12 thoughts on “The Good Time Girls Fight Back

  1. One of the most authentic westerns I’ve ever seen. Weapons, holsters, the way they were worn and handled — all right on the money.

  2. Ok. My heart just grew three sizes. This was so gorgeous, and just the tonic for the culture that incubated #metoo. I would watch this as a full length movie, or a tv series. It would make a great book, too.

  3. I am so tired of the cinema portraying women in the west either as puritanical Madonna figures ‘a la Dr. Quinn/O Pioneers or violent whores – aka Bad girls/Banditas, etc.

    Why do filmmakers continually insult their audiences with either saccharine snooze fests or brutal horror sequences thrown in with gratuitous nudity?

    The histories’ of women in the west is so vast and even more complex than their men counterparts are. For the first time in U.S. History, on a consistent basis, women “were allowed to be” doctors, mayors, lawyers, librarians, cattle ranchers, landowners, merchants, farmers; even some became fire fighters and miners.

    Why are these stories rarely (if even ever) told?

    Life was never on a daily basis either a Dr. Quinn episode or a Tarentino film.

    Also, any of the “soiled dove” photographs that remain of the old western period all show the women with tidy clothes of the period and hair worn up!!!

    From personal experience with living, either in the southwest or the mid-Atlantic to deep south most of my existence, whether it is dry heat or humid heat – women always have their hair up or short. For the film, artistic license, I suppose.

    The only plusses to this film was the diverse and intelligent cast, the diligence to the undergarments, and that it is a great revenge fantasy for the endless amounts of women that have suffered just for being a woman. Nevertheless, it was difficult to watch.

    Thank you for reviewing and starting a conversation about such a film considering current events of the past year.

    I apologize if this is “TLDR” but I am most passionate about this particular subject matter. Instead of seething continually at the usual bi-polar spectrum that is hollyweird, I shall put forth energy in a positive manner and –

    -In the words of Toni Morrison (but I shall apply it to any art including the visual arts such as film) –

    “If there is a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

    1. I get what you’re saying. But this is 15 minutes of storytelling (less, once you remove the opening & credits) & has one specific thing to say — the revenge fantasy, as you pointed out. Since the director/writer got funding to make a feature-length film out of it, hopefully she can give the story a more realistic context. She’d have to do something to stretch it out to two hours if it’s going to have the same emotional punch.

    2. Deadwood has some strong female characters that aren’t a revenge story. Does some interesting things with the story too, pointing out that while one woman may own the bank, she doesn’t have a seat at the table when things are decided for the town. But Deadwood is different because it is about the town, about society there. For the most part, Westerns are about tropes, Good Time Girls no exception. What is different here is how they are exploiting the men, using the men’s weakness and lack of attention to them as humans (really, none of them recognized these women?) to their advantage.

      Good stuff that have depth of character are getting made, just not in the movies. Character driven stuff has moved into TV.

    3. There are several stories out there that show women doing more than be just a “soiled doves” or frontier Madonna’s. Have you watched Hell on Wheels on AMC? Its a story about the building of the transcontinental railroad. The story started from the prospective of one man, however, the richly diverse women that he encounters while on his journey are breathtaking. Truly, I stopped caring about his story and was drawn to the story of Eva O’Toole and Ruth Cole. Two women who bond over shared losses and experiences.
      there is my favorite western movie from 1951, Westward the Women. A group of women who traveled from Boston to a boom town as mail order brides. The story is these girls from the city learning to live on the trail and how they become stronger and more. the ending is pure 1950’s but it doesn’t take away from the story.

      1. Thank you for the great suggestions!

        True story, I have the Hell on Wheels soundtrack, but haven’t seen the show since the advertisements only showed the male protagonists…same for Deadwood.

        Westward the Women sounds amazing albeit the 1950’s part- why can’t movies like that have a reboot?

        And will I certainly check out the full length feature of this vignette-teaser. I love how it has started a dialogue and it couldn’t have happened at a more appropriate time in our living history.

        )

  4. I guess I shouldn’t have expected someone who shits all over Westerns to know anything about the actual Old West but to say the costumes are good is way off. The trousers have belt loops and cuffed legs, the men wear long dusters for no reason, etc. I guess it was an improvement over the director’s costume designs for The Hateful Eight (which had Michael Madsen in a snap button shirt with a silly black leather biker vest) but that’s not saying much.

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