High Noon and Little Jo-C. Phelps

High Noon and The Ballad of Little Jo represent the dramatic change in which Westerns portray women. High Noon has two strong female characters. Helen Ramirez, born in Mexico, is a business woman and has a male servant or assistant. At one point in the movie, she slaps Harvey and demands he not touch her. This is a shift from “the women and children cowering in the background…” (Tompkins 41) to women standing up for themselves. Amy Kane is also strong and independent. At the end, she handles a gun and kills Jim Pierce. This is unusual behavior in Western films. The narrative usually is about men. Tompkins writes, “Westerns pay practically no attention to women’s experience” (41). High Noon is the exception. In one scene, Will Kane is trying to wrangle up deputies, and the parishioners start arguing and discussing death. One man asks all the children to leave. He does not ask the women to leave. In fact, while the men stand up, one by one, to state their case, a woman is included. She is allowed to speak and her opinion is noted. This is a huge change in the attitude men usually have towards women in Westerns. The Ballad of Little Jo’s main character is a woman. She disguises herself as a man, but it is entirely about her experience. This film challenges the notion that “in Westerns (which are generally written by men), the main character is always a full-grown adult male…” (Tompkins 38). Of course, The Ballad of Little Jo was filmed in 1993 and Tomkins is more concerned with earlier Westerns. These films show the transformation from women beginning to be relevant in the narrative to women being the narrative.