OK, let's see how this goes....
Eligibility Debate
Midnight Cowboy
Here is our first title up for debate. John Schlesinger's
Midnight Cowboy (1969) is famously the only X-rated movie to win Oscar's Best Picture. For those who may only be passingly familiar, it follows the (then) present day Joe Buck (John Voight) who leaves his troubles in a dusty Texas town to try his luck at becoming a male prostitute in Manhattan targeting rich women who want to ride a cowboy. It's not as easy as he imagines and he winds up befriending an ostracized hustler named "Ratzo" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) who attempts to guide the niave cowpoke through the harsh urban landscape.
The IMDb lists it as a Drama, Western
I don't think there is much debate about the drama part, but for me Western is misplaced. Joe Buck is certainly drawn from some of the Western archetype, or at least that is what is being mocked and played against, and he definitely dresses like Roy Rogers, but other than that level and having
Cowboy in the title, in genre terms I don't see that it fits. Structurally and thematically I don't see it as a Western.
But what do you all think? Is it enough of a Western to be included, or so tangentially a Western it should be excluded?