Hegel and the Hollywood Western: Violence, Law and the Right of Heroes in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

This article explores the conjunction of Hegel and the Hollywood Western through a close analysis of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, adjudicating between competing readings of Hegel by considering their varied application to the interpretation of the film. In particular, I examine how Pippin’s reformist reading and Žižek’s revolutionary reading of Hegel produce different understandings of key themes of the Hollywood Western, including violence, law and the right of heroes. I argue that Pippin’s view of the central drama of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance – the transition from the Old West to modern America, through a mythologised heroic act of lawless violence – is in fact much closer to Žižek’s Hegel than to his own. Specifically, Tom Doniphon emerges as a model of the Hegelian world-historical individual, whose passions bring about a revolutionary historical transformation, but who ultimately faces his own personal tragic end. I further consider the relevance of these ideas to a diagnosis of the contemporary world, especially the contemporary United States, where the intersection of violence, law and heroism remains as relevant as ever.