I don't know. I have never seen a cowgirl wearing pants.
Posted on 03/11/2010 8:50:27 AM PST by PJ-Comix
I have a HUGE pet peeve. It is western movies in which the characters are wearing embarrassingly modern clothing. Most often it is the hats. If you look at photos or illustrations of the Old West at the time, the hats look very different from what we usually see in the movies. For example, yesterday I watched "September Dawn" about the Mountain Meadows Massacre but I couldn't get over the fact of the silly looking hats that folks back then did NOT wear. One IMDB commenter stated that those hats looked like something people wear on their way to a Garth Brooks concert.
One of the few movies that seemed to get authentic Western look was "Tombstone" which helped in appreciating that excellent movie. Unfortunately most of the Western movies are completely off-base in their costuming. Another thing that really bugs me about Western movies is when they have women dressed in jeans. Back then women ALWAYS wore dresses. NEVER pants. Any exposure of female legs or even outlines of their legs was considered as nudity back then. Oh, and when women rode horses...they only rode side-saddle.
Okay, sorry for the rant but way too many Western movies are RUINED by costume designers too lazy to research for authentic clothing.
In the very early days hat styles were driven partly by the flash from a flintlock weapon.
Cowboys who speak only English but not German or Czech.
Many cowboys used grand-dad’s muzzle loaders until very late in the cowboy era as they were cheap, reliable and used commonly available supplies. Repeaters were quite expensive for most of the cowboy era.
I am not sure how accurate pistols were in those days as the normal procedure was to cast a bullet and then cut off the flashing with a pocket knife (my reloading side just said “Yikes!!!!!”.)
lol No. They are about 150 years to late.
https://www.wittemuseum.org/exhibits/Wild%20Wild%20West/Wild%20Wild%20West%20index.html
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-Women.html
Not only that, but the street showdown were two armed men confront each other and solve their problem by quick-draw is an anachronism created by Hollywood. Probably the only real gunfight that comes close is the 1865 gunfight in Springfield, MO between JB Hickock and Dave Tutt, where they squared off across the city square, 75 yards apart. Tutt shot and missed. Hickock shot Tutt through the side with his .38 cal. Navy revolver, killing him. That was quite a shot.
The shootout at the end of Appaloosa, where Viggo Mortensen calls out Jeremy Irons and guns him down, is as close as anything to the Hickock shootout except for the distance involved. Both men come, guns already drawn. Mortensen stands sideways in the classic dueling position and guns down Irons.
Me, too! It looked hella uncomfortable as well as unflattering: Even thin women looked like they had “puppy fat” ,with their sausage casing bodices looking like they were about to burst.
PJ,
just eat some summer sausage while watching these movies and everything will be all right!
Looks like he has a pair of S&W Schofield revolvers (circa 1871). The S& W American was more popular in the 1870s. Hardly anyone prior to the mid 1880s carried a Colt .45 (the most commom revolver in the movies), they were $15 to $20 new at the time, a months wages for most cowpokes. It was far more common to carry a Remington or Colt cap ‘n ball revolver converted to cartridge, cost about $5.00 to have a gunsmith at that time do the conversion.
How about all the model ‘94 Winchesters in Westerns that take place in the 1870s? The Henry rifle was the rifle that was used at the time. The most popular gun in the Old West? The double barrel shotgun.
So whatt did you think of ‘Wyatt Earp’ compared to ‘Tombstone’?
You apparent;y are confused. In the West clothing often was what you could make of it. Many women 9 particularly in the citites) did wear dresses or skirts with blouses. This is NOT true for the plains and the Rockies. There were many women ( not just Calamity Jane) who wore working clothing.
I don’t know what types of head gear that your movie rant had but again there were many styles. What you wore was often dictated by what you were doing. The long drive cow hand needed protection from dust and sun. Their hats looked not unlike some of the hats one sees today.
It is the movies for goodness sake. If you want authenticity go to a museum
Nicely put!
There are any number of reasons why the hallmark of watching movies, plays, or whatever, is the willing suspension of disbelief.
If one is unable to suspend their disbelief, it will not be a good experience.
The reason it bugs me is because I do go to museums. But I did not post this.
Just because something is long out of fashion doesn’t mean there won’t be people dressed that way. Hippydom is long out of fashion but there’s still enough tie-dye dinks to load up the Rainbow Gathering every year. So long as what the people are wearing isn’t from AFTER when the movie takes place I don’t care.
“It is one of my pet peeves, too. Not only are the costumes wrong, but quite often the hairstyles and facial hair are anachronistic as well. What really bugs me is when they have the men dressed in, say, mid-19th century costumes but the women are wearing 1890s dresses, as if the characters were living in different decades.”
I was responding to your post. I don’t go to the movies for authenticity. I go to be entertained.
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