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==== ''Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid'' ====
[[File:garrettandthekid.jpg|thumbnail|300px|left|Movie poster for ''Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.'' Notice the Wanted poster shows a smiling, handsome outlaw, while the sheriff is dressed in black and looks menacingly evil.]]
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was released in 1973 to a nation yet again weary. America’s participation in Vietnam’s civil war came as a result of the fear of communism spreading. The result of America’s ongoing intervention in a seemingly winless war divided the U.S. home front and turned the 1960’s and 1970’s into two extremely tumultuous decades. President Nixon had continued to "secretly" bomb Cambodia in 1973, while the Watergate investigation was exposing a corrupt Executive Branch. Outspoken advocates for peace were holding rallies and embracing the pacifist traditions of the hippies of the previous decade. May 4, 1970, proved to be a turning point in campus unrest and the college generation’s distrust of the government and law enforcement. On that day at Kent State University, four students were killed while nine others were injured at the hands of the Ohio National Guard. This event triggered a student strike through May and June of that year and even furthered the growing campus unrest.<ref>Jerry M. Lewis and Thomas R. Hensley, “The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy.” Kent State, 1998. http://dept.kent.edu/sociology/lewis/lewihen.htm</ref>
==== Parallels with Vietnam ====
At the time the film was released, the American public had been inundated with images of the horrific violence in Vietnam. Peckinpah used an abundance of violence in the film and displays blood in stark red ''only'' when the outlaws are shot. He was demonstrating that the established authority figures were responsible for the blood and violence in the film, just as they were in Southeast Asia. He also made an obvious point of dressing Garrett and his posse in all black throughout the film, which was a wardrobe choice traditionally associated with villains. Just by employing this simple wardrobe tactic, Peckinpah depicts law enforcement as evil. He furthered this portrayal with a scene of young children throwing rocks at Garrett after he had killed the Kid; much like the rocks that were thrown at Vietnam veterans returning home.