The Wild West, according to Hollywood, is a sun-scorched place of isolation and passion.
Cowboys wander on horseback, some faster than others when sending bullets out from their guns.
Strange Way of Life, a new short by director Pedro Almodóvar, brings Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal together as cowboys and ex-lovers who confront their past and their present.
The premise can make audiences think back to Brokeback Mountain, which forces two men apart, allowing them to escape and embrace in limited retreats.
However, not even this movie introduced queerness with cowboys.
Westerns indulge in homosocial environments where women are hardly allowed into the close bonds the men have with each other.
While the Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal epic romance made subtext finally text, there is a history of queerness in the movies about the Wild West, from black-and-white oldies to erotic tales of free love, and everything in between.
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