Rachel Lu thinks heroes of the western genre like John Wayne embodied a noble vision of American manhood as honorable, reliable, and self-sacrificingâ??everything a good American man should be.
Understood in that light, Lu argues that the FX series â??Justified,â? although it has elements of the western genre, is thoroughly modern, its characters â??infused with far more moral ambiguity than John Wayne typically faced.â? The showâ??s protagonist, Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (played by Timothy Olyphant), might dress like a cowboy, but â??as a family man, he leaves much to be desiredâ?â??because he sleeps around with strange women and refuses to join his wife and baby in another state. By contrast, the showâ??s villain, Boyd Crowder (the excellent Walton Goggins), is devoted to one woman and his â??devotion even inspires dreams of respectability.â?
