In “The Mountain Man and American Anguish: The Telewester, the Scapegoat Complex, and the Extreme West,” Patrick McCarthy reexamines the popular image of mountain men as American cultural heroes. McCarthy explains that previous studies of this image by historians has supported the hero label because mountain men outwardly exhibit qualities of virile manhood; however, this characterization of mountain men does not take into account what McCarthy refers to as sociocultural and psychological evaluations. McCarthy takes a different approach to analyzing the cultural image of mountain men and asserts that the character of mountain man in popular culture evolved into a scapegoat for society’s problems upon whom society could cast its evils and absolve itself of its sins. …show more content…
His main use of evidence to support his thesis comes from his extensive analysis of these movies and “telewesters” to demonstrate how society “unloaded the guilt, sorrow, and pain associated with the Vietnam War and society’s evil onto the televised mountain man.” McCarthy also utilizes sociocultural and psychological theory from people like Carl Gustav Jung to explain how and why society could cast their problems upon fictional depictions of mountain men. While this type of analysis comprises a much smaller part of his argument than the analysis of cultural depictions in movies and “telewesters,” it helps to lend some credibility to McCarthy’s argument and