“They say you’re a man with true grit,” Mattie Ross states bravely to the burly U. S. Marshal, Rooster Cogburn, in Henry Hathaway’s 1969 film, True Grit, starring John Wayne. True Grit is a western, a genre that has preserved the masculine soul of the late 19th century United States’ western frontier. Largely as a result of the Gold Rush and Oregon Trail, the frontier became known as a land to which men could escape and re-secure their male identities. But as industrialization spread to the west, the heroic frontiersman of old died out and the memory of the old west was embalmed within the western genre. In the spirit of the frontier, films such as True Grit craft a world where masculinity is well within reach, and appeal to both the obsessions and fears of the male audience. However, as a result of changing frontiers, the ways those ideals are presented and manifested have changed. This is evident through the 2010 Coen brothers remake of True Grit.
