Truths about the American Cowboy

The truth about the American cowboy is not all about this crazy talk and the drinking and the girls, being a cowboy was a real job and a hard one at that. They all faced struggles everyday, which each day got harder to overcome. Jobs were not easy and other cowboys were not easy. They didn’t have fun partying all the time like in the Hollywood movies.

The picture I chose was of a cowboy doing the job night herding. This job was tough and dangerous. Herding throughout the night could result in getting lost, getting attacked by another group or man, getting attacked by an animal, losing people night herding with you because of the dark, or many other bad things could happen.

In wild west movies, cowboys are portrayed as these strong men with thick accents who are always chewing on straw, drinking in saloons, getting into fights and getting lots of women. Part of this is true, part of it is not. Being a cowboy in a movie is portrayed as more as a life style and not a job. In the movies cowboys are all big talk and fighting with lots of dusty deserted roads, wagons and boots with stars on it. Take Toy Story for example: Woody is a cowboy and his biggest concern is his fashion and horse. He is portrayed as someone who talks in an accent, says silly phrases like “there’s a snake in my boot” and likes to have fun. While in real life, being a cowboy is much different.

In real life, being a cowboy was about surviving however you could, trying not to die everyday and making a living. There were many jobs involved in being a cowboy. Most of these jobs were very dangerous but absolutely had to be done. For example, the picture I chose was night herding. It had to be done in order to heard the horses and cows in other farms or towns over night for people to use and who needed it. The whole fighting and crazy talk of cowboys came about from their need to survive. Yes, cowboys did fight a lot. But not for some stupid meaningless thing like in the movies when they would fight over women, beer, or cows. These fights would come about from people trying to do their jobs and getting in the way of other people trying to do their jobs. Also, since cowboy’s jobs were very hard and tedious, it was easy for them to get angry fast. Their jobs left them on tight schedules which needed to be done. Like for night herding, if it doesn’t done in time, it was very easy for the job to just fail or the cowboys could even dies and lose their heard of cows and horses. This would effect the town they were going to since they would need the supplies and it would also effect other cowboys.

In conclusion, Hollywood movies portrayed the cowboys as these wack and crazy figures who fought over stupid stuff while chewing on straw. It did a poor job of explaining how tough life really was for the cowboys and how many struggles they faced everyday. These struggles were not easy to overcome which would result in fights, this creating more chaos and struggles for each cowboy. Life was certainly not easy for them and they definitely didn’t have fun drinking all the time and getting lots of girls and beating the poop out of each other for no reason like in Hollywood movies.

Cowboys are highly overlooked, and viewed as good-for nothing loonatics rather than people who actually faced hardships every days of their lives and and had to fight for survival.