High Noon/Little Jo -HMB

Both High Noon and The Ballad of Little Jo are films that show a change of attitude for women in the Western. In High Noon two strong women emerge, Amy Kane and Helen Ramirez. Amy is the new wife of the ex Marhsal Will Kane, and is planning on leaving town when news arrives that the miller gang is coming into town. Will Kane chooses to stay to face these men but Amy wants no part of it and gives him an ultimatium to stay by himself or to leave with her. In the end though Amy stays because Ramirez convinces her that she should stay and stand by her huspand. At this choice Amy leaves the train and ends up shooting one of the miller gang in order to protect her huspand. At this moment Amy leaves the sterotype that "ladies talk and talk; that is all they do. It never comes to shooting" (Tompkins 64). Ramirez also breaks the sterotype of women in westerns by not allowing the men to "dominate or simply ignore [her]" (Tompkins 72). Ramirez is an independant women that owns her own business and lives by herself. Although she may take on a lover here or there she is ultimately on her own.

In The Ballad of Little Jo the main character Josephine Monaghan only sheds her western female sterotype by disgusing herself as a man and being "Jo". As a Women Josephine is very vulnerable to the elements and the men, which is when for her protection she transforms herself into Jo. By doing so Jo breaks the Western sterotype that women must be "the weaker sex physically" (Tompkins 64). For throughout the film she proves herself time and time again ofbeing just as strong as the other men.

Both of these films change the status towards women in different ways. In High Noon the women become a more supporting role to the alpha male cowboy and aren't just pushed to the back ground. While in The Ballad of Little Jo the woman actually transforms herself into the role of the alpha male cowboy. Two scenarios with Women that have been unseen in the strong male based Western.