Just imagine the hero of a Western lying in bed, tucked under a thick eiderdown blanket. An impossibility! If the hero is tired he has to sleep outside next to the camp fire with his saddle as his cushion and a crude blanket to keep himself warm. The only exception to this rule would be when he walks up the salon staircase to the pretty singer's room where there will be a perfectly made bed waiting for him on which he can lie down. But he will lie down on the cover - never under it - and will cross his legs and prop his spurred boots on the brass bedrail. Again, covering himself with the blanket in totally out of the question! And when the good guy appears, he always appears from nowhere, riding on horseback, and when he leaves, he disappears into the landscape, riding towards the horizon. There is inevitably a real vagueness about where the hero comes from and about where he is headed. I suspect there are also very strict laws that govern the way a showdown is filmed, laws which have to do with nomadic existence versus sedentary existence.
For the same reason you will almost never see chickens in Westerns. Of course, there were plenty of chickens on real ranches, but chickens belong to a more sedentary form of life which is foreign to the world of Westerns. And one might well ask oneself what is it exactly that the cowboy eats? Of course, he could never eat anything indoors, though he is permitted to have a drink. but it absolutely must be a whiskey that comes skidding along the saloon bar. Under no circumstances can it be orange juice! Juice is just as much a no-no as eating spaghetti. The hero eating noodles or potatoes? Forget it. It could only be beans and bacon cooked in a pan on an outdoor firer. Under no circumstances may he fry an egg as this would be a violation of the genre's iron laws. and coffee, always without milk and sugar, always strong and always from tin mugs.
Yeah, I know this picture is actually of a villain not a hero but there were no good images of heroes to be had, so go fry an egg!
