Midnight Cowboy - discussion thread

[midnightpulp]

Re-watching this, I like the irony - whether it was intentional or not - of how Joe Buck chooses a cowboy as his street hustler persona. The cowboy is the ideal symbol of masculinity and is usually a representation of strong moral values, at least as far as cinema is concerned. There's an iconoclasm at work here, which along with "The Wild Bunch", functions to demythologize that simple stereotype and transition American cinema into a new era. Funny that John Wayne won the Best Actor Oscar that year, but Cowboy won Best Picture.

Essentially, I think Cowboy is a coming of age story. At the end, Buck finally "grows up". He ditches his inauthentic cowboy image, says he would like to get a job, nurses Rico, and then when Rico dies, the last part of his old life dies. Like the beginning, Buck starts a new journey all alone. But this time, it's with realistic hope rather than self-delusion.