The Cowboy Image
by Darrell Arnold
(This article is found in the Summer 2002 issue of COWBOY MAGAZINE on Page 4.)
One of the biggest problems facing the cowboy at the beginning of the newest century is his public image. This difficulty began back in the 1800s, with the dime novel. The novelists depicted cowboys as fighters of Indians and rustlers, and defenders of justice everywhere. Of course, in the West, folks knew better because they lived with ranch cowboys. People knew that cowboys were just people working in the cow business.
Then, in the early 1900s, the novelists' perception of the cowboy was enhanced a hundredfold with the advent of the motion picture business.
When the motion picture industry really got rolling, many if not most Americans still had strong roots in agriculture. If people hadn't been born in rural, agricultural settings, they at least had parents or other relatives who had. People were still close to the land, and they had a strong understanding of and sympathy for ranching and the cowboy. They wanted to see the cowboy portrayed in a positive way.
In addition, many if not most of the original stunt men in Hollywood were working cowboys who just needed a job. They added real authenticity to action westerns.
Of course, Hollywood wasn't happy with just depicting the cowboy as a mounted worker of cattle. Except for the occasional stampede or rough bronc, ranching was pretty boring. But by making the cowboy a gunfighter, he became a gigantic and heroic figure. The image of the cowboy became one of a courageous mounted warrior who brought law and order to a wild and untamed West. The cowboy was tall, strong, handsome, contemplative, hard working, honest, polite, and an unflagging defender of women and children.
Thanks to the movies, the world's greatest hero and the world's strongest icon became the Hollywood version of the cowboy. The gun-slinging movie cowboy made a trip, via celluloid, to virtually every culture on the planet. Thanks to movies, he became a larger figure than the Samurai, the Knight, the Tuareg, the Soldier, the Viking. And in much of the world, the cowboy is still the greatest of all the world's heroes.
Thanks, too, to the movies, it didn't take long for the public's perception of the cowboy to be distorted. Anyone who wore a hat and rode a horse was considered to be a cowboy. A sheriff, a marshal, an outlaw, a gambler, even a cavalryman all fell into the general category of cowboy. Further, it became common for the movieland trail cowboys to be depicted as wild drunken brawlers whose main purpose in life was to gallop into a town and shoot the place up.
From there, it was a short step to the use of the word "cowboy" as a perjorative depicting anyone who "went off half cocked." Anyone who took matters into his own hands without fully understanding a situation or without considering the consequences was derisively referred to as a "cowboy."
Another use of cowboy as a bad term is from environmentalists who see cowboys, i.e. ranchers, as destroyers of rangelands. Way back in history, that may have been a true accusation in some instances, but it no longer applies. Today's ranchers take very good care of their ranges. As Colorado rancher Gene Vories says, "you can't starve a profit out of a cow." The rancher is the best steward of open lands in America. Still, the negative image endures in the minds of the millions of Americans caught up in the propaganda of the environmental movement
Another misconception is that the rancher/cowboy is rich. It is very hard for most modern Americans to believe that a man who has lots of land isn't rich. Land means wealth to most Americans. They have no idea that ranchers cannot exist without land, and that the product they raise on that land sometimes doesn't make them enough money to pay the mortgage. The family rancher is not a wealthy man. He could be, of course, if he chose to sell his land. He is always, potentially, very wealthy. But if he values ranching, if he loves working hard and living off the land and being his own boss, then he will only sell his land as the very last resort. A true cowboy/rancher would rather live poor on his own land than live rich anywhere else.
To many of the uneducated, Robert Redford is a cowboy. To others Willie Nelson is a cowboy. To still others, George Bush is a cowboy. The general consensus among the great population of clueless urbanized Americans seems to be that if you've ever dressed up in public like a cowboy, then you are a cowboy.
Then there is the dilemma of identity within the cowboy world. To the few (probably less than 50,000) authentic ranchers and working cowboys still plying their trade on western ranges, the term cowboy has been usurped by the non-deserving. It is their contention that if a man does not make his living tending to cattle from the back of a horse he cannot truly be called a cowboy. It is the working cowboy's belief that if a person doesn't use the word "cowboy" on his income-tax form under the heading OCCUPATION, then he isn't a cowboy and shouldn't call himself one.
Of course, to the ranchette cowboy, or the truck-driver cowboy, or the dude-wrangling cowboy or any other non-ranch cowboy, that isn't fair. He may not be a working ranch cowboy, but he was raised on Roy and Gene and Hoppy, and he possesses the spirit of the cowboy. His favorite American hero is John Wayne, and he believes in the tall quiet man in the white hat. He tries to emulate that man, himself. He sees high honor in living with "cowboy" values. He dresses up like a cowboy and surrounds himself with all the accoutrements of the cowboy, like a ranch-style house decorated in a western theme.
Even if people get past all of that confusion, there is the rodeo cowboy to muddy the waters. While rodeo originally was a working cowboy's sport, it has evolved, today, into a sport of athletes, some but by no means all of whom can call themselves real cowboys in the traditional sense. But, to their credit, in the rodeo world, the term cowboy means more than just occupation or appearance. In the rodeo world, if you are a "cowboy" you are a tough man who takes his lumps and keeps coming back for more. To be called a "cowboy" is laudible praise for your strength, tenacity, and fortitude.
Within the hat-wearing community, the term cowboy is a term of high esteem and honor. While a young cowboy may go to town and get oiled up now and then, he almost always grows into being a respectable and useful citizen of his rural community. Eventually the young cowboy/rancher will become a husband and a father. He will live by treasured American principles of honesty, integrity, and hard work. He will not be a drunkard or an out-of-control yahoo who fails to think before he acts. Most cowboys become the kind of good people that dime novels and Hollywood made them out to be. And they take pride in being "the salt of the Earth." It's as much as a man can strive for.
The man on horseback has, throughout history, stood literally and figuratively above other men. It is the horse that has made that so. Indeed, many ranchers contend that one of the reasons they continue to try to struggle on in the cow business is because it gives them the opportunity to get horseback as often as possible. The horse is an extension of the true cowboy. The authentic cowboy does not exist if he is not capable of performing the working cowboy's horseback tasks. If he's not horseback, a man who works cows is just a farmer.
To the relatively small number of working cowboys still out there, knowing you are a cowboy, a real working cowboy, is the highest honor there is. You know you are special. You know you do a highly specialized job that no one else is skilled or dedicated enough to accomplish. To the working cowboy, the job has never, ever, been about the money. It is one of the lowest-paying skilled jobs in America. Rather, it is about pride of accomplishment, pride of ability, pride of being among the elite. It is also about living and working outdoors. It is about the one thing Americans have always prized above all else. That is freedom.
