A Western that can be considered a Comedy?

Chandler is saying that you cannot classify a genre by certain themes or ideas involved with it. Whether they be in things such as movies or books this is true. By calling something a comedy because the satire may be entertaining or make you laugh doesn’t necessarily make it so. Just like with the idea of Westerns “The Purpose Of This Creature Man” can be called a Western because it has all the signs of one Ie: bank robberies, appropriate slang terms and language but at the same time there are other situations where this can be disproved. On page 145, Doc proposes to name Le Duc something simpler and more to the point. At first he wants to be called Ringo. I’m probably not the only one who thought of this but as soon as I saw the name “Ringo in the text I thought of Ringo Star/ The Beatles. This brought up the idea of L.S.D. The song was about a drug but cleverly disguised as something else. In the same sense the Duke’s name made him seem like more of a man than he was. It was not common to hear of a bank robber with such a name. This was one of the things I feel made the story less of a western. Then theres “Verdigris Kid” he was the exact opposite of your stereotypical bank robber or male character, both extremely feminine and womanly he seemed to be a cross between a young boy and a feminized sexual pedophile. The Duke describes him as sissified who called people “darling and sweet chips” He even goes so far as to ask him if he is attracted to men, though his answer doesn’t automatically imply that he is he claims to “prefer the hairless and narrow-chested” This can either be seen as an attraction to prepubescent girls or young boys. The suspicion that he may be attracted to girls however is dismissed when Doc brings up the idea of Prison. Then there’s Perceval. He Is supposed to be a cowboy but recites poetry. When I think of cowboys, I think of masculine men who are of few words and not overly flowery or wordy. This was another thing that disagreed with the idea that the story was a western. The story does not fit into the genre that this would usually fall under because there are too many instances that contradict what a Western is supposed to symbolize and stand for. Chandler finds categorizing genres problematic because there are so many ways to categorize genres that it would be extremely difficult to just call something one name. Also according to Carolyn Miller “the number of genres in any society... depends on the complexity and diversity of society” What’s to say that if a totally different group of people besides ourselves from other backgrounds read the story read the story that they would identify it as a western? There are clear indications that show people could call it a western because of common ingredients but as a whole it is too flimsy to be taken seriously as one.