Cowboys & Indians

[Romeo]

Old westerns about cowboys fighting Indians never appear on TV any more. Is this simply because people grew bored with them, or were they officially banned by PC censors as offensive racist material?

[LeMarchand]

As some old ones turn up on TV, I suspect that they're not "officially banned".

I think the demise of "Cowboys v. Indians" style westerns is down to a combination of the Western genre falling out of favour, the realisation that the white Americans weren't necessarily always the good guys (and that it was racist), the growing interest in Native American culture and the fact that as "baddies" the American "Indians" have been replaced by "Charlie" (Vietnam War flicks), South American drug lords, "Towelheads" (Gulf War flicks), Middle-Eastern Terrorists, Russian drug lords etc etc.

[Gee Bee]

I live in the Granada TV region, and for the last few Sundays there has been "The Sunday Afternoon Western".