Joanna wrote:
>Gary Cooper was gay?
Funny. That's exactly what Christopher said to Tony in a Sopranos episode. I was referring more generally to homoerotic themes in westerns. Budd Boetticher, who directed Randolph Scott in a bunch of westerns, once told an interviewer:
You've described the relationships between Randolph Scott and villains as a love story between two men.
Well, it is. A man is the All-American sheriff. He does good and he's a clean, loving guy and he's a helluva fast draw, and he can punch and he can ride a horse and he can do all the things that the villain can do, but the villain thinks back and he says, "Damn it, we live sixty miles apart and if I'd have lived next door to him, we'd have been partners and here we are trying to kill each other. But I really admire that guy." Never before in a motion picture western did you ever see the hero kill the villain and sit down on a rock because he wanted to throw up because he really hated to do it. And I think that's a love affair.
http://www.greencine.com/article?action=view&articleID=261