Sam Elliott recently finished the first season of his hit Paramount+ series, “1883,” the first spinoff of the uber-popular “Yellowstone.” And in the aforementioned series, Elliott continues his career-spanning work portraying super masculine guys. In the case of “1883,” he’s, once again, a cowboy, as well, with his gruff voice and facial hair. But even though his series has been a massively popular show, recently Elliott came under fire for some remarks he made about Netflix’s Oscar-nominated cowboy drama, “The Power of the Dog,” calling it a “piece of shit” and criticizing the “allusions to homosexuality” in the film. Basically, Elliott doesn’t like how it makes cowboys seem anything less than super macho and hetero. As you might expect, Benedict Cumberbatch, the star of “The Power of the Dog,” doesn’t agree with Elliott’s take.
Speaking as part of a BAFTA Film Session (via IndieWire), Benedict Cumberbatch alluded to Elliott’s comments and took the high road in rebuking those critiques. For those who haven’t seen “The Power of the Dog,” the film tells the story of Phil Burbank, an incredibly mean, repressed man in 19th century Montana, and no, it’s not your typical cowboy story.
“I’m trying very hard not to say anything about a very odd reaction that happened the other day on a radio podcast over here,” Cumberbatch said. “Without meaning to stir over the ashes of that … someone really took offense to — I haven’t heard it so it’s unfair for me to comment in detail on it — to the West being portrayed in this way.”
The actor continued, “Beyond that reaction, that sort of denial that anybody could have any other than a heteronormative existence because of what they do for a living or where they’re born, there’s also a massive intolerance within the world at large towards homosexuality still and towards an acceptance of the other and anything kind of difference. No more so than in this prism of conformity of what’s expected of a man in the Western archetype mold of masculinity. To deconstruct that through Phil, it’s not a history lesson.”
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In particular, Cumberbatch broke down the repression felt by his character in the film, which seems to be the bulk of Elliott’s issues with the film. In fact, Cumberbatch talks about how toxic masculinity (such as what seemed to come from Elliott) contributed to his character’s actions in “The Power of the Dog.”
“This is a very specific case of repression, but also due to an intolerance for that true identity that Phil is that he can’t fully be,” he said. “The more we look under the hood of toxic masculinity and try to discover the root causes of it, the bigger chances we have of dealing with it when it arises with our children.”
“The Power of the Dog” is available now on Netflix. You can watch the full discussion below: