ABSTRACT
In Barry Levinson's 1987 film Tin Men, set in Baltimore in 1962, the lunchtime banter of four aluminum siding salesmen (the tin men of the title) often revolves around the shared suspicion that "Bonanza is not an accurate depiction of the West." One of the characters, who claims that ordinarily he isn't "too picky" about such details, says that he "is beginning to think that the show doesn't have too much realism." Why? Because it depicts "a fifty-year-old father with three fortyseven-year-old sons." A companion who points out, with mock humility, that he is no "authority" on the TV show, casts further suspicion on the Ben Cartwright patriarch, who must, he says, possess "the kiss of death" to have had three children from "three different wives who all die at childbirth." In addition, they agree that the characters seldom show any interest in the topic of women. No one, not even Little Joe or Hoss, ever talks about getting horny or getting laid.
