Or are they just a product of their time?

I think that today it is a dated mentality, but the films are a product of their time, and probably represent similar ideologies than those in the time period they take place in.

Who cares. There's nothing to be done about it now.

Back then women were expected to do the cooking and cleaning.

It's a genre ripe for subversion. As Brokeback Mountain displayed.

There's a difference between a film portraying un-PC characters and being un-PC.

Anyway you can watch Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff if you want a feminist western, and as a bonus it's a good movie.

I tend to think political correctness has got people extremely confused, and we shouldn't spend any more time than necessary thinking politically correct thoughts.

Anyway you can watch Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff if you want a feminist western, and as a bonus it's a good movie.

This indeed, although personally I found it brilliant, not just good. Very absorbing atmospheric Western.

It's great, personally I had just watched a western called The Hired Hand not long before, the movie Peter Fonda did after Easy Rider when he was given carte blanche. He had Vilmos Zsigmond doing some eye popping cinematography that was edited par excellence. I liked Meek's Cutoff a whole lot, I definitely couldn't say that Meek's Cutoff's minimalism was prettier than Zsigmond's glorious cinematography, however Meek's Cutoff had a more satisfying and more meaningful story. At the time people were talking about it being an allegory for the way we had let our leaders elad us into a war in Iraq, and whilst I still think that's a reasonable interpretation I think it's actually pretty universal.

No.