Full
of impressive machines and little gadgets put to use in the vastness
of the American West, Wild Wild West can easily be perceived
as a film negotiating the borders of technology and nature. Set in
the Reconstruction era, the 1999 Western comedy displays the United
States recovering from the Civil War—but also as a “nation on the
move” (Wesley xii) celebrating mobility and subscribing to a
general belief in progress and development. Technological advances
and inventions play an important role, and the railroad becomes the
motor unfolding the story as it transports Jim West (Will Smith) and
Artemus Gordon (Kevin Kline) to their sites of investigation.
Starting in Washington, DC, they continually advance westward until
they confront Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh) at Promontory
Point for the final battle. Therefore, the westward expansion, and
subsequently the frontier myth, provide a basis for my analysis.
The Trespassing Cyborg: Technology, Nature, and the Nation in Wild Wild West
Issue:
4 (2011)Pages: 25-49
Abstract: Drawing
on the studies by Leo Marx and Henry Nash Smith, this paper analyzes
the 1999 Western comedy Wild Wild West as negotiating the
boundaries of nature and technology. Set in 1869 and taking place
mostly in the American West, the film depicts a clash of
civilization/technology and wilderness/nature and, with its
resolution of the conflict, attests to the ideal of the ‘American
Garden.’ Furthermore, Wild Wild West is infused with ideas
related to westward expansion and Frederick Jackson Turner’s
frontier thesis. By partially revising and thereby affirming and
refitting the frontier myth for the twenty-first century, the film
can be interpreted to reimagine the American nation. In terms of
terrorist threats and the fear of weapons technology possibly falling
into ‘wrong’ hands, the beginning of this century presents the
United States with hazards very similar to the ones which Jim West
and Artemus Gordon, the film’s protagonists, have to face as they
set out to defend the nation.