# Name some Great Easterns **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 2, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721 "2009-04-02T16:17:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/21 "2009-04-02T18:25:44Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > 1. How far west can you go before it quits being Eastern? > 2. How far south do you go before it’s more Southern than Eastern? > 3. Does the time frame help differentiate Eastern from Southern? Civil War era maybe? > > Is the Mississippi River a fair demarcation point for Eastern vs. Western? > > Are the Confederate states the Southern area? Remember that Texas was part of the Confederacy and Oregon was part of the Union, but both are undeniably western. I think the southeast is just as eastern as the northeast. The Mississippi is a convenient physical dividing line and has lots of historic significance, so why not? > [@](#): > > Just asking. No response needed. Oh. Well, you’re welcome anyway. Haven’t seen it so I can’t vouch for it’s greatness, but **The Devil’s Disciple** is set during the American Revolution and is generally well-regarded (as a film, not as history). ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/22 "2009-04-02T18:53:31Z")
Jungle Red The Philadelphia Story Bringing up Baby Holiday Inn ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/23 "2009-04-02T19:38:57Z")
I’ll echo **TWDuke’s** comment that westerns as a genre has more to do with certain tropes than it does with geography. A lot of these tropes grew out of literature and include thigns we all learned in in English class. Man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. self. Then you have genre characters such as the gun fighter, the gambler, the prostitute with a heart of gold, etc. There’s no cohesive genre of “Eastern” that I’m aware of. **Lissener** knows a whole lot more about movies and hopefully he’ll participate in this thread. Odesio ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/24 "2009-04-02T22:29:21Z")
**The Perfect Storm** ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/25 "2009-04-02T22:29:56Z")
Ragtime The Great Gatsby Dead End ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/26 "2009-04-02T23:46:58Z")
_Cotton Comes to Harlem The Ice Storm Shaft Kids The Hours (2/3 of it anyway) Superfly_ ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/27 "2009-04-03T00:24:39Z")
\*The Crucible The Scarlet Letter Amistad Little Women\* Any adaptation of a Stephen King story set in Maine. And anything set in [Lovecraft Country.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovecraftCountry) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/28 "2009-04-03T00:33:59Z")
_The Devil and Daniel Webster_ ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/29 "2009-04-03T01:43:12Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > There’s no cohesive genre of “Eastern” that I’m aware of. Sure there is: Man vs. society. Woody Allen films are basically about an outsider trying to fit into a culture that he doesn’t get, and that doesn’t get him. Frank Capra films are about a little guy about to be crushed by The Powers That Be until virtue triumphs in the end. John Waters movies are about plucky misfits triumphing against stuffy middle-class sensibilities. _The Philadelphia Story_ is Tracy Lord caught between settling for a safe marriage or yielding to temptation. _On the Waterfront_ has a loser battling corrupt bosses. I’d go as far as to say if it’s one person against any kind of power structure, it’s an “Eastern.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/30 "2009-04-03T03:22:45Z")
I guess we should include all the Batman movies. Wherever Gotham City is, it’s nowhere south of the Potomac and nowhere west of Pittsburgh. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/31 "2009-04-03T05:02:00Z")
_Hotel New Hampshire Mystic Pizza Same Time Next Year Indian Summer Cider House Rules_ ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/32 "2009-04-03T08:56:46Z")
Wall Street ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/33 "2009-04-03T12:22:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I guess we should include all the Batman movies. Wherever Gotham City is, it’s nowhere south of the Potomac and nowhere west of Pittsburgh. Chicago? (Well, that’s still east of the Mississippi and south of the Potomac.) ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/34 "2009-04-03T13:07:21Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Sure there is: Man vs. society. > > I’d go as far as to say if it’s one person against any kind of power structure, it’s an “Eastern.” Like in _3:10 to Yuma_, _Shane_, or other countless westerns where the little guy tries to keep his land in the face of ruthless cattle barons or the railroad? Odesio ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/35 "2009-04-03T16:26:15Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The Great Eastern, of course. Beat me to it, that was the first thing that came to mind.😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/36 "2009-04-03T16:56:01Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Chicago? (Well, that’s still east of the Mississippi and south of the Potomac.) Gotham definitely ain’t Chicago. Don’t ask me how I know that, I just know, from years of reading reprints of the early Batman comics. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/37 "2009-04-03T19:13:05Z")
I alwyas think of it as a dystopian Baltimore. Maybe because B’More was halfway there for a while. . . ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/38 "2009-04-03T23:40:46Z")
The world was a much bigger place before WWII. Cities like St. Louis, Chicago, Nashville, or whatever, each had its own identity. Until American movies started to change with influences from postwar Europe (Italian Neorealism, French New Wave) and with the general postwar “zeitgeist,” it was pretty much taken as universal given that the US consisted of the East Coast . . . and everywhere else. Watching old movies, you get a definite sense of the East Coast as the Center of the Universe, and everywhere else as a provincial backwater. Point being, the Western was only “western” in that it was west of that center of the universe. Long theory short, almost every movie that WASN’T a western was, in fact, an “Eastern,” as defined by the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721/39 "2009-04-04T02:29:26Z")
Eastern with a historical perspective: Terrence Malick’s **[The New World](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0402399/)** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-great-easterns/491721.md?page=1)