Every so often a TV show comes along that surprises you. If not for its artistic presentation, then for the ideas and issues with which it grapples. 1923 is really both of those things. Set in an age plagued by self-doubt and recrimination, 1923 is a story of redemption. But redemption against the backdrop of an almighty struggle to bridge gaps between old ways and new, between new worlds and old, between decades old expectations and new beginnings. What emerges from this struggle is a need for masculine men and authentically feminine women to stand beside them. This is one attempt from one corner of Hollywood to tell that story.
Our culture, whether it is aware of it or not, is looking for a vision of the masculine; because contemporary culture does not know what a man is. This confusion is a direct result of Western culture outlawing authentic masculinity. Starting in the 60s, polite society had declared that masculinity was oppressive, patriarchal and toxic. And because the culture turned godless, masculinity could not be redeemed, it had to be banished. And banished it was. In a repeat performance of our First Parents in the Garden, we rebelled against the very thing that had created the world in which we lived. Perhaps, the fallout from WWII, the Korean War and Vietnam meant that the West was war-weary. And so, it turned against those who wage war: men. But it did so in a very foolish way. It imagined that if it did away with men who waged war- it would end all war. As though no real dangers existed beyond those found in X-Y chromosomes.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and something needed to takes its place. The world may have wanted to reject masculinity, but it could not leave vacant the hole it created. So, we had the 60s hippie and the Sensitive New Age Guy (SNAG) of the 70s. We did have to pause in the 80s during the depths of the Cold War. That threat meant we actually needed men to stand guard and be vigilant. Hence, the muscle-bound action hero of the 80s emerged and flooded the culture. Not only did the enemy need to know we were dangerous, we wanted to be reassured ourselves. And when that war ended, we went right back to where we left off with the short-lived portmanteau of 90s metrosexual. Our most recent iteration is the male-feminist, the crown jewel in our kingdom of folly. Whatever the term and whatever the efforts- the results have all been the same- complete and utter failure. Whenever the culture is lost; and our culture is hopelessly lost, it looks to the arts for guidance and inspiration. But now the world is no longer the safe place we thought it was, the kids are looking for dad to come back and put some order in the place. We know we need men- we just don’t know what they look like or where to find them. But the arts are looking for them, just not always in the right place.
TV shows of the 2000s explored the mess we had made: where are all the men? The arts embraced the anti-hero in shows like Breaking Bad, The Shield and The Sopranos. The anti-hero had to go looking for masculinity in the world of criminality and by colouring outside the lines. He could find no clue to who he was in the civilised society that had long since banished him from its company. As one cultural commentator has remarked: “when you outlaw the masculine, only outlaws can be men.”
Whether or not Taylor Sheridan, the creator of the Yellowstone series, knows it; he is part of that artistic exploration: what does it mean to be a man? His latest series, 1923, a prequel to the original Yellowstone (2019-2024), is an attempt at trying to work out what is a man and what is his place in the world. The real genius in this show, is that his exploration of the masculine takes place in the context of male-female relationships, and not in the self-centred pursuit of individualistic freedom which is both demeaning and ultimately self-defeating. The show may not always be genius- but that insight is.
Set in the 1920s, 1923 explores that moment when the West was in the midst of the fallout from the tragedy of WWI. The suffering however, was not simply from the ravages of war, but rather from the collapse of the most sophisticated civilisation the world had ever known: Germany lost the War, but Europe had lost its way. They weren’t just sad after the War; they bereft of life and meaning. The 1920s was a decade of both uncertainty and immorality. Superficially, we think everyone was dancing the Charleston and partying like Gatsby. The Twenties began with the Spanish flu and ended with the Great Depression. In the middle was a kind of collapse of moral virtue. It is no mystery why this decade is the backdrop for the exploration of the masculine.[1]
The first season of 1923 is largely narrated through the lives of three couples. With perhaps a fourth couple emerging by the end of the season. Each one of the three couples is a story line and thus its own narrative device. Two realities bind all three couples together asides from the Dutton family name. The first, is that each couple is caught between two different worlds; and this dilemma is a source of confusion and danger. Each couple is in a different stage of a different transition. It is not clear whether each couple will transition from one world to another, or whether the clash of worlds will crush them. The second, none of the three coupes has any children. This artistic framework is the context in which 1923 explores what it means to be a man.
The central relationship of all human civilisation is that between a man and a woman: it is the backdrop to every story we tell. It is our oldest and most important story. The Bible begins with Adam and Eve and ends with the Lord Jesus and His Church, with Mother May standing at the foot of His Cross. Homer’s Odyssey is about one man’s return to his wife; and that woman’s fidelity to the man she loves. Humanly speaking, it is our most important story, because it is the only story that matters. It is the story of the Western canon: will the man be man enough to win the woman, and will the woman be feminine enough to keep him? That story captures our imagination and inspires us. Whether it is literature, poetry or TV- it has a hold on the human psyche. All our stories are ultimately about that story- because without it, we are no more.
And this is what is driving the popularity of 1923– at least in its first season. The first couple we meet is Jacob (Harrison Ford) and Cara (Helen Mirren) Dutton. They are the patriarch and matriarch of the Dutton clan. Their battle is with modernity and the potential loss of colonial western life. They represent the pre-Modern world. Artistically speaking, the fact that they had no children speaks to the fact that the coming age may have no place for them; not for their children or their children’s children. This clash of temporal realities is harsh and is captured in different scenes. One is when Jacob goes into town, riding his horse, but can find no hitch (place to tie his horse), because all the bindings have been removed to make place for cars to park. Another scene is when Cara is in town and discovers modern inventions like refrigerators and washing machines being offered for sale. All things that could potentially make her life better. Modernity is coming, but not everything it brings will be bad. The question is not whether the coming age will destroy or improve things: it is whether or not they will find a place in it; and the human story will go on.
The second, and main couple, is Spencer (Brandon Sklenar) and Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer). We meet Spencer when he is a nomad. His world is hunting rogue wildlife that threatens the English-African protectorate, which represents another form of advancing modernity. He is not interested in the morality of hunting or colonialisation. They are modern concerns. He wants to feel: “the only time I can feel is when the danger is between life and death.” He is coping with the tragedy of WWI after having served as a soldier in the American contingent. He cannot bring himself to go home to Montana, for he knows he is damaged and dangerous. And possibly not of much help to his family, even though they need him. Spencer must come to terms with a few things about himself before he can go home. But Africa is a kind of Montana- wild, untamed and dangerous.
He then meets Alexandra. One of the British expedition party touring through Africa. She is not given an introduction, but it is clear she is from a vastly different world than Spencer’s. Their clash is one of class, for she is from the British aristocracy, something confirmed later on. Leaving aside the question of a young unmarried woman travelling with her fiancée through deepest darkest Africa, she is immediately drawn to Spencer. At first, her approach is that of a silly school girl; intrigued by the thrill of an American war hero and hunter, and she tries to attract his attention. With little luck. He is a hunter after all, and not easily distracted by other wildlife. She is clearly uninterested in the life that her future marriage promises her; and she must make a choice. She can live a life of security and pay the price of that. Or she can be called into a life of adventure and take the associated risks.
The cultural significance of their story is that she discovers her identity as a woman by entering into the world of the man: she finds identity in his frame. Alexandra is called into an adventure that he has begun. But in order to be a part of that adventure, she has to remain feminine. If 1923 were a “progressive” story, she would have become a hunter eclipsing Spencer, killing every rogue lion in the jungle whilst singlehandedly taming Africa and North America whilst curing cancer in the process. She is no superwoman. But her “super” power is the fact that she is just a woman. Her strength is her femininity. She has to be vulnerable to be in his world. After one particularly dangerous moment she confesses her fear and Spencer reminds her: “Honey, that wasn’t my real job, that was just a walk in the park.” It is the fact that she takes her place in his world and that she needs him, which allows Spencer to discover healing and for her to find connection. Precisely because she is vulnerable, this awakens Spencer to life. And she finds love.
There is one scene in particular that communicates their relationship rather powerfully. On one occasion, Spencer and Alexandra are alone in the jungle, somewhat reminiscent of Adam and Eve in the Garden. In this scene, Spencer renames his woman: he calls her Alex (Gen 2:23). This prompts her to make a suggestion about marriage. Spencer, without hesitation then proposes. The couple will still have to face many more dangers together. But it is only when they briefly leave his world to enter into hers, that the couple actually feels like it is in any real danger. Without spoiling the season, what the lions and leopards of Africa could not do- the British aristocracy seems to have done. Tellingly, in this season, they too do not have any children. Again, 1923 is the story of whether the human race will continue; for this couple has a foot in both the past and the future, but it is not clear whether they will survive the clash of class and cultures.
The third and final couple is Jack (Darren Mann) and Elizabeth (Michelle Randolph). They are the youngest couple and they represent more closely the coming modernity. Their battle is with different experiences and expectations: she has been raised in the civilised East while Jack has grown up in the Wild West. Will she make the transition and will he find a place for her in his world? They are the youngest couple and it is not clear why they cannot occupy the place that is clearly setup for Spencer and Alex. Jacob Dutton admits that Jack cannot lead, but we are not sure why. Is it because of youth, or because he represents the coming age of modernity and its weakening effects on the masculine spirit. They too do not have any children as yet. Will the coming modernity actually bear any fruit?
Each couple is caught between competing worlds: a cowboy past and a modern future; Britain and the Unites States; the East Coast and rural America. This uncertainty is the stage for what kind of man will emerge to face the associated dangers. But the man that emerges will not emerge alone or from nowhere. He will not ride over the horizon and have no name or no past. He will emerge from within the context of a male-female relationship. It is true that men make the world, but the world we make would look rather silly without the women and children who benefit from it: it is not good for man to be alone. What sort of man will arise and who will be victorious is not yet clear in the story. But what is clear- he will be a married man. Even though the worth of marriage is questioned a number of times in the season, we can see that marriage gives man a stake in the future. And by giving him a stake in the future, it makes him stronger and the woman in his life more feminine. The question left to answer is: will they remake the world, or will they be consumed by it?
There is one more storyline that I wish to address. And that storyline involves the young American indigenous children and the Catholic mission school. Their lives are intolerably hard and the story is mired in gratuitous violence. I am not only concerned by the depiction of violence and the misrepresentation of the Church, but rather that this story is at odds with the moral universe of 1923. These children are caught between two worlds- indigenous culture and white America. They are abused by celibate men and women with no children of their own. But the level of violence leaves no room for redemption. And the story of 1923 is about redemption and the remaking of the world. When you tell a story, you have to tell that story within a moral order. And that story has to respect that order. When it violates the terms of its own context it undermines the storyline. And by banishing religion from the story- we do not want to ever see those religious figures again- you undermine the catalyst of the redemption that you seek. If future seasons are faithful to the moral order of 1923, these couples will need more than just each other to meet the challenges they face. And the very thing they need has been banished from the story: Christianity as a vessel of Grace. It remains to be seen if a fourth couple emerges from the storyline and what impact they will have. I am not sure if or how the storywriters will overcome this hole into which they have dug themselves.
Art transcends the artist. And thanks be to God. 1923 is by no means perfect. No story ever is: there are certain scenes that are unnecessary and not for the children. Not even for adults either. But a moral order has been established. All the bad guys in the story are either unmarried men or men who have left their wives. I am not sure if this is intentional, but the idea is solid. At least this season, given those caveats, is still most definitely worth your time and attention.
[1] I have no idea of what Sheridan’s intentions were when he created 1923. In an interview he states that he is just trying to tell stories and resist the restrictive excesses of contemporary politicised culture; where the neo-puritans stand guard ensuring no new ideas emerge without their explicit approval.
