As you should have read in the lesson materials, the reality of cowboy life was different from the image portrayed in popular culture. in popular culture, the cowboy is mostly depicted as a solitary, strapping white male who happens to be good with a gun and will resort to violence when needed. the reality was that cowboys worked in groups, weren’t all white (or big), and weren’t required to have gun skills to work the job. if this is the case, why did/does popular culture portray cowboys the way they’re shown? provide two to three possible answers.

The reason why cowboys were portayed like a solitary, strapping white men lies on the fact that that cowboy was a late romantic creation. Essentially, he represented the ideal of freedom.

In this representation, we find a lot of symbolism. Not only that, it is clear that this invented cowboy is part of the rise of segregation anti-immigrant racism. The lanky, tall Aryan is born. Most cowboys were actually Mexican and Indian. It is fair to say that there were actually some white cowboys mainly from European origin. To boost the image of the white tall cowboy, movies played a major role.