definition of outsider

The term outsider is a term that is used to designate those people who do not belong to a community, who are not from it, and who, for example, come from another country, from abroad.

Foreign individual who comes to a community and is often seen as a threat

This situation produces that these individuals do not know the uses and customs of the place where they arrive and then they take them as individuals, or even strangers, and produce a certain distrust.

Usually the stranger can be perceived as a danger due to having a different lifestyle, different ways of communicating, acting, etc.

Use in American Western movies where criminals or fugitives from justice are depicted

The term is used much more in American-type fiction to talk about those people who come to a lost community in the West and who can be dangerous because they are criminals, murderers or fugitives from some crime.

Although its use in common language is not so common, it is correct to use it as well.

The word outsider comes from the Latin term foras which means outside and which is also the one that derives outside.

In this sense, the word outsider will then refer to everything that is external to a community or society.

The idea of ​​a stranger exists from the moment the idea of ​​society appears.

This is so because when a group of people decide to get together to live together, sharing certain elements, there will always be elements that are foreign to that group by definition.

Thus, if a society is characterized by having certain cultural traits, traditions, language, history, etc., everything that does not represent that group of manifestations with which the members of the community feel identified will then be considered something strange, different and possibly dangerous.

Xenophobia: fear of the foreigner who arrives, it is not known for sure why ...

From this we can say then that the notion of xenophobia or racism can arise in more exaggerated and exacerbated cases, which has to do with discriminating against everyone who is different from one and the community in which one lives not so much because it is justified but because of fear or fear of what that other person represents: the unknown.

Xenophobia consists of the exclusion and discrimination that is exerted on another person and that is based on the fact of presenting a color, race, origin, different from that of the majority, and therefore it is not considered an equal, remaining by case its freedoms and rights totally curtailed.

Precisely the word has a Greek origin that refers to fear of the foreigner and implies an attitude of rejection towards those people who come from abroad only for the fact of supposing that they imply a danger because their intentions are unknown, that is, why they come to our place, to threaten our tranquility ...

It should be noted that this rejection and discrimination usually manifests itself through indifference but also through violent physical attacks that can cause severe damage to the people who receive them.

As a consequence of the above, in many laws around the world xenophobia is considered a plausible offense of criminal punishment.

The figure of the stranger is part of the American tradition in times when Western civilization was beginning to establish itself in wastelands formerly inhabited by native Indians.

As these communities are lost in the middle of the desert or open spaces, the arrival of strangers to the community, indigenous as well as white individuals, could always represent a danger because they pose a possible threat to the peace and tranquility of the village or community. in question.

In the films that portray the American Wild West or Far West, and that are framed within the western genre, it is very common to find the archetype of the outsider, which precisely brings together many of the characteristics already mentioned for this subject and this question is also appreciable We described the mistrust that the arrival of someone who is not a native of the place tends to arouse in these remote communities, they are always seen as a specific threat and they seek to combat it.

These characters usually appear suddenly in the bars or inns of the town, where they come to have something fresh or to get in touch with someone, while that mistrust usually triggers fights with the concurrent regulars at those bars, which are dangerous and fringes of those communities.