Popular Western Fiction

Recently I read a commentrary regarding western literature. According to this source there are two principle divisions in fiction which are classified as "Literary Fiction" and "Popular Fiction."
To qualify as "high literature" apparently there must be an overabundance of realism. From what I have read lately in today's market, this translates into describing the West in strictly corrupt terms, degrading women, filling one's novel with massacres, murders, and rapes, and adding lying, swindling characters with little if any moral fiber.
I'm sorry, but I think I will stick with the "Popular fiction" category. For one thing I don't think the West was as bloody awful as some would have us believe, and more importantly I don't agree that writing about heroism, loyalty and patriotism deminishes the quality of a work of fiction.
I will readily admit that my novels were witten as a form of escapism. I never could understand why someone would want to read a fictional acoount of depravation, corruption and hopelessness. We get enough of that in reality. For accounts of terror, murder and betrayal I would much rather read the truth in non-fiction form or simply turn on television news.
Others may disagree but I believe the function of fiction is entertainment. Fiction provides a mental escape to a different and hopefully better or at very least more interesting place, and to provide a lesson of some sort.
I wrote Trail Hand after watching the movie "The Unforgiven" with Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman. I grew up watching western role models like Hopalong Cassidy, John Wayne, The Lone Ranger and The Cisco Kid. In the 1990's when I saw The Unforgiven, a movie whose most redeeming character is the local prostitute I had to cringe. The sheriff as portrayed by one of my favorite actors , Gene Hackworth, was a sadistic killer, while the Eastwood character was a murdering ex- drunk who enters the movie after taking a contract to revenge- kill for pay in order to fund his failing ranch. He abandons his two young kids alone on the ranch in order to ride out and kill a cowboy he had never even met.
I felt that if this movie, negative as it was, could win an award, then surely western readers must be desparate for more traditional alternatives. I reasoned that others such as myself would rather read about and watch characters who are placed in situations just as dangerous but who choose to act with integrity and courage. Maybe the real west wasn't filled with colorful shirts and fancy studded holsters but again, if you want stark reality you can always watch a Bin Laden tape. You can also reread Bury My Heat at Wounded Knee (which I actually do recommend.) but for fiction, I will stick to L'Amour, and others of his ilk.
That's how my novel Trail Hand came into being. I was honored when the publisher,
Thomson Gale, nominated it for a Golden Spur award (from the Western Writers of America).
Sadly it ended up in the same category as Broken Trail which was released at the same time as its movie, which then received much fanfare. Broken Trail had great cinematography and costumes but I lost count of all the rapes, murders, slave trading, lies and deceit it had. I couldn't find a redeeming character in the whole movie. In the catergory of modern "High Literature" other throwbacks to the feel good high adventures of the forties and fifties never had a chance.