Yellowstone and the Making of a New West Western

Yellowstone and the Making of a New West Western Robert M. Wilson (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution The sprawling Yellowstone Ranch is the setting of the hit television show Yellowstone. The modern western, filmed in Montana, first aired on Paramount Network in 2018. The series tackles issues of rural gentrification, amenity development, Indigenous land rights, and the Dutton family's efforts to protect their ranch. Courtesy of Paramount Network One of the most iconic moments in many westerns is the showdown between two gunslingers. In the first episode of the hit Paramount Network series Yellowstone, two men square off not in a saloon or dusty town street but across a barbed wire fence with a cattle ranch on one side and a golf course on the other. The ranch owner is John Dutton III, sitting on a horse, glaring across the fence and down on Dan Jenkins, a real estate developer from California, just finishing a round of golf. "Every millionaire I know wants to be a cowboy," Jenkins tells Dutton. "Authenticity is the one thing money can't buy." "You want to build subdivisions?" Dutton says. "Move to Dallas. I won't have them here." "It's called progress, John. And progress doesn't need your permission," Jenkins says. "Every family you move in," Dutton snarls, "moves a family I know out."1 Clad in golf attire and dreaming of turning the Duttons' ranch, the Yellowstone, into homes for new arrivals wanting to ski, kayak, and fly fish, Jenkins is the emblem of a wealthy outsider who sees the West as a landscape for play and recreation. Astride his horse, Dutton serves as a bulwark defending a ranch where (mostly) men work the land.2 Over a quarter century ago, the historian Richard White examined these themes of work and play in a now classic essay, "'Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?': Work and Nature." He [End Page 61] argued that environmentalists—mostly urban and suburban—too often castigated miners, loggers, farmers, and ranchers for degrading the environment. These critics failed to recognize that throughout history work was one of the primary ways people had come to know nature. Workers experienced the environment "by digging in the earth, planting seeds, and harvesting plants. . . . They have achieved a bodily knowledge of the natural world." White noted the persistent conflict between environmentalists who increasingly saw places such as the rural West "as an arena for human play and leisure" and the people who worked the land. This tension was a central theme in the literature about the New West, a concept historians, geographers, and other academics began to explore in the 1990s.3 Click for larger view View full resolution Clad in ranching clothes and a cowboy hat and leaning against a full-size pickup, Kevin Costner stars as John Dutton III, the stoic patriarch of the Dutton family ranch, the Yellowstone. Courtesy of Paramount Network These topics have spilled into the realm of prime-time entertainment. Yellowstone, the most popular television series in the United States, addresses many of the themes explored by White and the New West commentators. The show premiered in 2018, and over the past five seasons it has garnered legions of fans. The series follows John Dutton III (Kevin Costner), the owner of the largest ranch in the United States, and his efforts to retain control of his Montana empire. Yellowstone is the brainchild of Taylor Sheridan, who over the past ten years has become one of Hollywood's most successful screenwriters and show-runners. Sheridan wrote the acclaimed screenplays for the movies Sicario (2015) and Hell or High Water (2016), which was nominated for Academy Awards for best screenplay and best picture, and he wrote and directed Wind River (2017) and Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021), all of which were set in the American West. He is also the creator of two Yellowstone prequels: 1883 and 1923. These related series have [End Page 62] begun to resemble the storytelling universes of the DC and Marvel superhero movies with their interconnected plots and characters. But Yellowstone's "universe" is the rural American West, specifically Montana, a...