Young Guns & the Value of Storytelling

I recently provided input in a discussion with my friend Michael Anthony Giudicissi for his podcast, All Things Billy the Kid. The episode discussed "What Young Guns Got Right," and the short answer seems to be: not much. And I think it's important to point out(and Michael did): for a good story, this is completely ok.

That's because as a storyteller, you can get a lot of things wrong, and still tell the truth.

When Young Guns II hit theaters in August of 1990, I went with my best friend and his dad to see the film.

I was about ten years old, and knew absolutely nothing of the American West in general, or Billy the Kid in particular. I knew plenty about Superman, Batman, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Rambo. But up to that time, "cowboys" had never really been my thing.

So I went to this movie just because it was something to do. I got to get out of the house, hang out with my buddy, have some popcorn and a Coke.

But I was absolutely enthralled from the opening of the movie. The music, the setting, the performances, the dialogue... What a great film.

I was fascinated by this character called Billy the Kid. He was a trickster, always laughing, a streak of fatalistic humor running through everything he did.

There was a prophetic, mythological aspect to this story. This was a tale on the level of Beowulf or Hercules, Robin Hood or King Arthur. The story of Billy the Kid had the same mythical, and perhaps even religious, weight to it. There was the "David and Goliath" feel in Billy taking on the tyrannical and feudal overlords of Lincoln county, New Mexico. In the Regulators and his gang, there was his "band of merry men," his "knights of the round table," his "apostles." In Pat Garrett, we had not only our "Sheriff of Nottingham," but also our betraying Lancelot, or Judas Iscariot. And just as King Arthur was said to have gone west to Avalon after his death, here there was even the aspect of "resurrection" in the possibility that this jovial outlaw survived his death at the hands of Pat Garrett by some conspiracy, mistake, or accident.

Of course, I didn't think about all this as a ten-year-old watching the movie in the theater in 1990. But these are the archetypal parallels that I've noticed as time has marched on, in lockstep with my fascination surrounding Billy the Kid.

And this is why storytelling - myth-making - is so important and integral to the human spirit - in particular, the "creative license" that storytellers take when spinning a yarn, whether on the page, stage, or screen:

For some reason, we need archetypes. Our souls need stories, not just historical documentation.

That's why, despite historical inaccuracies, Young Guns and Young Guns II are two of the most powerful contributions to the American frontier myth known as Billy the Kid. These two movies miss a lot of marks in the "Historical Accuracy" department, but score win after win in the "Lasting Archetypal Resonation" category. (I don't know if "resonation" is really a word, but we'll pretend, archetypally, that it is.) [I'm not sure if "archetypally" is really a word.]

Telling a story is very different from relating history. Often, when a historical film, television series, or book deviates from the actual historical events or truths, it is met with the cries of naysayers: "That's not how it happened!" "Hollywood changes everything!" etc.

But that's how storytelling works. The human spirit responds to patterns, plots, and certain forms - we respond to archetypes. That's why history and fiction are two very different - equally valuable - fields. Stories - whether consciously or subconsciously - conform to certain universal patterns or forms. Who knows how these patterns or forms came about? But I suspect that they reinforce the human search for purpose and meaning.

History is about what happens. Storytelling is about what should have happened, or what could have happened.

Try as you might, I doubt you'd be able to write a compelling Billy the Kid book, or make a compelling Billy the Kid movie, that is 100% historically accurate. I think the reason for this is found in the nature of storytelling itself:

Stories give us what life fails to provide. Perhaps there's a difference between being right, and being true. And maybe that's what myths and stories are for: to be true, on a level beyond any historical event or person.

There wasn't a lot that Young Guns got right.

But pretty much all of it was true.