The 20-year run of the popular television show "Gunsmoke" first presented as a radio show in the 1950s first aired in September on CBS of 1955 running until the same month in 1975 and remains the longest-running dramatic TV series to date (TVland.com 2013) provided some of the most memorable characters in the early years of television. Among this much-loved adult Western are the top male and female characters - Marshal Matt Dillon and Saloonkeeper Miss Kitty. Oddly enough, for the era this show ran, both the Marshal and Miss Kitty proved strong characters with outer wrappings of gender-stereotyped behavior in their roles. Surprisingly, watching "Gunsmoke" characters Marshal Dillon and Miss Kitty provides less gender-related stereotypic characterization than in the early shows did about stereotyping different cultures and races though this too, found redemption in the second decade of production as touched upon later in this discourse. The Marshal portrayed as a tall, silent type much like Cary Cooper's roles. When situations called for toe to toe confrontation with bad guys, slick guys, greenhorns, and those few marginalized by their lot in life, Marshal Dillon rises to the occasion with a firm stance ready to "do the right thing" as Marshal. He is quietly philosophical playing off the other strong supporting male characters on the show. Miss Kitty's character carries herself with pride, self-respect, and a firm resolution she is equal to any man. When the plot puts her in harrowing situations where the man has the upper hand her sense of dignity does not curb her tongue when she should keep quiet reaping her the disdainful reality of being severely manhandled by women-hating evil doers of the old West. The endearing aspect of Miss Kitty is her pragmatic, compassionate, no-nonsense outlook on the world she lives. Clearly, she finds the friendships of the strong supporting male cast in the show something akin to familial affection as her character portrays.
The fact the characters of Miss Kitty and the Marshal both portray less stereotypic roles when figured in with the other Westerns popular in the era such as the Lone Ranger, Hop a Long Cassidy, or even, Roy Rogers, their persona spoke of less comic book and more real life people with substance in their imagery as equally capable adults.
The main argument presented in this academic exploration of these memorable male and female characters looks at the innate gender-based qualities of each that rather than emerging as conflicting entities they complement one another as strong leading roles. There is no perpetuation of gender related stereotypes in either the character of the Marshal and Miss Kitty. The fact is they clearly reflect the biological, psychological, as well as social realities of the men and women of this period in American history. This succeeds without the limitations on women (they had no right to vote, they rarely had rights) embedded in the varieties of scripts over the two decades the show ran (Miss Kitty was actually on part of the show for 19 years).
Another strong argument about the two characters ability for reflecting less gender related stereotypic aspects lay in the willingness of the show's creators, producers, and writers' willingness to develop the role of the Marshal and Miss Kitty as true-to-live people with doubts about the state of the changing times of the era they exist in the production.
It is important to consider how the show moved from a half hour slot into a full hour into its seventh season of production and the implications aligned with gender role models. The era in America was during the Cold War, Hippies, and new consciousness across the Baby Boomer generation of America. The underlying power of the show's draw on audience support lay in the strong, even gender specific roles of both the Marshal and Miss Kitty as reflective of Americans' collective mind set about the pioneer spirit of the men and women forging lives in scantily populated areas of post-Civil War America's push westward. The era continues today in the collective consciousness of American nationalist pride in the roots of the men and women taming the West during what typically existed in somewhat anarchic realities completely connected to the scarcely populated regions of America.
The success of the characters of the Marshal and Miss Kitty (and again, some of the best and memorable supporting cast of male characters in television then and now) lay in the viewers' identifying with a bygone era complete with escapist venues from the typical American everyday lives of Americans in the 1960s. Outlasting as many as 30 TV westerns aired at the same time of "Gunsmoke", when it ran its last season in 1975 it was the only type of show of its kind still on television broadcasting (TVLand.com 2013).
The escape from constricting cookie cutter type lives forged in America during the post WWII remained the audience draw of "Gunsmoke". The proliferation of firearms on the show, and the Marshal's no nonsense approach to dealing with the bad guys who would not give up brought no hesitation to shoot to kill and this male efficiency fit (again) the paranoia of the Cold War angst American lived providing brief respite from their phobia of the Red enemy (TVLand.com 2013).
Akin to the changing American national interests' of the "Gunsmoke" viewers of the 1960s, the producers faired in adapting to societal effects on television broadcasting by changing both what and how viewers saw imagery worked into the scripts. With the increased national consciousness and sympathy toward American ethnic minorities with scripts conforming to the move, "Gunsmoke" successfully rode out a potential demise during the 1967 with Neilson ratings reporting it moved from the 34th position to the fourth position in the national ratings that year (TVLand.com 2013).
Olson and Freeman explain, despite the strong character female role of Miss Kitty, the American feminist movement reappraisal of the role of women decided westerns ignored or avoided the issue by the 1970s. "The ability of westerns such as Gunsmoke to adapt during the 1960s made them fit for survival" (210). At the same time according to Kim, the women featured on television (other than Miss Kitty) had families and laundry issues. The fact Miss Kitty stands as realistic, capable, and compassionate female character in a top long running television show during a time other genres on television clearly showed women as lesser creatures kept in clearly gender-based realities (323) says much for the producers (and viewer appreciation).
Both the Marshal and Miss Kitty roles had nothing to do with domesticity encompassing other typical female roles on television such as "The Donna Reed Show" or "I Love Lucy". In retrospect and review of the early years of "Gunsmoke", cannot find a stronger woman character on a successful weekly television show than Miss Kitty. Typically, the Donna Reed and Lucy character fulfilled the "subtextual frustrations about family, husbands, and laundry" (Kim 232) making the Miss Kitty character a rarity.
At the same time, her role as a saloonkeeper does project an underlying flaw in her character, but nonetheless did not keep American viewers from anticipating her function as the strong female backbone of the crew of male characters so endeared in the hearts of the American viewer. Even into the early 1970s, with the feminist movement, as the demise of Westerns proved their victim, Miss Kitty remains today the exception and interestingly, finds few who appreciate the significance of the role reflecting a not so stereotypic female role. Kim explains, "Having and seeing a strong woman character on television is not necessarily feminist in that, in line with ideological work of cinema, such strong women are, in line with the ideological work of cinema, such strong women are, if not punished, carefully managed" (323).
Tucker explains how the progressive nature of the show frames the way the producers handled moving away from gender stereotypes and limitations – especially about the way the Marshal protected both African and Native American characters from mobs in later plots. At the same time, he stood up women of ill refute when lesser tolerant characters used and abused them – both male and female (2010).
Establishing both Marshal Dillon and Miss Kitty do not exhibit gender-stereotyped mannerisms and behavior as television programming characters on the historically recognized progressive hit "Gunsmoke" – the longest lasting prime time network TV drama in television history, provides a model among the struggling and emerging feminist and post-feminist television programming. Gender on "Gunsmoke" as projected by Miss Kitty and Marshal Matt Dillon comes closest to comparing how gender projected on the first through the current Star Trek television programming. Gender stereotypic behavior was never the substance of either the Marshal or Miss Kitty's identity. Viewer understanding of the story vicariously engaged in the strength, dignity, honor, vulnerability, and patriotism exhibited in scripts about civil and human rights has everything to do with these qualities in Marshal Dillon and Miss Kitty. Ultimately, "Gunsmoke" represents these two characters in this manner because of progressive understanding of the psychological, emotional, escapist needs of an angst filled, living lives as interesting as oatmeal American public. The viewer satisfaction, the progressive "think tank" marketing theories of the producers/writers spurred the reason these characters projected their personas for the benefit of society in general as people and as male and females in general.
Works Cited
Kim, L. S. "Sex and the Single Girl" in Post feminism; The F Word on Television. http://www.asu.edu/courses/fms520bh/total-readings/kim----sex-and-the-single-girl.pdf 2010 Web
Olson, James S., and Samuel Freeman, eds. Historical Dictionary of the 1960s. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999. Book
Tucker, Ken. James Arness has died: Why He Was the Greatest TV Western Lawman. http://watching-tv.ew.com/2011/06/03/james-arness-dies-died-gunsmoke-died/ 2010. Web.
TVLand.com about Gunsmoke. http://www.tvland.com/shows/gunsmoke 2013 Web
