There's a lovely little film from a few years back called Into the West, a sort of Irish Western.

And there's a bit in it when the two young traveller boys are on the run with the horse they've re-possessed, and the young one asks his brother "Are we the Cowboys or are we the Indians?" And I can't remember what the brother says, but the implication is clear enough - they might be wearing cowboy hats, but they've a lot more in common with the people the real cowboys pushed around.

And that review of the film I linked to there has a great quote from the Director - "There are certain things that happen in the film that cannot happen unless the world is a very odd, mysterious, and unreal sort of place."

Which of course it is.