show after show and movie after movie where the bad guys cheated, lied and stole but always lost to the good guys, who had to do things the right way, morally.
That code of the west really burned itself into a young mind and helped to make me a moral person. What do the young have today? Nothing but anti-heroes and zombies. It is sad.
The old movies usually represented good vs evil with good always winning. There were a lot of gun fights but people watching those shows knew better than to shoot people without good cause (self-defense). I liked Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, Andy of Mayberry, and good wholesome shows even though a lot of the actors turned out to be libs in their personal lives. It didn’t come out in the shows. They kept their politics to themselves. I like the old westerns too. Men were men and criminals usually got what they deserved.
***those shows and movies were a large part of the makeup of my character. ***
I believe many of us can relate to that as we have a connection to those old times. I still remember my great-grand father who was born in 1868, when Custer made his raid on the Washita, The Santa Fe Trail was closed due to Indian raids, bison still covered the plains, cattle drives were starting to move north, the Trans-Continental Railroad still was being built. He lived long enough to see the B-52 Bomber go into service.
Today’s youth are connected in their past to what! Hippies, Woodstock, Drugs. They have no connection to HARD TIMES and survival. One girl not long ago was complaining about how hard life was today because she had no AIR CONDITIONING in her car.