Deadwood: Social Study

The first season of Deadwood introduces us to the town and its inhabitants, and slowly shows us how everyone works together in this "lawless" society to ensure things run as smoothly as possible. There is a doctor (the camp would be pretty screwed without him), a hotelier, some saloon owners, miners, shopkeepers, whores, a newspaperman, and a reverend. What Deadwood does NOT have is a mayor, a sheriff, lawyers, teachers (let alone a school), or bankers (let alone a bank). And things actually get well enough. Sort of.

People have to resort to self-help when they feel they are wronged, and whoever has the most muscle (Swearengen) will likely win any resulting bout, but the camp is still standing. I've sometimes said that society could survive without lawyers but not without doctors (keep in mind I'm a law student), but there is a difference between surviving and flourishing. But lawyers, police, and politicians do not inherently bring law and order. Deadwood citizens are forced to rely on themselves, but that also means that people can get to the root of the problem themselves. When the people hold a criminal trial after the death of a prominent citizen, Swearengen ensures that a corrupt man is chosen as a lawyer in the case for political reasons. By the first season's end, the citizens realize that they will soon be a part of the United States, and accordingly elect a mayor and a sheriff.

The next two seasons show the transformation from mining camp into actual community. Slowly but surely, people start coming to Deadwood to make changes. Bullock's wife (I understand that I'm kind of skimping on character information in this series to focus on the meaning, but there is a lot to be said about the Bullocks' relationship) is a teacher. When telegraph wires are erected, a Russian telegraph operator shows up. And a man named Silas Adams (played by Titus Welliver, who now plays the character on LOST I refer to as Titus, AKA Jacob's rival) becomes Swearengen's pocket magistrate, the man who is bargaining with different states to make Deadwood an official part of them. Throughout this transformation, Deadwood remains a dangerous town, but as the city comes closer and closer to being a legitimate town, various people's illegal acts have to be hidden or given political spin. Suddenly, Swearengen has to sway certain people to his side to get them to do his bidding, while his rival, Cy Tolliver, has to convince others that the political situation Swearengen favors is wrong so that they will upset his plans. Nothing that is unfamiliar to us.

Throughout this transformation, no one character is the show's true hero or villain (Tolliver comes closest to the villain role). Everyone does good things and bad things, sometimes because they blindly follow the advice of someone with more information, and everyone has their own motivations for doing things. But then, George Hearst shows up. Hearst is the father of newspaper magnate and Citizen Kane corollary William Randolph Hearst, and he is BATSHIT CRAZY. Hearst has one love in his life: gold. The man comes to Deadwood with plans to buy out everyone's gold claims, mine the mountains dry, and leave the town in financial ruin. Hearst is only concerned with himself, and has absolutely no regard for any social contract. He does not hide the crimes he commits, and when people challenge him, he simply pays them off. If the challenger doesn't accept the payoff, he takes care of them in other ways. He buys out media outlets to keep stories about him favorable, but doesn't care if people actually see how heartless he is.

It is because of Hearst that Deadwood, for the most part (Tolliver tries to stay on Heart's good side), comes together as a single unit, because they are united by a common enemy. Unfortunately, the show was canceled after its third season (creator David Milch envisioned one more season), and I would very much have liked to see how the characters picked up the pieces of their lives in the wake of Heart's machinations. He rocked the community to its core by doing as he pleased (the very goal many people had in coming to Deadwood), and sacrifices were made when the community came together to oppose him. Obviously, even if people don't realize it, doing what you please without regard for the people around you requires lots of money and influence, not an absence of formal laws. And breaching the social contract comes with very high prices.

Up next: Roman holiday...

Deadwood: The Birth of a Community

Holy crap, it's been a long time. I got tied up preparing for final exams, watching Rome (and now The Wire, which I'll probably get to after I finish Deadwood and Rome), dealing with a family tragedy, skiing, and getting reoriented for the new semester, and have had little time to work on this. In addition to getting the HBO posts done, I want to do a bit of a catch-up for Dollhouse (final episode airs in less than two weeks) and a pre-season prediction post for LOST's final season. But first, the intro to Deadwood, a show very much about the birth of a society.

The series takes place in Deadwood, South Dakota before the Dakotas were part of the United States. In the summer of 1876, people came to Deadwood for two reasons: to make their fortune (mining gold or exploiting the miners) and to escape to a place governed by no laws and part of no sovereign nation. The first scene of the series takes place in the Montana territory, where Seth Bullock is leaving his position as Marshal. He and his friend/business partner, Sol Starr, plan on going to Deadwood to open a hardware store (when I said "exploit" earlier, I didn't necessarily mean illegal; Bullock and Starr plan to legitimately rely on the miners' needs for equipment to keep their business running). His last prisoner asks him if it's true that there is no law in Deadwood, and men are free to do as they please. We soon learn that, even though Deadwood lacks formal government and legislation, to call it a place without laws is not exactly true. Like all communities in Western society, the citizens of Deadwood carry on their business operating under a social contract with each other to prevent pure chaos.

Deadwood is by no means a safe place. Local bartender Al Swearengen acts as a kind of overlord of the town, with his hands in nearly every aspect of the town. He owns the most popular and, for the first two episodes, most "full-service" saloon in town, where people spend their hard-earned money on liquor and women. He has powerful influence over many important (relatively) figures in town, notably hotel owner E.B. Farnum. Through E.B., he gets notice of who comes through town and what their likely intentions are. He also has his hand firmly on the pulse of the political scene, and closely monitors the inevitable movement toward incorporation into the United States. He portrays himself as ruthless, and is not afraid to kill (whether it be personally or by one of his minions) people who stand in his way, but he also knows that in order to maintain some level of order, murder is usually the last resort. If he were too bloodthirsty, people would move away or would rise up against him (both bad for business). He is keenly aware of the social contract and knows when the rules can be bent and when they can be broken.

As the series progresses, certain characters come to dominate the the town. In Todd VanDerWerff's spectacular series of AV Club posts on Deadwood (the man analyzes the show in ways I can only dream of), he refers to these characters as gods, watching over the city from their balconies and directing various events. Each character brings their own perspective to the town and tries to bring it closer to their world view. Bullock brings a nearly uncompromising law-and-order view, which contrasts with Swearengen's fluid method of dealing with situations. Alma Garret is a high society woman from New York who tries to make the town closer to cities back east, while newcomer Cy Tolliver, who opens a "classy" saloon/brothel near Swearengen's Gem, is out to make the city serve him and him alone. None of these characters is a traditional hero or villain (Tolliver comes the closest, though), and the series follows them as they work together and against each other to shape Deadwood into a society.

Up next: Building blocks of a community...