The Baddest of the Bad

I was sitting on the couch watching a great Western. It was Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. It is a great, great movie with Bob Dylan as a quirky sidekick (image below) to Kris Kristofferson's Billy the Kid.



Anywho... it was while watching this movie that I realized that cowboys are the "baddest" of the movie stereotypes. I mean bad in the sense of Samuel L. Jackson's wallet in Pulp Fiction. Here's why:

Most western movies show a scene with the tired cowboy settling in to a nice warm bubble bath waiting for the inevitable visit from whoever is playing Ms. Kitty. Despite being in a bubble bath by themselves, the macho image of the cowboy is not diminished. Isn't that amazing?

Let's look at the movie 300. That movie will make anyone want to take their shirt off and kill someone. However, put those Spartans in a bubble bath and all of a sudden they look like a bunch of guys in red panties rather than killing machines. Do you like gladiator movies?

Darth Vader would rust and the Emperor would just look creepy.

There are two possible exceptions: Bruce Lee and Shaft.

Although Bruce Lee would not look completely silly, he would not look very threatening. I mean he couldn't do all that jumping around in those bubbles. With Shaft, you'd just assume that there was a woman under the bubbles. Shaft may be the only legitimate exception.

PS -> Chuck Norris has never taken a bubble bath and I refuse to speculate due to possible roundhouse kick related repercussions.