A Million Ways to Die in the West is a comedy-drama starring Seth MacFarlane, directed by Seth himself. In this episode of Arno's Insight, I review it, and discuss why I'm disappointed in Seth as a man.
00:06:31.280So he wrote an excellent piece about how men are the true romantics and how the idea of going off into the range with nothing but a horse, a hound, and a rifle is something that every man lusts after.
00:06:49.160That opportunity to truly test ourselves, to not be so protected and safe, to not be so comfortable, but to prove our mettle, to prove that we deserve to exist.
00:07:04.700That is what we are so attracted to by the genre.
00:07:09.060Now, in actual fact, the cowboy era was not that violent.
00:07:16.440Ironically, it was the places where the federal government was administering law, from what I understand anyway.
00:07:21.840Places like Texas actually had more violence because you were getting companies, corporations were exploiting the federal government to get monopoly and screw other people out of business, leading to violence.
00:07:33.740In actual frontier times, there was very little violence, actually.
00:08:04.920Like, the actual gunfight that happened was much smaller.
00:08:12.400Essentially, it would be like nowadays we have occasional shootouts.
00:08:17.260We have the occasional bank robbers, you know, mostly in L.A.
00:08:20.100We have the occasional, you know, convenience store robbery.
00:08:24.500But it would be like comparing the levels of violence that we actually have to Grand Theft Auto.
00:08:32.100Cowboy times really weren't that violent.
00:08:34.860And yet, in our media, in our video games, you know, in our, you know, even stuff like, like Cowboy Bebop, for example, is heavily inspired by the Western genre, which is why I absolutely love it.
00:08:48.220And it's way more violent, ridiculously more violent than things actually were.
00:08:56.800And that's because in narratives, there's a certain catharsis to the violence.
00:09:00.680Because realistically, real-world violence, like, let's talk about gun control.
00:09:07.120Let's talk about guns and how they stop violence.
00:09:09.680You know, because the gun grabbers love to point out that you're more likely to accidentally shoot yourself with a gun than you are likely to shoot a criminal.
00:09:21.300And the reason that's a thing is because guns don't stop crime by shooting bad guys.
00:09:29.920Guns stop crime merely by being there on your hip.
00:09:33.140See, in a video game, like, imagine, you know, Fallout New Vegas.
00:09:38.640I've been playing that recently, so it's on my mind.
00:09:42.320In that game, imagine in that game, every time the bandits showed up to attack you, you just showed the pistol on your hip, and they said,