The Last Western

In response to Carl Trueman's post on 3-10 Yuma, it should also be noted that Brokeback Mountain --with its homosexual love theme -- effectively destroyed the Western as a genre. 

This is part of a wider cultural trend: the postmodern subversion of the literary and cinematic conventions of healthy forms of literature and film.  Visit the children's department at any major bookstore and you will quickly discover that not even fairy tales are played straight up anymore: there is always a twist to the characters or plot that turns the traditional moral of the tale upside down.  This can be done in good fun, of course, and it can be done in the service of truth.  But the loss of confidence in the good old stories betrays, I think, an underlying cynicism about ultimate truth and the difference between right and wrong.