From True Grit to “Big Damn Heroes”: Cowboys, Pirates, and Relational Ethics

When I was a kid, cowboys ruled. Every week, my heroes—Lucas McCain, the Cartwrights, Matt Dillon, Paladin, Big John Cannon—were taming the “wild west.” These were good guys, in charge and on a mission. But in the world around us, everything was changing. 1969 was a turning point. Everything was suddenly in Technicolor, and as we gave up on the West and turned to outer space for our hero-adventures, our heroes morphed from Cowboys to Space-Pirate-Cowboys. These space-pirate-cowboys (or big damn heroes) manage to do the right thing as they improvise their (opportunistic) ethics of friendship.