MovieChat Forums > Chisum (1970) Discussion > Chisum and Pepper gay?

Chisum and Pepper gay?

posted 9 years ago by stevesonlineplace
2 replies | jump to latest

Nearly all westerns have some type of love interest or wife/family at the centre of the story.

However with this, it was left completely ambiguous. His "live in friend", Pepper seems to be a long term companion. They have cute banter between each other, much different to all the other cowboys, but much like people would in a relationship.

Chisum mentions that he had plenty of women who chased him, but he was never interested. He has no children of his own, yet he treats Sallie like his daughter he could never have; perhaps due to being homosexual. Even Pepper looks over Sallie as another father figure.

Apart from Sallie, there are no females around the duo. Chisum and Pepper's main friend, Tunstall, is also an eccentric elderly man with no wife or family. Tunstall's main interest is with courting younger men.

I close my case with the baby pink handkerchief Chisum wears, only when around Mr Pepper.

Do you think these hints were an attempt to push the boundaries with having homosexuals within a western?

[–] eddie-fendel 8 years ago

Nope. It's called man-love. They're set in their ways and ain't found the right woman yet.

[–] phillipsdan83 (101) 5 years ago

I doubt anything like that occured to either John Wayne...a Midwesterner born in 1907...or real life Oklahoma cowboy Ben Johnson. Men of their particular time and place either would have died laughing at that theory or got pissed...with Johnson tending more to the died laughing side.