Most of the time when we think of someone who is legendary, we can also assume that the reasons for them being legendary are more so because of the legends than because of the facts. This could have part to do with us not knowing many solid facts about that person, or it could be that we are taking advantage of that person by imposing our own needs onto them. If you look closely into the stories of the legends you can find that the stories change from time period to time period and if you look even closer, you can find that the struggles and dreams of that time period are imposed onto that legendary person’s personality.
Billy the Kid is a perfect example of this. It’s true that there were other outlaws at the same time as Billy. Some of them may have even fit a better definition as an outlaw than Billy the Kid did. Or maybe there was someone who did more dangerous things or took more of a leadership role. Even if there was somebody who could fit all the criteria above, the fact still stands that we naturally have a tendency to project our wants and our needs onto someone or something. And who better to change than someone as malleable as Billy the Kid: someone that we really don’t know too much about, someone whose boundaries are so blurry that you can’t help but to cross them, someone we can demonize or angelize to help fit our own personal taste.
According to Robert M. Utley, “In the history of the American West he [Billy the Kid] rates scarcely a footnote” (Billy the Kid Country). This again points out the fact that Billy is more of a “tabula rasa” that is used for each generation’s ideals, frustrations, and wishes (Utley). Billy was a hero during the Lincoln County War and even showed some leadership skills, even though that’s not what we know him for, but afterwards, he just fell back into a position of normal teenage rebelliousness. During the last six months of his life, newspapers created a tall tale of him, which laid the foundation for the Billy the Kid that we know today. So if this is the only part of his life that we ever really focus on, then why is that we say Billy has killed one man for each year that he lived? Or why do we constantly find ourselves debating about whether Billy was a good kid who got caught up due to bad circumstances or rather he just started off a rotten tomato? What is it that made Billy “a tragic hero, a romantic hero, an antihero, a juvenile delinquent, a brilliant marksman, a terrible shot, a practiced dancer, a lady’s man, a slob, a short-tempered rube, left-handed, right-handed” (Page)? The answer is us. The reason Billy has been a devil reincarnation, a poor unfortunate soul, and everything in between is because we needed somebody to fill all those roles. Maybe there is somebody who could be better than Billy at being a evil villain with no feelings or being someone innocent who just got caught in the cross fire, and maybe they have some hard proven evidence of why there are perceived that way, but that person would be historical, not legendary. A strictly historical person doesn’t change when we need them to. If they were a villain during the Victorian times, they’re still going to be a villain during the Depression times. It takes someone we don’t have many facts about, like Billy the Kid for instance, to be legendary. We don’t know how many men he killed for sure so if we want him to be evil during the Victorian times, it’s okay for him to kill 40 men without thinking twice about it. And if we want him to be the good martyr during the Depression era, it’s okay for him to kill only four men because he was seeking justice. After all, there’s nothing that can actually tell us that we’re wrong.
If we look back at Billy during some of these time periods, we can easily tell what was happening in our society. During the 1930s, Billy was a mature young man who was seen as good. He was just dealt the wrong hand by life. But in the end, he was given a chance to get away and start a new life. During this time we were also going through the Great Depression. A time when everybody was struggling and desperately needed something to help them believe that there was such a thing as a happy ending. So why is it that the same exact movie, Billy the Kid, was made in the 1940s with a more sinister Billy? This Billy seeks revenge and meets death with a smile on his face. During the 1940s, we were engaged in World War II and we were a generated so fascinated with wars that most of the great movies that were mane during that time were about wars. In the 1950s, we got The Left-Handed Gun, where Billy was young, wild, careless, and practically crazy. The 1950s is a time when we start getting ready for the next generation. Music like rock-n-roll and jazz come out. Music that, in essence, crossed socially accepted borders. Music that made it okay to talk about wild things, at least what was considered wild in those days, like relationships, sex, emotions, and racial equality.
We have also brought Billy back in the last few years. Brushy Bill Roberts came forth in 1949 and said that he was the real Billy the Kid and it was somebody else who was buried in his place. Although this took place closer to the 1940s and 1950s, it never really left us. It was requested to dig up the remains of Billy the Kid and his mother in 2004 to prove that the real Billy the Kid was in fact shot. We still concentrate on the fact that Brushy could possibly be Billy with movies like Young Guns II and television shows like Unsolved Mysteries. So what does this say about our generation? It could be that our generation is obsessed with the truth since we are always trying to separate myth from fact. It could also be that our generation loves scandals. After all we do thrive on shows like Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives and Gossip Girl and any other television show that is full of drama and scandals. We may not know what it is, but I’m sure the next generation will be able to tell us.
Thanks for a thoughtful post!