Yes! Holliday was a historical person, and historically a close friend of Wyatt Earp; he was a tubercular gambler who moved from Georgia to Arizona in hopes that the desert climate would cure his TB, & then got involved in the famous shootout at the OK Corral. In mythmaking of the American West he's usually portrayed as one of those figures who straddle the right & wrong sides of the law, you know—the degenerate gambler, snappy dresser and semi-casual killer, who spends most of his time drinking, wisecracking, hanging out with/patronizing sex workers, and getting into gunfights over card games. He's often cast as the morally grey, YOLO-and-dying-anyway foil to Earp's unbending lawfulness: close enough to the bad guys to think like them & fight dirty like them in ways that Earp's not, but which are (these depictions argue) necessary to bringing them down. There's often a gloss of erudition about him, too, which combined with the fashion-forwardness & affinity for the demi-monde adds up to a lot of queer coding.
Apparently this is largely nonsense, historically (for example: Holliday, before leaving Georgia, was a dentist; and his second career of gambling was a perfectly reputable profession in those days). And of course the whole glamorization of ~bringing law to the Wild West~ is intensely politically fucked-up. But I admit that I do love the Doc Holliday mythos.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-09-22 02:18 pm (UTC)Apparently this is largely nonsense, historically (for example: Holliday, before leaving Georgia, was a dentist; and his second career of gambling was a perfectly reputable profession in those days). And of course the whole glamorization of ~bringing law to the Wild West~ is intensely politically fucked-up. But I admit that I do love the Doc Holliday mythos.