Texas Public Radio
"Still in the Saddle" is the title of a new exhibition at the Briscoe Museum that examines westerns of the 1970s and 1980s.
For a guy who earns his spurs today writing about westerns, Andrew Patrick Nelson wasn’t a fan as a young boy.
“I grew up in the superhero and science fiction-saturated popular culture of the ‘80s and ‘90s,” Nelson explains. “Westerns weren’t something I really encountered until I started studying film in college. And once I started watching them, I just became hooked.”
Nelson’s writing on westerns concentrates on the time period following the classic era, which was defined by stoic riders, noble sheriffs, outlaws, and one-sided portrayals of Native Americans. By the 1960s, a new generation of filmmakers and stars turned Hollywood on its head following the collapse of the studio system, and audiences hungered for more complex storylines and portrayals of the frontier.