Dear TMN,

Francey Russell’s recitation of American Male archetypes as expressed through cinema is, as usual for The Morning News, outstanding; however, I am puzzled as to how Ms. Russell could omit from her survey one Clinton Eastwood Jr. Not only has Mr. Eastwood been, arguably, the pre-eminent American male movie star of the past 40 years, but he has, with very few exceptions, spent his career studying and deconstructing the myth of the American man.

Plus, he usually gets the girl.

Sincerely,
Paul Frankenstein

Francey Russell responds: While of course I must concede that Mr. Eastwood was in many respects an ordinary sad bastard, a lone gunslinger, at an always receding squinty-eyed distance, he was omitted from my survey simply because I left genre films for another day. Cowboys, noir detectives, and burdened soldiers would all make fine sad bastards, but to include them would be to take on a discussion that involved stock characters and their depressive variations, too much for this venue.