It's a show lol. And in that picture of billy "axe-murdering natives," did billy axe murder them with the pistol in his hand or was it somehow understood that he picked up an axe at a later moment and began murdering the natives. In the picture he has a gun in his hand not an axe. He's pistol whipping not axe murdering. And your rant about the show promoting violence.... Really? What show doesnt?
First...You need to read some actual history. All of the personal qualities you listed as the way BTK was portrayed on screen, is indeed how he really was. Read Billy the kid: A short and violent life. He is described as just that.
Secondly, the killings the Kid was accredited with were at a time of war. What happened during the Lincoln County situation was indeed war. His people were being killed by The Murphey / Dolan faction, starting the war. The Kid was a soldier defending his friends against an group of attackers. Not taking the actions of the other side of a war into account when condemning the actions of someone involved just shows your uneducated mentality.
And lending any credit to Pat Garret for his description of the Kid is absurd. Pat Garret was a criminal in his own right. His book was an autobiography written to boost his ego as he was taking heat for shooting an unarmed Billy. Garret was a coward and a murderer himself, but yes, lets take his account of what Billy was actually like.
Lastly, describing people who know history and admire Billy the Kid for what he was, a warrior, as incels and potential mass shooters, shows just how moronic, uneducated, and pathetic you are. Maybe you should study history before you go spewing your modernistic, liberal BS.
Hate to say it, but Billy the Kid was glorified from the beginning by the era's mass media: dime novels, ballads, and the theatre ("Billy the Kid" by Walter Woods opened August 13, 1906 in NYC and ran for 12 seasons, not to mention the endless tours through the provinces.) This country has always glorified criminals and made heroes out of cold-blooded murderers. I would like to see us grow out of this, but it's obvious growing up is not something this population is good at.
Well, now, that's not quite true. Billy the Kid was quite rare in dime novels and most media from 1882 to 1926, especially compared to Jesse James. The play you cite used only his name and had little to do with Billy. Indeed, a 1925 "American Mercury" article ran a nostalgia piece asking if anyone still remembered Billy the Kid. It was Walter Noble Burns's "Saga of Billy the Kid" (1926) that turned him into a hero and spawned the first movie version, from which he became the cowboy-hero character this show thinks it is deconstructing but is actually reinforcing.
The play of course doesn't purport to be history, and that's the point: it's a purely popular melodrama that uses the name Billy the Kid because that name was famous in the era's popular culture. It was the draw. (And twelve seasons in NYC in 1908 is nothing to sneeze at!) Just like Murdoch's 1872 melodrama "Davy Crockett" doesn't report Crockett's real life, but uses the name as the draw. I might also point out that the American Mercury article you refer to goes on, "Who remembers Billy the Kid? He is no more than the echo of a name today [1925], but in his time he stalked in glory across the front pages, and during the Lincoln County War in New Mexico he was almost a national hero. The New York 'Sun' even had a war correspondent in attendance upon him." And the article goes on to note that Garrett wrote his book about Billy [1882] to defend himself against those who called him the murderer of a hero (and make money, of course; Garrett loved money; he even got his friends in the state legislature to pass an act so he could collect the $500 reward). Sounds like Billy was pretty big in the cultural mind of the time to me.
Anyway, my point was simply that this country has always glorified criminals and murderers, from broadside ballads in the 18th century to songs and books and plays about the James and Dalton gangs to Goodfellas and today's endless string of true-crime podcasts and streaming documentaries profiting from our less-than-lofty tastes.
Oh, certainly. As I understand it, in his last year, there was a group of papers painting him a hero and a group painting him a demon. People like their stories and Americans do love glamorizing outlaws. Truth is, of course, that he was neither all good nor all evil, but Americans also don't like complexity.
Well said. Not to mention Kris Kristofferson's earlier role as Billy. But, more to the point that these depictions of social misfits as any less eventually shapes the narrative. And, leads to moronic "conservative" politicians insisting on teaching history as they knew (and like) it.
I'm surprised by your surprise. This is what they do to everything, these days. Everything is woke and stupid. The casting alone should have told you something. Billy was an Irish boy, but they couldn't cast a young white man in the role. They chose a nearly 30 year old man who is mixed race. The Irish were hated then and they still are, and now white men as a whole are, too.
As I'm sure you know James Dean was slated to play Billy the Kid in 'The Left Handed Gun' -the part went to Paul Newman after Dean's death. And as much as I love and respect Paul Newman I would have been so intrigued to see Dean's version of The Left Handed Gun.
There are the photos of Dean drawing a gun in black jeans, gun holster, and what looks like a denim shirt by friend and photographer Sandford Roth. In addition Dean also talked about wanting to make a film himself about Billy the Kid. In both Don Spoto's 'Rebel' and Ronald Martinetti's the 'James Dean Story', the authors mentioned that Dean wanted to make a film about the outlaw that didn't 'glorify' him but wanted to portray him honestly and not as a romantic hero.
It's a show lol. And in that picture of billy "axe-murdering natives," did billy axe murder them with the pistol in his hand or was it somehow understood that he picked up an axe at a later moment and began murdering the natives. In the picture he has a gun in his hand not an axe. He's pistol whipping not axe murdering. And your rant about the show promoting violence.... Really? What show doesnt?
First...You need to read some actual history. All of the personal qualities you listed as the way BTK was portrayed on screen, is indeed how he really was. Read Billy the kid: A short and violent life. He is described as just that.
Secondly, the killings the Kid was accredited with were at a time of war. What happened during the Lincoln County situation was indeed war. His people were being killed by The Murphey / Dolan faction, starting the war. The Kid was a soldier defending his friends against an group of attackers. Not taking the actions of the other side of a war into account when condemning the actions of someone involved just shows your uneducated mentality.
And lending any credit to Pat Garret for his description of the Kid is absurd. Pat Garret was a criminal in his own right. His book was an autobiography written to boost his ego as he was taking heat for shooting an unarmed Billy. Garret was a coward and a murderer himself, but yes, lets take his account of what Billy was actually like.
Lastly, describing people who know history and admire Billy the Kid for what he was, a warrior, as incels and potential mass shooters, shows just how moronic, uneducated, and pathetic you are. Maybe you should study history before you go spewing your modernistic, liberal BS.
Amen brotha.
Hate to say it, but Billy the Kid was glorified from the beginning by the era's mass media: dime novels, ballads, and the theatre ("Billy the Kid" by Walter Woods opened August 13, 1906 in NYC and ran for 12 seasons, not to mention the endless tours through the provinces.) This country has always glorified criminals and made heroes out of cold-blooded murderers. I would like to see us grow out of this, but it's obvious growing up is not something this population is good at.
Well, now, that's not quite true. Billy the Kid was quite rare in dime novels and most media from 1882 to 1926, especially compared to Jesse James. The play you cite used only his name and had little to do with Billy. Indeed, a 1925 "American Mercury" article ran a nostalgia piece asking if anyone still remembered Billy the Kid. It was Walter Noble Burns's "Saga of Billy the Kid" (1926) that turned him into a hero and spawned the first movie version, from which he became the cowboy-hero character this show thinks it is deconstructing but is actually reinforcing.
The play of course doesn't purport to be history, and that's the point: it's a purely popular melodrama that uses the name Billy the Kid because that name was famous in the era's popular culture. It was the draw. (And twelve seasons in NYC in 1908 is nothing to sneeze at!) Just like Murdoch's 1872 melodrama "Davy Crockett" doesn't report Crockett's real life, but uses the name as the draw. I might also point out that the American Mercury article you refer to goes on, "Who remembers Billy the Kid? He is no more than the echo of a name today [1925], but in his time he stalked in glory across the front pages, and during the Lincoln County War in New Mexico he was almost a national hero. The New York 'Sun' even had a war correspondent in attendance upon him." And the article goes on to note that Garrett wrote his book about Billy [1882] to defend himself against those who called him the murderer of a hero (and make money, of course; Garrett loved money; he even got his friends in the state legislature to pass an act so he could collect the $500 reward). Sounds like Billy was pretty big in the cultural mind of the time to me.
Anyway, my point was simply that this country has always glorified criminals and murderers, from broadside ballads in the 18th century to songs and books and plays about the James and Dalton gangs to Goodfellas and today's endless string of true-crime podcasts and streaming documentaries profiting from our less-than-lofty tastes.
Oh, certainly. As I understand it, in his last year, there was a group of papers painting him a hero and a group painting him a demon. People like their stories and Americans do love glamorizing outlaws. Truth is, of course, that he was neither all good nor all evil, but Americans also don't like complexity.
Well said. Not to mention Kris Kristofferson's earlier role as Billy. But, more to the point that these depictions of social misfits as any less eventually shapes the narrative. And, leads to moronic "conservative" politicians insisting on teaching history as they knew (and like) it.
I'm surprised by your surprise. This is what they do to everything, these days. Everything is woke and stupid. The casting alone should have told you something. Billy was an Irish boy, but they couldn't cast a young white man in the role. They chose a nearly 30 year old man who is mixed race. The Irish were hated then and they still are, and now white men as a whole are, too.
As I'm sure you know James Dean was slated to play Billy the Kid in 'The Left Handed Gun' -the part went to Paul Newman after Dean's death. And as much as I love and respect Paul Newman I would have been so intrigued to see Dean's version of The Left Handed Gun.
There are the photos of Dean drawing a gun in black jeans, gun holster, and what looks like a denim shirt by friend and photographer Sandford Roth. In addition Dean also talked about wanting to make a film himself about Billy the Kid. In both Don Spoto's 'Rebel' and Ronald Martinetti's the 'James Dean Story', the authors mentioned that Dean wanted to make a film about the outlaw that didn't 'glorify' him but wanted to portray him honestly and not as a romantic hero.