A Cowboy Film Spectrum Theory

The two cowboy-culture films The Thing Called Love and Lone Star present two starkly different love stories.

So I thought I'd posit the notion that a young man, a cowboy, meets a girl straight out of the first film (The Thing Called Love) and realizes he is crossing over into a 'dark-side' on the other side of his vanity-mirror (ala, Snow White) and meets the mirror-image of his new girlfriend (from the dark-side) who seems more like a Medusa-philosophical figure from the second film (Lone Star) and wonders if the 'dimension changes' are invoking the evil spirit of Leatherface (the fictional chainsaw-wielding cannibal from the iconic Texas Chainsaw Massacre horror film franchise).

You decide how Americans in modern-times are characterizing 'cowboy grit.'

How have cowboy films changed since the days of John Wayne?

My theory is that modern-age cinematic focus on pedestrian spirit and general traffic has moved Hollywood away from the storytelling style of land-based Gene Autry/Roy Rogers derring-do metaphysics into the realm of lifestyle-based River Phoenix/Matthew McConaughey individualism spiritualism. This shift must surely have something to do with the Industrial Revolution and the increased demand for 'non-cultural vernacular media.'

So here's the plot synopsis I cooked up (for example) for a more modernism-friendly cowboy-spook story more akin to edgy new age cowboy films such as Lone Star and Clay Pigeons.


====

Samuel realized he met a real Texas beauty in Shelbye Johnson. He was happy being a lone cowboy rancher and amateur musician and did not expect to meet such an angelic creature like Shelbye, a down-to-earth wise cowgirl. He looked at his giant mirror in his room and said, "I wish I knew what it was like to meet an 'evil' version of Shelbye on the other side of this mirror!" Soon enough, he was transported (during dream-sleep) to a more apocalyptic rendition of his beloved Texas where he met the dark-side rendition of Shelbye --- Medusa! Medusa was holding the key that would unlock the gate that kept the hideous Leatherface trapped and out-of-sight. Samuel would have to decide if he felt like a 'divine cowboy' or simply a 'pure cowboy.' The fate of Texas hanged in the balance.

====