I really liked this film. I've been around enough real cowboys and stockmen to know that a woman could successfully masquerade as a slender, somewhat pretty young man. Especially if she deliberately gives herself a disfiguring scar (an old trick to discourage people from looking closely at your face). It was clear in the film that many of Jo's fellow miners and stockmen felt that she was a bit effeminate and, as Frank Badger puts it, "peculiar".
But being peculiar wasn't a crime and a small man who kept to himself on a remote ranch, didn't bother other men, and made an honest living in the hardscrabble world of livestock ranching probably wouldn't have been subject to close scrutiny. Plus, Jo went armed and it was always dicey to make trouble for an armed man. And, once Jo has saved Frank's life and killed two ambushers, her status as a man would have been pretty well assured.
I felt the final scene where Frank Badger is angrily smashing Jo's cabin furnishings was revelatory. I think Frank was angry that he never found out that his friend (for whom he had feelings he couldn't understand or acknowledge) was really a good-looking woman with whom he could have had a more intimate friendship without compromising his heterosexuality.
But being peculiar wasn't a crime and a small man who kept to himself on a remote ranch, didn't bother other men, and made an honest living in the hardscrabble world of livestock ranching probably wouldn't have been subject to close scrutiny. Plus, Jo went armed and it was always dicey to make trouble for an armed man. And, once Jo has saved Frank's life and killed two ambushers, her status as a man would have been pretty well assured.
I felt the final scene where Frank Badger is angrily smashing Jo's cabin furnishings was revelatory. I think Frank was angry that he never found out that his friend (for whom he had feelings he couldn't understand or acknowledge) was really a good-looking woman with whom he could have had a more intimate friendship without compromising his heterosexuality.