Reflecting on his audiencing experience of Westerns between the 1960 and 2016 remake of the movie, The Magnificent Seven, the author reflects on the social justice mission of the film plot. He comments on the complex presentation of the racialized/ethnic other in Yul Brynner and Denzel Washington as lead bad-boys-turned good, in a homosocial band of renegade brothers. The author uses a line from Johnny Cash’s “Man in Black” as commitment to a stylized performance for justice. In the end, the author attempts to reconcile his queer desire for the cowboy figure, as a form of disidentification with a romanticized yet still violent character-type.
