Great Fitness

Rodeo In Art And Media

Ballet

The only depiction of rodeo in high art is choreographer Agnes de Mille’s ballet, Rodeo commissioned by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1942 with a score by Aaron Copland. The ballet’s Cowgirl loves the Champion Roper but is forced to discard her boots, jeans, and cowgirl ways for a pretty dress. Though the work was later criticized for the heteronormativity of the storyline, many of the themes are autobiographical for De Mille. The choreographer felt awkward in the offstage world, and the Cowgirl’s unwillingness to subscribe to traditional gender roles mirrors De Mille’s experience.

Music

“Rodeo” is a single by Garth Brooks from his album Ropin’ the Wind (1991). The song tells a man who has the uncontrollable urge to be in the Tulsa rodeo His lover however would “give half of Texas just to change the way he feels. / It’s the ropes and the reins and the joy and the pain and they call the thing a rodeo.” On the 1991 U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles and Tracks charts its highest peak position was number three, and on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks, its highest peak position was number one for the week of October 18ctober 26.

Rodeo is a ballet score written by Aaron Copland in 1942. The ballet consists of five sections: “Buckaroo Holiday”, “Ranch House Party”, “Corral Nocturne”, “Saturday Night Waltz”, and “Hoe-Down”. The symphonic version omits “Ranch House Party”, leaving the other sections relatively intact.

Film

Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain (2005) follows the twenty year homosexual romance between Jack Twist, a rodeo cowboy and Ennis Del Mar, a ranch hand.

8 Seconds (1994) is a biopic about bull riding champion Lane Frost. The film follows his life from his youthful education in bull riding to his death at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo in 1989. Luke Perry plays Frost with Stephen Baldwin as real life rodeo legend Tuff Hedeman, and Red Mitchell as cowboy poet Cody Lambert. The live arena bull riding scenes were filmed in San Antonio, Texas.

Urban Cowboy (1980) is a romance film about the love-hate relationship between newlywed cowboy Bud Davis (John Travolta) and his cowgirl wife, Sissy (Debra Winger). The film follows the young couple and their attempts to master a mechanical bull in a country nightspot.

Junior Bonner (1972) starred Steve McQueen, Joe Don Baker, Robert Preston and Ida Lupino in a story about a veteran rodeo rider who returns to his hometown to participate in an annual rodeo competition and reunite with his brother and estranged parents.

J.W. Coop (1971) was written, produced, directed and starred Cliff Robertson as a rodeo performer who has just spent several years in jail and is released into a world where rodeo competitors no longer compete in all-around rodeo events but specialize in one event only and fly in private planes around America to compete.

The Misfits (1961) was written by Arthur Miller, directed by John Huston, and starred Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. An archetypal drifting rodeo cowboy (Montgomery Clift) is enlisted in a scheme to capture and sell mustangs to a dog food factory.

The Lusty Men (1952) was directed by Nicholas Ray and Robert Parrish. The film stars Susan Hayward, Arthur Kennedy, and Robert Mitchum in a story about a former rodeo champ who takes an amateur under his wing against the wishes of the man’s wife.

Television

In the early 1960s, NBC and ABC each released their one and only dramatic television series based on rodeo. NBC’s Wide Country (which was noted for emulating its ABC rival) saw one season (19621963) as did ABC’s Stoney Burke starring future Hawaii Five-O star Jack Lord in the titular role as a young rodeo man. Stoney Burke was based on the life of Casey Tibbs, an all-around rough stock champion who acted as technical advisor to the series. The southwestern rodeo circuit was background for the weekly, hour-long, black and white series which featured footage from actual rodeo rough stock and timed events. Guest stars appeared as the various folk Stoney met on the rodeo road. Writers carefully worked the Cowboy Code into each episode.

Literature

“Brokeback Mountain” is a short story by Annie Proulx first published in The New Yorker in 1997. The story is about a ranch hand and a rodeo man who forge a sudden emotional and sexual attachment. As their separate lives play out with marriages, children and jobs, they reunite for brief liaisons on camping trips in remote settings over the course of 20 years.

Advertising

Rodeo has long been tapped by American advertisers. As earliest as 1936, for example, Camel cigarette ads featured steer wrestler Dick Shelton, and, in the late 1940s, Wrangler marketed a pair of “rodeo jeans” designed following consultations with RCA cowboys. In 1962, Wrangler published a 49-issue series of comic books highlighting the rodeo men who wore Wrangler jeans. In the last decades of the twentieth century, Resistol hats were hawked by rodeo champions, Coca-Cola ads featured a bull rider, and Levi-Strauss used rodeo in their ads and urged readers to “Go to rodeo America’s most exciting sport”. Isuzu Motors Limited positioned its sports-utiliy Rodeo as a “darn good get-away vehicle”.

Rodeo specific advertising came to a head annually during the era with ESPN’s coverage of the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. Dodge trucks, Justin boots, Resistol hats, Coors beer, Coca-Cola soft drink, Copenhagen/Skoal tobacco, Seagram whiskey, and Wrangler jeans all mined the mythical dimension of rodeo in promoting its products to the event’s audience. The archetypal rodeo man in such promotions similar to he of movies, song, literature, television, and art was the representative of the Code of the West and was presented as “individualistic, courageous, skilled, resourceful, plain-spoken, humble, loyal, and democratic.”

Notes

^ Allen:

^ Pollack

^ Allen: 194

^ Allen 47

^ Allen: 201

References

Allen, Michael (1998). Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination. Reno: University of Nevada Press. ISBN 0-87417-315-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=DLjWhBL0lmUC&dq=Rodeo+Cowboys+in+the+North+American+Imagination&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=qMjBSd6bG4XuMufRzJYK&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result. 

Aquila, Richard (1996). Wanted Dead or Alive. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02224-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=FKxWdtVwvg0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Wanted+Dead+or+Alive&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

Candelaria, Cordelia (2004). Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-32215-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=STjcB_f7CVcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Encyclopedia+of+Latino+Popular+Culture&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

“College National Rodeo Finals”. http://www.cnfr.com. Retrieved 2009-03-18. 

Curnutt, Jordan (2001). Animals and the Law. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-147-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=p2p0MptGeBkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Animals+and+the+Law&lr;=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=2009&as_maxm_is=12&as_maxy_is=2009&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

Dictionary.com. “Definitions and etymology of rodeo”. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rodeo. Retrieved 2009-03-17. 

Evans, J. Warren (1981, 1989). Horses. Macmillan. ISBN 0-7167-4255-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=IhWz87RiuGQC&pg=PA259&dq=Evans+Horses+Macmillan&lr=lang_en&num=100&as_brr=3&as_pt=BOOKS&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

Groves, Melody (2006). Ropes, Reins, and Rawhide. University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-8263-3822-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=ztGsU7ISp50C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Ropes,+Reins,+and+Rawhide&lr=lang_en&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=2009&as_maxm_is=12&as_maxy_is=2009&num=100&as_brr=3&as_pt=BOOKS&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

Harris, Moira C. (2007). Rodeo & Western Riding. Edison, NJ: Chartwell Books, Inc.. ISBN 10-07858-2201=1. 

International Gay Rodeo Association. “IGRA History”. http://www.igra.com/igrahist.html. 

Jordan, Teresa (1982, 1992). Cowgirls. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-7575-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=OY0onQoZRF8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Womens+Professional+Rodeo+Association&lr=lang_en&num=100&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0. 

Kirsch, George B.; Othello Harris and Claire Nolte (2000). Encyclopedia of Ethnicity and Sports in the United States. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-29911-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=xdV_JV1fbZMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Encyclopedia+of+ethnicity+and+sports+in+the+United+States&lr=lang_en&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=2009&as_maxm_is=12&as_maxy_is=2009&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

Lawrence, Elizabeth Atwood (1982, 1984). Rodeo. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-46955-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=kVmGVKMQnloC&pg=PP1&dq=Lawrence+Rodeo&lr=lang_en&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=2009&as_maxm_is=12&as_maxy_is=2009&as_brr=3&as_pt=BOOKS&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

LeCompte, Mary Lou (1993, 2000). Cowgirls of the Rodeo. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06874-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=ApBAVdQBLpEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cowgirls+of+the+Rodeo&lr=lang_en&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=2009&as_maxm_is=12&as_maxy_is=2009&num=100&as_brr=3&as_pt=BOOKS&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

Mellis, Allison Fuss (2003). Riding Buffaloes and Broncos. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 123. ISBN 0-8061-3519-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=_NPRfapshHkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Riding+Buffaloes+and+Broncos&lr=lang_en&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=2009&as_maxm_is=12&as_maxy_is=2009&num=100&as_brr=3&as_pt=BOOKS&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

Merrian Webster (2008). “Rodeo”. Merriam Webster, Inc.. http://plus.aol.com/aol/dictionary?query=rodeo. 

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). “Buck the Rodeo”. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. http://www.bucktherodeo.com/ords.html. Retrieved 2009-03-17. 

Pollack, Howard (1999). Aaron Copland. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 0252069005. http://books.google.com/books?id=a3R-7_UWF4wC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Pollack+Aaron+Copland&lr=lang_en&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=2009&as_maxm_is=12&as_maxy_is=2009&as_brr=3&as_pt=BOOKS&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

Regan, Tom; Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (2004). Empty Cages. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-3352-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=R0nrugqzBvoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=empty+cages+regan&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

Serpell, James (1996). In the Company of Animals. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-57779-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=v9gKhfo0MDgC&pg=PA225&dq=Serpell+rodeo+animal+cruelty&lr=lang_en&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=2009&as_maxm_is=12&as_maxy_is=2009&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

Shilts, Randy (1987, 1988, (2007 ed.)). And the Band Played On. Macmillan. p. 351353. ISBN 0-312-37263-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=LYwnbblT7pYC&pg=PA351&vq=rodeo&dq=gay+rodeo+history&lr=lang_en&num=100&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0. 

Stratton, W.K. (2005, 2006). Chasing the Rodeo. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 0156031213. http://books.google.com/books?id=1b-n-9f7ydMC&pg=PA300&dq=Rodeo+Animal+Cruelty&lr=lang_en&num=100&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

Westermeier, Clifford P. (1947,1987). Man, Beast, Dust. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-4743-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=xSxgZsh0FhwC&pg=PA435&lpg=PA436&dq=PRCA+humane&lr=lang_en&num=100&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html. 

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