City Slickers Essay

351 Words2 Pages
City slickers In the movie “City Slickers,” a comedy about the clashing of cultures, the characters embody much more than what is seen on the surface. Throughout the movie, we actually see many different aspects of what we consider western myth, and its change or lack there of, on the different characters. In my opinion the characters that represent the extremes from this clash are, Mitch Robbins played by Billy Crystal, and the Shalowitz brothers played by Josh Mostel and David Paymer. As well as the typical heroic cowboy persona we see in the character Curly played by Jack Palance. With Billy Crystals character Mitch Robbins, we are given the typical married, white-collard, middle aged man, going through a mid-life crisis. He is feeling, like most real people eventually do, that he has let his life slip by him and he has lost sense of what his purpose is. It gives us that typical “average Joe” looking for change. Mitch and his friends see the cowboy myth as completely opposite of what they are, as something pure, simple, and untamed. It is everything they feel like they need back in their lives, so it drove them to take this vacation. Expecting to get a sense of direction and peacefulness from his experience, he is soon conscious of the fact that it’s going to be a lot harder then he expected. Mitch is very reluctant to shed all of his “big city” amenities and ways. Wanting the easiest and quickest solutions, as we find is the case in most people, he refuses at first to fully engage in the ways of the cowboy. This is obvious from the beginning, we see it when Mitch is faced with something he doesn’t want to do, or is put in an uncomfortable situation he deflects the responsibility with a joke. Still once the cattle drive is underway he still refuses to let go of his “big city” ideals, which eventually causes what could have been a costly stampede, because
Open Document