Logan (2017) breaks the western genre’s traditional elements by using the Aristotelian three-act structure and three unities. Told from a suffering superhero’s perspective, Logan does not necessarily fit within the western genre but instead demythologizes it by analyzing Western myths, conventions, iconography, patterns of action, and settings.
Breaking a Genre’s Myths
Like every western movie, Logan commits the audience to a dangerous journey that leads to a powerful conclusion. However, compared to other western films, Logan’s character arc shows a significant difference from beginning to end. He cannot fight for himself and his future, which is entirely different from what the audience is used to seeing in the images of strong cowboys.
Logan reverses the American Adam myth—which is the ideal male concept—by defining Logan as weak, lonely, ungentle, and physically unfit. What is more, it breaks the American Dream ideal by describing him as someone who lost his beliefs and ambition. He could not adapt himself to the mainstream culture. Futhermore, he thinks that allowing himself to love and having a family will only lead him to pain.
After getting into his abandoned home—which is completely isolated from other people—the reason for his faithless perspective even becomes more apparent. The viewers see that his life consists of caring for a sick and potentially dangerous Charles Xavier. They realize that his time is running out, and the last of his X-Men family will not be around for much longer.
In this first act, Logan reverses the Edenic myth, which suggests that nature is a perfect place, by displaying a dystopian world. It also ruptures the American Eve myth to suggest that the universal quality of beauty has been lost.
From Post-Modernism to Modernism
The Modern World’s Connection with the Western Genre Conventions
There need to be definite negative factors in a character’s life that force them to make some difficult and painful choices. In Logan, the negative factors keep him from understanding that he needs to change his mentality for a better world. If Logan wants to start walking in the path of hope for the next generation of child mutants, he knows he must change.
Movies have an inciting incident for the main character that starts the long journey for transformation. In Logan, it has three parts: an unexpected opportunity, a refusal by the protagonist, a reluctant agreement. The first part is when Logan helps escort a young girl and her caretaker on a dangerous mission across a long distance. The second part is about Logan’s contemplation of this request, and he refuses because he knows it would challenge his beliefs. The third part occurs after Logan's initial refusal when he receives a proposal of $50,000 to escort the young girl and her caretaker, inciting his reluctant agreement. After the inciting incident point, it becomes easier to compare and evaluate the western genre conventions and how Logan looks through them.
Coming to the patterns of action, comparing the classic themes that the viewers are used to see in the western genre, Logan is not a movie about revenge. Logan can be defined as a solitary male who is unmarried, ultra-masculine, and semi-nomadic like in the other conventional western film main characters. However, there is a significant difference between the main character in classic western movies and him. In traditional western films, the audience sees that the main character searches for revenge or justice by existing between civilization and the lawless frontier. They mainly fight for themselves and their future. On the other hand, in Logan, the title character tries to help other people and needs their help to succeed.
There are plenty of differences between a classic western movie and Logan. Nevertheless, in Logan, the typical characters are divided into three parts: the hero, the victim, and the villain. The hero is Logan, the victims are the children, and the villains are the people who try to use children as weapons. The male criminals’ goals contrast conventional western films; it is not to steal cattle, rob a bank or train, or take over the town.
Moving the Story Ahead
“The best-inciting event (…) makes your hero think he has just overcome the crisis (...) [, whereas he] has just gotten into [his] worst trouble."1 It is the step of change for our main character and instigates the second and third acts of the story.
For Logan, the first step is when he finds a way to solve his financial problems, a decision that overhauls his day-to-day life and makes him realize that there are new mutants. Laura is not just any mutant, but one that resembles him.
After this point, there is no way back. Logan has started a long ride, one that will make him face some internal changes in his life. Like in the other western movies, this journey to North Dakota in Logan is when our story moves to the second act.
Logan’s Look Through Sci-fi and Western Together
Not only is Logan a film that tries to de-mythologize the western genre, but there is an allusion to one of the most popular western movies named Shane (1953). In one of the scenes in Logan’s second act, one character from Shane states Logan’s key theme with a monologue. He mentions that “A man has to be what he is, Joey. Cannot break them all. There is no living with the killing. There is no going back. Right or wrong, it is a brand.” After this scene, it becomes evident that Logan is self-aware about the superhero films’ myth: they have started to lose their power.
In the filmmakers' attempt to create original stories for superhero movies, Logan stitches the two genres of sci-fi and the western together in several of its plot elements. Logan follows the western genre because the superhero myth resembles the gunslinger’s tale’s reincarnation. Both are heroes who willingly (traditional western movie main characters) or unwillingly (Logan) need to act outside the law to protect the community. However, they will face some rivals or enemies to be able to preserve that community. But there is also the storyline where there is a clone of Logan himself, an element that the audience is used to seeing in sci-fi films. This double shows Logan that there is no personal moral code that can help him to become convincing as a superhero once again without risking devastation in his life.
The 3rd Act and Conclusion
In the third act, the viewers see Logan and Laura reaching their destination. By the end of the movie, he makes his ultimate sacrifice for himself, Laura, and others to ensure the future of humanity and family love. Even after defining the American Adam myth in comic books as inadequate and a romanticized fantasy in one of the scenes in the film’s second act, in the end, he reaffirms the myth in his last sacrifice.
The movie ends with Logan’s death. Within this ultimate sacrifice, he embraces the love of family to help a new generation and fight for humanity’s future. Ultimately, Logan demythologizes the western genre and adds elements of sci-fi to create a different brand of a superhero movie. It maturely experiments with another genre and interrogates and investigates all conventional forms of mainstream filmmaking with a critical approach.
Works Cited
1. Truby, John. 2008. The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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