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Western
Sign in to saveAlso known as Western genre, Western fiction, Western art, Old West art
multimedia genre of stories set primarily in the American Old West
A Western is a type of story told across books, movies, TV shows, and other media that takes place in the American Old West, typically featuring frontier settings and characters from that era. These stories have been popular for over a century and have significantly shaped how people imagine and understand that period of American history.
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The Western is a genre of fiction typically set in the American frontier (commonly referred to as the "Old West" or the "Wild West") between the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the closing of the frontier in 1890. The genre is commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada.
The frontier is depicted in Western fiction as a sparsely populated, hostile region patrolled by cowboys, outlaws, sheriffs, and numerous other stock gunslinger characters. Western narratives often concern the gradual attempts to tame the crime-ridden American West using wider themes of justice, freedom, rugged individualism, manifest destiny, and the national history and identity of the United States. Native American populations were often portrayed as averse foes or savages.