I'm spending some time with my Dad this week, and we're having one of our semi-annual Walker, Texas Ranger marathons. He's got season three on DVD now.
It's not high-brow or literary, and it's certainly not British or in any way Anglophile... and you're right, westerns really aren't my thing. But Dad loves pretty much all westerns and truth be told, when it comes to Chuck Norris at least, I'm all right with that.
Sure, the female characters are typically one-dimensional but that's okay because the male characters are generally a little one-dimensional too... and they treat the women with courtesy and respect or they get kicked in the head by a Texas Ranger. [On the one hand I object to the excessive use of force, but on the other hand I'm tempted to take a few karate lessons myself -- common courtesy is a dying art. ]
The plots are naive, the dialog predictable, something always blows up, someone always gets shot, and the good guy always saves the day. Which, right there is why I like watching Walker with my Dad.
We sit there sharing time together. Sharing a belief that it is possible for the good guys of the world to triumph. Sharing a hope that the bad guys (real-life bad guys) will lose. That there are heroes drawing a line in the sand and defending it. That somewhere on this planet and in this country there are still genuinely good people willing to stand up and fight for honor and decency and justice.
It might be simplistic... okay, it is simplistic, but sometimes a dose of simple, a dose of old-fashioned straight shooting, a dose of knowing wrong from right is exactly what we need to see in this world.
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