UNDER WHAT FLAG? IDENTITY AND NATIONALISM IN CANADIAN RODEO

KAROL ORZECHOWSKI

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO

JUNE, 2012

© KAROL ORZECHOWSKI, 2012 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada

Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition

395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-90014-7

Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-90014-7

NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats.

The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission.

In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these.

While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Canada Rodeo culture in Canada - and North America more broadly - is a relatively non-mainstream and little-scrutinized subculture, but it is one in which its adherents are particularly emotionally and physically invested. I concentrate on three key questions: 1) How can we define rodeo culture in Canada? 2) Is there a coherent set of identity position(s) within Canadian rodeo culture that can be thought of in terms of a nationalism? 3) How can an understanding of the

"rodeo nation" illuminate the position of animals used in rodeo sports, such as bulls, calves, and horses? Through historical research, analysis of cultural production related to rodeos and

cowboys, a series of ten interviews with "insiders" to rodeo culture (participants, organizers, and

support workers) and attendance at rodeos around Ontario, I unpack rodeo culture and begin to

explore the tentative definition of a "rodeo nation," and its implications for the animals involved. ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I: Introduction 1

II: Rope, Leather, Beasts, Brawn: Rodeo Then and Now 13 i) Rodeo Then 14 ii) Rodeo Now 18 iii) The Rodeo in Contemporary Visual Culture 21 a) The Belt Buckle and Bolo Tie 23 b) The Bucking Beast 25 c) 192 Frames 28 d) The Ring of Fire 33 e) Wildly Tame 37 0 Only One of Us Walks Away 41

III: Nationalism and Identity 43

IV: The Rodeo Nation in Its Own Words 50 i) Inside and Outside the Ring 53 ii) The Lasso of Citizenship 58 iii) Masculinity, Muscle, and Sacrifice 64 iv) The Question of the Animal 69 v) The National Economy 82 vi) Drawing The Borders 88

V: A Photo/Journal of My Time At The Rodeo 93 i) The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair Rodeo 95 ii) Hillsburgh Bullriding Clinic 100 iii) Lindsay Rodeo 105 iv) Dorchester Dodge Rodeo 110 v) Milverton Dodge Rodeo 115

VI: Conclusions 120

VII: Bibliography 125 1

I: INTRODUCTION

In the arena(s) of Canadian sports, there are few activities that draw the kind of cultural opposition that rodeo does. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find another sport in Canada that is regularly protested through pickets, ads taken out in newspapers, and undercover investigations. The ethical debate that surrounds the rodeo in Canada (and elsewhere) stands at the intersection of a variety of cultural tensions: the tenuous relationship between the urban and the rural (including the disconnect between agriculture and the rest of society); the tension

between animal use and animal welfare; and the tension between media representation and

reality, to name just a few. These tensions are characteristic of other controversial "Canadian

issues" (debates about the seal hunt, or the debates about Aboriginal hunting tours for polar bears

come to mind), but seem especially pronounced in relationship to the question of the rodeo. At

first glance, the debate seems fairly straightforward: from one side, animal rights groups are

against the rodeo, and want either welfare reforms as soon as possible or the abolition of rodeos

entirely; cowboys, ranchers and other stakeholders, from the other side, seek to protect a source

of livelihood and cultural heritage from moralizing outsiders who haven't the vaguest idea of

what organizing or performing in a rodeo might entail. Though this may be a tempting way to

sew up a complicated issue, it is obviously a gross oversimplification. The story of rodeos and

the debate that surrounds them is, in fact, as complicated and difficult to navigate as a ring of

angry bulls. In the following paper, I will explore the Canadian rodeo as both a culturally-

constructed and material event, and attempt to offer an alternative to the cultural discourses that

dominate the debate.

Though I do come to this thesis with a particular set of subjective assumptions and

positions (discussed in more detail below), it is not my intention to debate the "rightness" or 2

"wrongness" of the rodeo, or to present a series of arguments on ethics; instead, what I hope to do is reframe the rodeo while shifting some of the analysis to the perspective of the animals

themselves, and consider how proponents of the rodeo have - to a large degree - obscured who

their animals actually are through rhetorics of identity, including descriptions of insider/outsider

politics, rurality, and even animal welfare. To that end, I will concentrate on three key questions:

1) How can we define rodeo culture in Canada? 2) Is there a coherent (set of) identity

position(s) within Canadian rodeo culture that can be thought of in terms of a nationalism? 3)

How can an understanding of the group identity politics engrained in Canadian rodeo culture

illuminate the position of animals used in rodeo sports, such as bulls, calves, and horses?

While posing these questions, I use Benedict Anderson's (2006, originally published in

1983) definition of nationalism1 to guide my analysis. He defines the "nation" as an "imagined

political community" that exists under notions of finite boundaries, sovereignty and fraternity (6-

7). The concept of the nation as "imagined" is vital to his theory, as it highlights the way in

which people who are spread out across thousands of kilometers, or with many diverging

interests can somehow find points of shared identity: "Members of even the smallest nations will

never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of

each lives the image of their communion" (6). Continuing on this point, Anderson remarks that,

"[i]n fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps

even these) are imagined" (6). This definition is key to my analysis, as it identifies nationalism as

a discursive action rather than a fixed political entity or even a fixed State. Though I use

Anderson's definition of "nation" in a loose way, to describe the imaginary "nation" constituted

by those who organize, participate in, and watch rodeos, I will also be exploring the ubiquity of

1 Though Anderson serves as a touchstone for the analysis of my key research questions, I have provided a more thorough discussion of nation and nationalism in Section III of this paper. 3 symbols and ideas of Canadian nationalism throughout the rodeo itself, and asking questions to rodeo participants about their conception of Canadian identity. In this sense, I am exploring a nation (rodeo culture) within a nation (Canadian culture), and the numerous ways that these nationalisms weave into and intersect with each other, as well as other political positions.

Though my study is clearly focused on human discourse and rhetoric, my primary point of concern is the animal subjects of my research: Bulls, horses, and to a lesser extent, calves. As the main animal subjects in the context of the rodeo, I am interested in understanding how they are represented in various forms of texts, from the ways that they are represented in written and visual cultural production, to how they are represented in the actual physical reality of the rodeo.

In this sense, rodeo animals are the absent reference to my three key questions outlined above, and the goal of my analysis can be thought of in simpler terms: How does rodeo culture

include/exclude/valorize/subjugate the animals that are involved? Can an alternative rodeo

culture exist without the subjugation of these animals, and if not, why not? These may seem like

simple questions with simple answers, but my experiences speaking with rodeo cowboys and

cowgirls, and attending rodeos, does not offer a simple conclusion.

To these ends, my paper begins with a consideration of the history of the rodeo in both

the US and Canada, and the way that popular cultural forms such as film have played a role in

the dissemination and perpetuation of a particular cowboy image. With this context in mind, I

move to a review of theory about "nationalism" as a concept; in this, I set the stage for a

delineation of "rodeo culture" as a (somewhat) discreet kind of "nation" which is made up of

multiple group/individual identities, which contains its own power structures, and which has

strong insider/outsider dynamics typical of more "conventional" nations. With these frameworks

established, I speak directly with cowboys, rodeo organizers, and others involved with rodeo 4 culture, to better understand how they understand themselves, in their own words. Finally, I

present a written and visual journal of my experiences attending and observing rodeos as an

outsider who has temporarily been given insider privilege. Here, I will move beyond academic

analysis to offer a more journalistic observation of the rodeo as a culture, and will supplement

my journal with photographs to bring my words into sharper focus.

FRAMEWORK, METHODS AND POSITIONALITY

The cowboy readies himself as the bull's muscles ripple and tighten in the chute. The

crowd is frothy with excitement as the final ride is about to take place. The bull breaks from the

gates and bucks wildly, nearly throwing the cowboy off. Lasting the necessary eight seconds, the

cowboy dismounts the still-angry beast and runs to safety. The scorecard comes up in red and

white, the same colors that Dodge Ram has chosen as their own for their sponsorship of the

Ontario Rodeo Tour of 2009. The scene is simple, but begs some important questions: What does

it mean to see a waving red-and-white flag over a bucking bull? Is rodeo culture a nation within a

nation? How does the animal practice define the human that practices it? How does it define the

animal? I approach such questions attempting to delineate and describe the triangular affair

between, nationalism, identity formation, and animal practices. I come to this project with a great

deal of respect for the ways in which culture is formed through tradition, ritual and group

commonalities; I also come with a critical eye for the ways in which human cultural identity is

built through different types of animal practices, and the problems this poses if one is inclined to

take the perspective of animals seriously.

Centrally, my work draws upon interviews with people who participate in the production

of rodeos, including cowboys and cowgirls, as well as organizers, parents, and even some

spectators of the events. The first purpose of these interviews will be to learn how the rodeo is 5 intertwined with people's sense of self and identity, and how this identity fits into (or exists outside of) a framework of nationalism. The second purpose of these interviews is to show how discourses of "nationalism" obscure or make visible the presence of animals in the rodeo.

Whether rodeo animals are positioned as cultural artifacts in a ritual of identity formation, or are thought of as active agents in the evolution of rodeo, I'm interested in exploring how participants view themselves, and their culture, in relationship to animals. I will explore these themes to get at the larger research question of how certain animal practices serve to strengthen group identity, and what kind of material conditions are obscured in that process. As a supplement to the interviews I conduct, I will be documenting rodeos I visit through journals and photography.

Though these materials will not make up the bulk of my thesis, they will serve as a complement and counterpoint to my interviews and historical research, and will be collected in the final section.

There is a range of material in circulation about rodeos that examines everything from economic conditions that cowboys face on the rodeo circuit (e.g. Hibdon, 1989), the cultural space that cowboys inhabit in the world of cinema (e.g. James, 2008; Petrakis, 2006; Swaab,

2005), the spectacular-technological nature of large-scale rodeo events (e.g. Kurz, 2004), and even the way that images of rodeos and cowboys are mediated and constructed differently in different cultural contexts (e.g. Seiler & Seiler, 1998; Starr, 1984). These materials provide a good entry point for thinking about the rodeo in a general way, and give an image of rodeo culture that is nuanced and multi-faceted. To the best of my knowledge, however, there is no current literature that offers a look at how rodeo culture in general intersects with nationalism, whether on a macro or micro level, and there is certainly no literature that examines the questions I am asking about how discourses of culture in the rodeo impact upon how animals are 6 considered and treated. I hope to provide a current and thoughtful contribution to the study of rodeo culture in particular, and in the literatures of nationalism and human-animal studies more generally.

The theoretical framework for my thesis comes from the an understanding of nationalism rooted in the work of theorists such as Benedict Anderson (2006), Judith Butler and Gayatri

Spivak (2007), Partha Chatterjee (1996) and Katherine Verdery (1996). These theorists recognize that, apart from their real application in terms of state functions, "nations" are also

kinds of fictions, metaphors, and ideological containers that work on a basis of

inclusion/exclusion and create shared meaning through real and imagined commonality. I take

their theories of nationalism, of group identity formation through shared practice and perceived

commonality, and apply them to the context of rodeo culture and its position within the larger

nation of Canada. In the same way that we acknowledge - at least unofficially - the presence of

other "nations within nations" such as Quebec within Canada, I intend to examine rodeo culture

as a more or less discreet nation with its own political and economic structure, power

relationships, and insider/outsider dynamics.

Intersecting with my understanding of nationalism is an analysis of power dynamics

rooted in the emerging field of Human-Animal Studies, which seeks to take seriously the

perspective of animals as agents with their own interests, outside of human involvement

(Shapiro, 2002). It is crucial to my work to take stock of all of the stakeholders involved in rodeo

culture - including the non-human stakeholders. These two intersecting sets of theories (theories

of nationalism and human-animal studies) do not necessarily mean, however, that I come to

study cultural traditions with anything but the greatest sense of humility. I am not seeking to 7 demonize or vilify any group of people through my work, regardless of whether or not I agree or disagree with a particular animal practice.

Methodologically speaking, my project began with a review of past and contemporary literature about rodeos both in Canada and elsewhere. This step, done before any other foray into

Canadian rodeo culture, was absolutely necessary in establishing a context in which to place my later observations and interviews. Following this historical analysis is a brief venture into the more popular and contemporary representation of rodeo through film and other forms, with the goal of gaining a better understanding of how rodeo is represented now. Next, I attended rodeo events across Ontario; these excursions were crucial to making contacts for interviews, as well as gathering photographic material of the events that would accompany my written work. This visual documentation was done with an eye for how elements of nationalism and culture are represented within the rodeo setting, and how this process includes/excludes animals.

The crux of my research is the series of interviews that I conducted during and after my excursions to rodeos. My interview sample was criterion-based in that I was interested in speaking only with those who produce, participate in or act as direct support for rodeos, and thus constitute what I would call the "inner ring" of rodeo culture; it is also an opportunistic sample in the sense that I only interviewed producers, participants and spectators that I was able to make direct contact with through my attendance at various rodeo events. My goal was to interview at least one participant or producer at each rodeo that I attended, to a maximum of ten. By studying this smaller group of people in greater depth (as opposed to doing shorter interviews with a greater number), my hope was to understand how ideas about community and animals expressed by them might influence or trickle down into the spectacle of the performances themselves. 8

In approaching this work, I understood that interview-based research was best thought of as collaborative, and that I needed to recognize my position as an outsider in this process (Kirby,

Greaves & Reid, 2006). I engaged participants with open-ended interviews that allowed them to speak freely about their experiences if they wished, and offer stories or information that wasn't part of a set script. I was interested in allowing interviewees to talk at length about their experiences, to the degree that they were comfortable doing so. Throughout this entire process, though, I had to be mindful about how the communities that I engaged with were interrelated, and how power dynamics between connected individuals (including myself) might affect how the participants engaged with me (see Mayer, 2008). Before the interviews took place, I had informal conversations or correspondence with all of the participants, to explain my research, my goals, and how I would use the information they provided. Though there was minimal risk to the interviewees (their responses will be used anonymously in any resulting publication, with them being identified only by their position, i.e. "marketer", "cowboy", etc.), I felt it was important to engage with them leading up to the formal interviews, and afterwards, to debrief and allow them to reflect on the process and how they see their words in relation to my work. Upon completing the interviews, I analyzed the resulting texts to pull out common themes, discourses, and ideas, and compared and contrasted these elements with previous research done on rodeos and rodeo culture, as a way of triangulating my research and placing them in historical and social context.

As mentioned previously, I also provide visual material with this project, to place the interviews in a multi-dimensional framework that takes into account elements of the discussion outside of the lingual text.

Informing the methodology for this work is a paradigm rooted in critical theory (see

Guba & Lincoln, 1998). My goal with this project was not to get at some sort of fundamental 9 truth about the people I interviewed, or to make a grand claim or conclusion about the nature of rodeos. Instead, I was interested in better understanding the intertwining and circulatory relationships of power that permeate the social structure around rodeos, and as a researcher I recognized that my exposure to the "true" nature of these structures is simply not possible. Still, the goal of my research was not to finally "shore up" the meaning of rodeos and create a totalizing theory. Instead, I hoped to demonstrate and illustrate how various cultural ideas intersect to support a tradition of certain kinds of animal practices, and how we might look at that culture from a different angle, under a different light.

I recognized that my position as an outsider would likely require that I make certain efforts to be accepted within rodeo culture, and I recognized that my involvement in this research would not only change my positionality, but that my very presence would also alter the type of results that I would get. Still, my ultimate goal was to "uncover and excavate forms of historical and subjugated knowledges that point to experiences of suffering, conflict and collective struggle" (Giroux, 1988, qtd. in Guba & Lincoln, 1998: 206). Through this work, I hoped to reflect back to the existing rodeo culture an image of itself that might be transformative, and allow those who participate in rodeos (whether as organizers, cowboys, or support staff) to see themselves, and the animals they work with, in a new way.

In the paper that follows, I attempt to synthesize the sources of my research in a way that is neither inaccurate, nor reckless. There is a vitriolic rhetoric that makes up so much of the opposition to rodeos; I try to approach the topic in a more careful and nuanced way. To this end, my historical analysis is grounded in documents (books, articles, news) that tend to be - if not explicitly "pro-rodeo" - neutral in tone. I refrain from getting too involved in debating the merits of 'campaign materials', ie. propaganda disseminated by both pro and anti-rodeo groups. My project centres on reviewing the history that has brought Canadian rodeos to this point, and the discourses that permeate it now, and so I will not get into a philosophical weighing of positions and arguments. My primary concern is rodeo participants (including animals) themselves, and trying to maneuver around the various ways that rodeo culture reinforces the animal practices it is built upon. By engaging in a discursive analysis with all of the literature, as well as first hand testimony, I seek to pull out common themes, threads, and lines of thought that make up the matrix of understanding regarding animals, the rodeo, and identity.

Despite the methods outlined above, I recognize that I come to this paper with a

particular set of assumptions, and these assumptions inform my method of analysis. I write this

paper as someone who is both concerned with "animal rights" issues, and who has a desire to see

change. I have been active in animal advocacy for almost a decade, and I am the host / producer

of a radio program entitled Animal Voices. I am also vegan and committed to taking the interests

of animals seriously in all aspects of my daily life. Of course, I acknowledge that somebody who

is "pro-rodeo" may (and did at times) find my political positioning to be troublesome and

problematic, and they may also think that I have no business writing about the rodeo from such a

distance. However, I believe that my position as an "insider" in animal advocacy puts me in a

unique position to offer a constructive critique of the problematic rhetoric inherent in rodeo

opposition, while simultaneously valuing rodeo culture in general, and cowboys in particular, as

people struggling to make their way in a country that has largely ignored their culture. From my

positionality, I can appreciate that cowboys are labourers who do intensely difficult work for

very little money, both inside and outside the rodeo. Likewise, I can speak to the multiplicity of

tactics employed by animal advocacy groups, and the variety of positions they represent. From where I stand, I see neither group as a monolith, and I do not plan to represent them as such.

Both have valid things to say, and hold strong positions worthy of consideration.

I also approach this project as someone who lives and works largely in an urban environment, who has limited contact with rural life, and whose perception of the relationship between humans and non-human animals is biased by that fact. The rural / urban divide is important when it comes to debates around animal treatment and use, with threatened farmers sometimes arguing that city folks simply don't understand the process that it takes for animals to be raised to become food or clothing, while some urbanites may look upon some of the rural animal practices as archaic or barbaric. My perception lies somewhere in the middle: I have done enough research and had enough contact with farmed animals (before, during and after death) to know what is and is not "standard practice," and to have an above average knowledge of animal

behaviour, both in situations of confinement and relative liberty. Furthermore, I see the divide as

somewhat of a false dichotomy: it is likely that many people residing in rural settings (and who

may even work with animals) don't have a strong connection to the animals they live near or

work with, and the things required to give them a "good life"; on the other side, most urbanites

have little to no concern about animal treatment, and will accept whatever animal treatment is

needed to ensure their animal products remain cheap.

My main assumption heading into this work is that rodeo animals matter. I don't state

this to appeal to sentimentality or to separate myself. Instead, I make this statement simply

because it informs this entire project. I also come to this project with the assumption that culture

(both of Canada and "rodeo culture") matters, and that my goal is not to skewer culture while

idealizing nature. I do not see cowboys as some sort of "barbaric" people that require "civilizing"

and conversely, I do not believe that culture and tradition stand as justification for any animal practice that we can think of. As should be evident from these statements, these assumptions hold a dialectical relationship for me, and I am always renegotiating and reevaluating them. The rodeo in Canada is fraught with historically determined ethics, and the purpose of this paper is not to simplify this difficult situation. 13

II: Rope, Leather, Beasts, Brawn. Rodeo Then and Now

In the rodeo arena, man and beast clash in a startling display of muscle and brawn. From a modern vantage point, the display could seem antique, even quaint, but in reality it is neither: It is a serious struggle of power between human and non-human animals where the stakes include serious injury and the possibility of death. Engaged in this struggle are stakeholders who have a cultural back-story and layers of discourse laid over them before they even set foot and hoof into the arena. The rodeo is an event with symbolism that has been sculpted over many years, and hearkens back to a time when North America was a very different place.

To properly understand rodeo imagery and how it perpetuates itself into a cowboy culture or a larger rodeo culture, it is useful to think about it in a layered context, existing on historical, fictional, and mythological levels (Seiler & Selier, 1998: 51). In other words, there is an historical reality of rodeo life, which dates back to the mid-1800s when itinerant herders (the first

"cowboys") participated in the early colonial North American agricultural system, rounding up cattle twice per year to be branded and brought to market.2 There is then the fictional and

mythological construction of cowboy life, first made popular through Buffalo Bill's Wild West

Shows and later consolidated through the emergence of rodeos as we might think of them now.

Today, there are cowboys who still play a part in herding and other agricultural practices, and

also participate in the highly organized and structured entertainment industry known as "rodeo,"

in which they travel to and enter contests in the hopes of winning prize money for their skills

(Hibdon, 1989). In either case, the historical reality of cowboys and cowgirls in North America,

and the rodeos that have been built through their work, is still one of difficult life, tough

2 It is worth pointing out that "cowboys," as a category of person, exist outside of any necessary relationship to rodeo, and that there are likely many self-identified "cowboys" who may not participate in rodeo activities at all. 14 competition, and western frontier heritage. In the following section, I look at a history of rodeo from its nascent stages to its current culture, paying special attention to the grey area between image and reality - history and legend - to set the frame for my subsequent analysis of what I will term the "rodeo nation." i. RODEO THEN

The history of rodeo is - literally and figuratively - the stuff of legend in America. The rodeo itself is a ritualistic and heavily constructed form of competition and celebration, and it has always relied on larger social constructs to maintain its currency. In its nascent stages, Rodeo in the US (as well as the stock and trade shows that often accompanied them) relied heavily on the construct of "the frontier," as it marked difference between "the western region, its people, and their respective values and ways of life from the rest of the nation" (Penaloza, 2000: 85). As

America was changing from an agrarian frontier society to something more industrialized and

modern by the decade, the lure of the frontier became even more romantic, and the values it

represented - closeness to nature, rugged individualism, and self-reliance, to name a few -

became more important as well. As the frontier became the West, the image of the cowboy and

the relevance of the rodeo as a ritual were two inseparable aspects of the same mythology.

Before rodeos began in the United States (and before "the frontier" was relegated to

history books), ranchers would practice things like calf-roping as part of their day-to-day work; it

wasn't until later that these skills would be incorporated into public performance (Lawrence,

1982; Stoeltje, 1989). In fact, even before the public performance of rodeo began, cowboys held

unofficial contests among themselves, testing and showing off their skills to each other, not only

to prove their proficiencies but also to build community and entertain themselves (Lawrence,

1982; Stoeltje, 1989; Pearson & Haney, 1999). The performance aspect of rodeos can be traced 15 back to the summer of 1882, when William Frederick Cody (nicknamed "Buffalo Bill") returned to his hometown of North Platte, Nebraska after a decade in the theatre performing melodramas, and put on an event called the "Old Glory Blowout" at his town's Fourth of July celebration

(Lawrence, 1982, Stoeltje, 1989). This event featured competitions in roping, shooting, and bronco breaking, and the response was ten-fold what Buffalo Bill had expected. This success gave him the idea to begin a travelling show, and from 1882 into the early 1900s, Buffalo Bill toured around the US with his "Wild West Show," performing rodeo events for thousands of spectators wherever he went (Lawrence, 1982). Though the exact date of the first official rodeo is hotly debated (Lawrence, 1982; Pearson & Haney, 1999), Buffalo Bill Cody's influence on its

early development and future growth is undeniable.

It is worth noting that Buffalo Bill was responsible in many ways for the image of the

cowboy as we know it today. Before Buffalo Bill, cowboys were not generally looked upon

favourably (Lawrence, 1982; Stoeltje 1989), instead being thought of as unruly vagabonds and

armed desperadoes, or rough, rowdy, uncouth and irresponsible labourers "at best" (Lawrence,

1982: 46). Buffalo Bill, and the rodeos that were inspired by his Wild West Shows, began

framing the cowboy as the hard-working hero of the frontier (Lawrence, 1982; Stoeltje, 1989),

and this image making ended up dictating the reality. Buffalo Bill is also credited with some of

the cowboy's original stylistic trappings, including the ten-gallon hat (Lawrence, 1982), which

has remained relevant in the contemporary context. Though I acknowledge that there are stylistic

elements to all sports that have an origin somewhere, the origin of the image of the cowboy is

particularly relevant to rodeo culture, and to the spectacle upon which it is based.

3 Though I'm speaking in particular about "cowboys" in this section, I address the role of women in rodeo performances, as well as the generally unacknowledged contributions of women to rodeo culture in section IV(iii). 16

Rodeo events were a less frequent occurrence during World War II, when many of the participants enlisted in the army and went to serve, though there is some evidence that American servicemen brought their love of rodeo with them and performed in unofficial ways when they were overseas (Pearson & Haney, 1999: 312). At the end of the war, rodeo culture returned with full force and the cowboy image was perpetuated and strengthened through cultural products such as advertisements featuring the Marlboro Man (Starr, 1984) and Clint Eastwood's

"Blondie" character in the spaghetti western genre of films (James, 2008). Of course, the strengthening and further entrenchment of the cowboy image wasn't directly related to rodeo per se, but rodeo culture certainly benefited from the popularity of the cowboy as a continuous mainstay in the American popular consciousness, "long after the flamboyant frontier cowboy ceased to exist" (Stoeltje, 1989: 248). Later in the 20th century, the rodeo itself would be celebrated in popular films that demonstrate quite clearly that both the cowboy image and rodeo culture are alive and well in the United States.

The history of the rodeo in Canada is, in many ways, a history of the Calgary Stampede.

Begun in 1912 by Guy Weadick (Nemeth, 1995; Ferguson, 2002; Foran, 2008) who, like Buffalo

Bill Cody, was an American-born former cowboy and showman (Foran, 2008), The Calgary

Stampede was an amalgamation of many of the elements of the Calgary Exhibition (which dated back to the late 1800s) and "Wild West Show"-type sporting events. The fact that it was partly a continuation of previously successful agricultural fairs was crucial for its development, as the government had a long history of supporting those fairs because of their importance in helping farmers do their work and become more efficient. Indeed, "the cowboy contests were [seen as] a distraction [...] from the sober recreations that would leave them better prepared to work"

(Wetherell, 2008: 31). Still, financial backers of the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede (as it was 17 then called), recognized that the entertainment value provided by the cowboy contests attracted a large portion of the audience, and so they were accepted as a necessity (Foran, 2008; Wetherell,

2008), even though some of the audience they attracted was less than desirable.

The Stampede was notoriously masculine, violent and rowdy in its early stages, and some early observers noted that if men had been regularly arrested for fighting around the Stampede grounds, "there would not have been jails enough in Canada to hold them" (H. Dempsey qtd. in

Kelm, 2009: 735). It is worth noting that the cowboy image in Canada (and especially at the

Stampede) has generally been attributed to American iconography, even though Canadian identity has long been defined (at least in part) by differentiation from American identity (Seiler,

2008: 179-181). This means that the cowboy figure in Canada overall has been a somewhat

"othered" figured, but "because of the strong association with the American ethos" and a sort of

"maverick" element to that philosophy, has been a useful symbol for reinforcing the regional identity of Albertans (Seiler, 2008: 184-193). The Calgary Stampede is in this way a quintessentially Albertan event, because of its mixture of Canadian iconography and riffing on

the American cowboy image.

As the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede grew, rodeos became increasingly popular in

Alberta and elsewhere, and this in turn inspired a greated focus on rodeos at the Stampede

(Wetherell, 2008). The Calgary Stampede continued throughout the Second World War and

incorporated elements of nationalism and troop support into the show, even having a tank

participate in the Stampede parade (Foran, 2008: 15). After the war, the Stampede continued to

grow and rodeos slowly spread across Canada, reaching Ontario some time in the early 1960s

(Rodeo Management Group, 2010). Since then, according to rodeo tour organizers, there has

been a steady growth of the rodeo as a sport and an attraction. ii. RODEO NOW

In many ways, "rodeo now" looks a lot like "rodeo then." It is a sporting event that has held on to a great deal of tradition, and this is perhaps unsurprising as it moves forward. As a reflection of the recent past, there is a great deal of etiquette and ceremony involved in participating in - and being a spectator of - rodeo. Every little aspect of the rodeo is subject to traditional codes, from the language used to the way a cowboy hat is properly worn (Ferguson,

2002), and most of these ritualistic aspects are tied to rodeo's early history in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It is unique as a sport in this aspect, as other games such as hockey and basketball have gone through significant changes in their histories, histories that date back roughly to the same time rodeo started as well. The rodeo is arguably more of a spectacle than sports such as hockey and basketball, and the spectacle is very much built on a harkening back. Each rodeo event is, in this way, part sporting event, part history lesson.

Rodeo events are still very much a performance, with participants wearing clothes (which could alternately be thought of as period costumes) that harken back to the early rodeo days, despite the fact that these clothes serve little to no functional purpose in the events themselves.

The rodeo performance also contains many other cultural elements that defined its early history, such as the mounted colour guard, early (and contemporary) country music, and play-by-play announcing that uses much of the same language set out in the formative years of the sport

(Lawrence, 1982). As in the past, rodeo cowboys and cowgirls still face hardships and injury on a regular basis for very little compensation. It is still very much a "dream to make a living at the rodeo" (Nemeth, 1995: 45), and journalists have noted that cowboys and cowgirls still make a pittance for their efforts, often going home empty-handed (Nemeth, 1995; Osborne, 2000;

Ferguson, 2002). Many rodeo participants and spectators still have a connection to agriculture, and the rodeo events themselves are still described as demonstrating essential skills related to agriculture and ranching (Lawrence, 1982), though this is perhaps debatable where it relates to intensive agriculture (also called factory farming). Though agriculture may have changed, the sense of "connection to the land" remains one of the defining aspects of rodeo culture

(Lawrence, 1982; Stoeltje, 1989), and it seems not to matter terribly if the land to which one is connected now looks more industrialized than pastoral.

Although the history of the rodeo in Canada is fairly long (in some places it has almost as long of a history as hockey), it is still not a "mainstream" sport in terms of its attendance or media coverage, a fact alluded to by some of the rodeo tours in their own literature. In its Inside

Rodeo Magazine, the Rodeo Management Group (the company that was set-up to oversee the

Dodge Rodeo Tour, which is the biggest rodeo tour in Ontario) notes "The sport of Rodeo has been an Ontario tradition for more than 50 years now but is one of the sporting world's best kept secrets." (Rodeo Management Group, 2010: 3). True to its roots, the Calgary Stampede remains an economic juggernaut, and it is really the only rodeo in Canada that garners any kind of media attention. Advertising and sponsorship are two of the cornerstones of the Stampede economy; the advertising and marketing of the stampede are inextricably tied to tourism, and it's estimated that

75-80% of businesses hold Stampede themed events and promotions during the festival

(Ramage, 2006). Of course, the Calgary Stampede is still one of the biggest spectacles in rodeo culture, and though the smaller week-to-week rodeo tours tend to be much less garish, all rodeos follow a typical template that is very similar to the template set out by early rodeos.

Contemporary rodeo events are normally structured around a whole weekend of

activities, which generally includes a Saturday afternoon or early evening rodeo show (with an

accompanying fair or agricultural exhibition), a Saturday night dance / social event, a Sunday morning community breakfast and another rodeo show on Sunday afternoon (with the accompanying exhibition continuing over that time as well. The contemporary rodeo show generally begins with a grand entry parade with colour guard on horseback, followed by "The

Cowboy's Prayer,"4 the exit of the colour guard and the beginning of the events. Rodeo events can generally be divided into "timed events" (which involve roping and racing, and which end when the competitor has completed the set goal) and "roughstock events" (which are kept to 8 seconds, and involve the competitor struggling against the animal in some way, usually bucking).

Rodeos often begin with bareback and saddlebronc riding (roughstock events), followed by barrel racing, steer wrestling and calf roping (timed events), and always - without exception - ending with bullriding. Though some rodeos are more akin to weeklong festivals and could include other special events such as chuckwagon racing (as at the Calgary Stampede), the general template for a weekend rodeo (the most common kind of rodeo show) is what I have outlined above.

With a brief past and present of rodeo established, I turn now to a close analysis of representation of rodeo (and, by extension, cowboys) in popular visual culture. Because the rodeo is such a visual event, steeped in powerful symbolism and full of coded ideas, I believe that looking at the cultural products relating to rodeo can help us understand the identities and values that are embedded in "real" rodeo culture. In the following section (as well as the subsequent discussion of nationalism and analysis of "the rodeo nation in its own words"), I will demonstrate that unraveling the tightly bound image/reality of rodeo culture can be an arduous task, and that this mixture of image/reality is, in many ways, one of its most defining aspects.

4 see section IV-ii for further discussion of "The Cowboy's Prayer." 21 iii. THE RODEO IN CONTEMPORARY VISUAL CULTURE

For eight seconds, the bull bucks while the cowboy struggles. The close-up frame alternates in quick succession between shots of the cowboy's face, the bull's eye, a hand on the reins, the screaming crowd. They are images that provoke a visceral reaction in the viewer, images filled with tension and primal distress. Underneath the tension and release, however, is a complex set of visual constructions: the masculine cowboy struggles hard to subdue and tame a wild nature, to assert his authority and his power over. The crowd applauds as the cowboy rides out his eight seconds, unable to see the spurs and the flank strap that make the bull seem wild, and the cowboy seem like a hero. The spectacle of the rodeo (both in the flesh and on film) is a heavily manufactured event; it is an edifice supported by certain assumptions about humans, animals, and culture. In the following section, I hope to analyze the ways in which rodeos have

been presented in contemporary film, with the ultimate goal of revealing the animal subject

beneath multiple layers of meaning. In doing so, I do not wish to diminish the cultural

importance that rodeos have, or to suggest that there are not multiple visual readings that are

possible. Instead, I would like to peel back a few layers of discourse and better understand how

animal subjectivity is obscured (or made visible) through visual representation. Through

engaging with rodeo-focused films in particular, I hope to learn about what is included and

excluded from these films, and how these films represent (or misrepresent) the actual spectacle

of the rodeo event, and by extension, the rodeo nation. Having outlined the past and present of

rodeo culture, I now turn to films to get a better picture of what rodeo includes in (and leaves out

of) the frame. In many ways, rodeo films represent a bridge between the rodeo's history and its

contemporary significance, and thus merit a very close examination. 22

My analysis includes two modern "rodeo films," films whose plot lines revolve around the experience of the North American rodeo,5 Cowboy Up and 8 Seconds are both exemplary in their use of the rodeo as central theme and visual backdrop. These filmic representations act as a kind of echo chamber, simultaneously informing and being informed by rodeo culture, and their influence should not be underestimated.6 These rodeo-focused films (of which only been two released by major studios in the last several decades) offer a rich range of material to engage with, more so than films such as Brokeback Mountain, in which rodeo is only alluded to or shown briefly. Likewise, I have chosen to focus on these films over older spaghetti westerns because, even though those films might show and tell us a great deal about the construction of the cowboy figure, they don't offer much in the way of information that might help us decode rodeo culture, but instead serve as a circular reinforcement of that very culture

Informing my analysis of these films are two theorists in particular, Jonathan Burt and

John Berger. Burt's Animals in Film (2002) and Berger's About Looking (1980) offer important

insights with which to understand images of animals in general, and images of rodeo animals in

particular. Though they do not offer any sort of totalizing analysis or summation of the role of

animals in visual culture, they both discuss what might be constituted as a 'human gaze' and

what might in turn be considered an 'animal gaze.' In other words, they have a real interest in

how we look at animals, and how animals might also be looking back at us. In applying their

theories to the spectacular context of the rodeo, I will demonstrate how rodeo films fit into the

larger visual culture of real life rodeos.

5 Outside of North America, there are rodeos in Central and South America, though these areas are beyond the scope of this work. 6 In conversations with cowboys and cowgirls about my work, when I mentioned that I had been watching "rodeo films," I was regularly asked "Which one is your favourite?" No matter what film I mentioned, the people I spoke with would have some kind of commentary about it. 23

For the purposes of this analysis, the concurrent existence of human and non-human animal gazes is my starting point: I do not believe that vision and perception are possessed solely by high order primates, and I do not believe that humans are the only animals capable of some degree of visual interpretation. From this starting point, I turn to a dual analysis of the image of the rodeo cowboy and the rodeo animal. In the following section, I seek to place the image of the rodeo cowboy in its historical context, and provide a space where the rodeo animal can be considered outside of the strict confines of sport and spectacle.

a. The Belt Buckle and the Bolo Tie

It is perhaps an obvious statement to say that the fictional and mythological construction

of the "cowboy" is one that has been built within certain parameters and constraints, an image

informing (and informed by) cultural products such as film and photography. Though it is

arguable that the historical figure of the cowboy is one that predates both media, it is also

arguable that photography and film have served as important sites for the production and

reinforcement of the cowboy image, allowing it to survive the visual march towards modernity.

One particularly famous cowboy representation in recent cultural memory is that of the

Marlboro Man, the strong and silent spokesman for the Marlboro cigarette brand. In the highly

stylized advertisements for Marlboro cigarettes, the Marlboro Man is presented as a sort of

American ubermensch, a self-sufficient man riding a horse and carrying a lasso, who lives from

the meager bounty of a harsh landscape, but who does not complain about his hardships. At a

time when filtered cigarettes were being mass-produced to respond to health concerns (in the late

1950s), the Marlboro Man was introduced into advertising to convince men that smoking filtered

cigarettes was not "something sissy" (Starr, 1984: 54). For decades, Marlboro ads have featured 24 the rugged "masculinity" and "moodiness" of the Marlboro Man, and until recent years, it has

been a wildly successful campaign. Shortly after the campaign was first introduced, it helped the

Marlboro brand become one of the most successful cigarettes on the market (Starr, 1984: 54).

Outside of the imposing figure of the Marlboro Man, we have images such as the Lone

Ranger, John Wayne, Shane and other famous cowboys that inhabit American cultural memory.

Though these images are varied in their intensity and their details, they all refer to a similar

template of masculine heroic stature. In particular, Clint Eastwood's "Man with No Name"

character (sometimes referred to as "Blondie" in films such as Fistful of Dollars and The Good,

The Bad, and The Ugly) solidified the brooding, silent, cowboy type. Eastwood's performances

as the anti-hero cowboy were incredibly influential, went against the grain of the Western genre

at the time, and "influenced a whole nation of young men to grow out their stubble and narrow

their eyes menacingly when faced with confrontation" (James, 2008). The Man with No Name

character and the Marlboro Man have together established a cowboy image in North American

culture that has persisted for decades, and which can be seen resonating today in such films as

Hidalgo and 3:10 To Yuma.

Of course, it cannot be said that representations of cowboys are completely homogenous.

Ang Lee's (2005) film Brokeback Mountain presented a strong challenge to the typically macho

and heterosexual stereotype of cowboys. In his film, two archetypically tough herders (one who

is, incidentally, involved in rodeo competitions) work together, grow to love each other, and the

film follows the trials and tribulations of their twenty-year romantic relationship. What was

interesting about Brokeback was that it gained instant notoriety as the "gay cowboy movie,"

though many who saw the film considered it to simply be a great love story (Petrakis, 2006: 43).

It has been noted that "Western" films have always had many sub-iterations, and that Brokeback fits into a more "reflective" tradition of the genre (Swaab, 2005: 41). Still, the fact that it stood out so much among other Westerns and aroused such interest in its audiences speaks to the way the film challenged conventional representation. The simple fact that it was referred to as the

"gay cowboy movie" highlights the heteronormative way that cowboy culture is construed.

If gay cowboys are othered in filmic representation, there are yet other Others who bear the brunt of spectacular displays of Western machismo and agricultural force. Though the rodeo films I look at could not exist as "rodeo films" without these animal Others, there is an inherent difficulty in analyzing the representation of those who often find themselves on the receiving end of unquestioned violence, and are under-represented in any other setting. Though these animals are always integral to the plot/subplot, they rarely rise above a level of one-dimensionality, used

no differently than the inanimate props of a set. In the following subsection I will briefly outline

the philosophical and representational dilemmas that might inform our anthropocentric reading

of rodeo animals such as cows and horses, and seek to place the filmed rodeo animal into a

clearer context for visual analysis.

b. The Bucking Beast

Like the heavily constructed images of cowboys that populate Western films and

cigarette advertisements, images of rodeo animals such as bulls and horses are built around

certain assumptions. Unfortunately, these assumptions seem to take little account of how these

animals live and die, or how they experience the world around them. Instead, the assumptions

that drive our construction of rodeo animals are influenced by certain ideas about possession and

property, the difficulty in interpreting the animal image and contradictory information about

animal treatment in rodeo events. Keeping in mind that bulls, sheep, horses and pigs are animals that are used in a variety of contexts, the fundamental assumption that governs the variety of representations of these animals is the assumption that it is appropriate to treat livestock animals as property. Property status is the basic legal and moral pre-requisite by which these animals may be used for the purposes of entertainment or sport (or food, or experimentation) with only a token consideration for their welfare (Francione, 2000: 50-52). Though few people would consider cruelty to animals acceptable, what is defined as "cruelty" can be quite broad when animals are legally no different from microwaves or cars or any other material possessions. Animal cruelty cases are often difficult to prosecute, even more so when the animal does not "belong to" someone: you face a

much stiffer penalty for acts of mischief if you have damaged someone else's property (see

Bisgould, 2008). In a rodeo setting, the property status of the livestock (a term of property in and

of itself) underpins their use in events where they are placed in physical danger, in front of a

fairground full of spectators. The owners of the animal participants in rodeo events put them

there deliberately.

In thinking about the rodeo, it is important to keep in mind that - especially when it

comes to the visual representation of animals, whether on screen or in the flesh - images can

often be very deceiving. Even the most detailed still or moving image (or face-to-face

interaction) can lack important context without which proper interpretation can be very difficult.

In a particularly striking example, Erika Fudge (2005) discusses a famous image of one of the

first chimpanzees in space, Ham. In the photo, we see Ham reaching for an apple after returning

from a successful flight that included seven minutes of weightlessness, and he appears to be

smiling. Fudge notes that, in actuality, the baring of teeth in primates such as chimpanzees is

generally seen as a communication of aggression and fear. They do not "smile" like we do. Ham, 27 having just returned from zero-gravity flight, may not be in such a great mood, and we would be incorrect to interpret him as necessarily "happy." "Our desire to interpret the smile of the chimp as evidence of his enjoyment of the experience of space travel reflects," Fudge notes, "our willingness to dismiss in certain contexts some of the differences between humans and animals"

(26). In other words, in addition to the challenge of interpreting images out of context, we also have a psychological investment in a certain kind of interpretation.

If we take what many animal protection groups say seriously, there may be a significant

disconnect between how animals are represented in rodeos and rodeo films, and how they

themselves actually experience the events. In events such as bull-riding, animals are prodded into

action using electric prods, boot spurs and studded belts called flank straps that cause discomfort

and agitation in the animals (SHARK, 2008b). According to many animal welfare groups, events

such as bull-riding would simply not be possible without having cruelty inflicted on the animals

in the first place to get them angry enough to struggle.

For its part, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) in America provides

fairly comprehensive guidelines to the general public about the types of precautions that are

taken to ensure animal welfare. These include online and published documentation of the types

of equipment used, and how veterinarians play a role in overseeing the events (PCRA, 2008),

though these precautions and regulations have been thoroughly questioned (SHARK, 2008).

Whether or not the regulations are effective or not, however, should not distract us from the fact

that a rodeo event is based on spectatorship and image production. In an article in a 2004 issue of

Broadcast Engineering discussing the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, Phill Kurz notes

that,

the most important thing video does for the rodeo is provide a narrative and 28

context for the casual rodeo fan seated in the stands. Few have little more than a passing familiarity with the sport. Providing narrative and context is a big point of focus for the video presentation - an estimated 95 percent of the people watching the event are not into rodeo.(91)

The narrative and context provided by video images must construct the rodeo in a particular way that is palatable and entertaining for a viewing audience. Thus, image-making technologies re­ present reality, right before the audience's eyes.

Though some rodeo events in the United States and Canada are televised, media representations of rodeo are generally rare. Rodeo films - movies in which it is a central theme or plot device - are unusual. The two films that I will now examine - 8 Seconds and Cowboy Up

(also known as Ring of Fire) - are exceptional both in their unswerving focus on cowboy culture,

but also in the sheer amount of rodeo footage that they portray. In the following sections, I will

give summaries of their stories before I move on to a visual and auditory analysis of the rich

representations of people and animals that are shown on screen. I have gone into great detail in

the following descriptions, and intentionally so: after having visited many rodeos myself, I have

seen how closely rodeo culture in real life matches the rodeo culture on screen. In this sense,

almost none of the plot details are insignificant.

c. 192 Frames

John G. Avildsen's 8 Seconds begins with gently plucked acoustic guitars and a scrolling

title that states, "The American West was settled in a spirit of courage, determination, and

friendship. The old West may be gone, but the spirit survives. This is a true story. It begins in

Oklahoma, 1968." This scrolling title dissolves into a landscape shot of an empty plain, soon

filled up by charging bulls being herded by working cowboys. The bulls run directly at the

camera, their gaze meeting our own, as a father and son look on from a good distance away. 29

From here we transition to a youth rodeo scene, where young kids and teenagers learn to

"cowboy up" and gain the "intestinal fortitude... that it takes to be a champion in this game." In this scene, we witness the first win of young Lane Frost, the protagonist of the film.

After the first rodeo scene, we fast-forward fifteen years to 1983. Lane is no longer a mannish boy, but more of a boyish man. He joins two other men, Tuff and Cody, to go on a rodeo tour, and though his father discourages him saying that it's "no way to make a living," he clearly feels a passion for it. At his first rodeo stop, he meets Kelly Kyle, a barrel racer (and college student studying sports medicine) who instantly strikes his fancy, but who seems antipathetic to bull riding in general, and to Lane's advances in particular.

Over the next several scenes, we are given a crash-course in masculine cowboy culture.

We travel with Lane and his compatriots to a post-rodeo bar night, where there is a certain kind of stockyard chivalry that mediates male interactions, and where a fights break out after every second sentence. The three men are offered a drink by a man who was impressed by their rodeo performance, though Lane turns down the beer in favour of a coke. The man is offended by

Lane's choice, and yet another fight is ignited. Punches are thrown. Honour is defended. But

Lane diffuses all of the aggression with his trademark soft approach, as he calms the drunk men down enough so that they can settle their differences with an awkward handshake. Back at the motel, Tuff tells Lane his gentle demeanor and distaste for alcohol are counter to everything that cowboys are meant to be: "We drink, we cuss, and we fight!" Tuff tells him, as he slams his fist

into the bathroom door. Shortly afterwards Tuff passes out, leaving Lane sitting shirtless on the

end of his motel room bed, saying "I love this life."

At the next rodeo stop, Lane convinces Kelly to sit for a meal with him, where he

explains his cowboy philosophy: "Bulls ain't got nothin' against ya," He says. "They just wanna 30 buck y'off and get on with their business. People will hurt ya a lot sooner." As Kelly inquires about why he loves to do what he does, Lane once again replies in his soft country-twang voice:

"Rodeo's not just about winnin' and makin' money. It's about bein' yer best and helpin' others be there best, too, y'know?" They talk late into the night, and when Lane walks Kelly home, they share a terribly awkward almost-kiss.

As Lane and Kelly's relationship blossoms, Lane continues his tour, and at the first major competition on his first ride, he gets bucked and injured. While laid-up in the rodeo infirmary, he contemplates quitting, but his tough-love travel buddy, who normally berates him and tells him he isn't any good, calls him the best damn cowboy on the circuit and tells him to "stop being a

puss" and "cowboy up." With a severe groin injury, he gets on a bull called "Double Trouble,"

this time lasting the full 8 seconds, and getting second place. From here, Lane returns home,

bringing Kelly home to meet the folks. His father, a former rodeo cowboy himself, is less than

congratulatory. Instead of praising his win despite a bad injury, he tells Lane that he is lucky the

other cowboys rode so poorly. Angered by his father's lack of pride, Lane goes to shovel some

hay to let off some steam, and Kelly follows to comfort him. Through a quick dissolve, we see

their love actualized into a cowboy marriage.

The newlywed Lane and Kelly continue their rodeo touring, and in spite of some bumps

along the way (for example, Kelly demands that they get a permanent home, so Lane buys a

rather garish trailer for them to live in), their relationship is solid. He makes it to the National

championship, and though he wins by a great margin, he still cannot tame the final bull, "Red

Rock." Again, Lane's father is less than encouraging, telling Lane that he needs to win another

championship before he could be considered a "real" champion. In the wake of this lack of praise

from his dad (and perhaps spurred on by Lane drinking two beers), Lane becomes jealous of Kelly talking to Martin Hudson, an old acquaintance. Here we come face to face with the first major tension of the film. Lane apologizes, but in the next scenes we see the beginnings of a fraying relationship, as life on the road keeps Kelly and Lane apart for days and weeks at a time.

Here, the seemingly incorruptible Lane begins to show cracks in his character. He succumbs to the sexual temptation of a "buckle bunny," a woman who follows the rodeo circuit.

It is a betrayal of Kelly and a betrayal of his fundamental good-guy ethic, and it weighs on him heavily. Tension increases as Lane and Kelly attend a t-shirt promotion event, where Kelly is surprised to find out that Lane has agreed to ride the indomitable Red Rock once again in an

upcoming rodeo. As Lane leaves to embark on another rodeo tour, Kelly is left behind, where she runs into Martin again, and goes out for dinner with him. Martin seduces Kelly by encouraging her to be herself, to go back to her barrel racing and see the value in her own work.

When Kelly admits to Lane that she has "seen" another man, Lane loses his composure. Kelly questions why Lane has been trying to buy his father's love by putting money into fixing up his

house, and Lane kicks her out of the trailer in anger.

Lane is confronted by his mother, who questions why he is throwing away the best thing

that ever happened to him by breaking up with Kelly. In this scene, we see the subtext of Lane's

charater come to the fore: For years and years Lane has been trying to win his father's favour, to

no avail. As hard as he tries, his father gives him no support, and no love. The hard-shelled

machismo of rodeo culture leaves little room for emotional connection among men, and this has

coloured Lane's entire life. His mother convinces him to pick up the phone and to apologize to

Kelly. The conversation does not go well, as Kelly demands that Lane be accountable for his

aggression and his lack of understanding. 32

Lane has three days and three chances to defeat Red Rock. His first ride is unsuccessful, and he sustains a heavy injury during his second ride. As he regroups at home, his father finally gives him the love and validation he has craved his whole life, though the praise is delivered through a typical veil of masculinity. Lane's father tells him that if he never rode a bull again, he wouldn't care about him any less. The same day, Lane goes for a horse ride with Tuff, who strongly encourages him to come clean with Kelly. Lane abides, and meets Kelly that night to tell her that he has been with other women, and that he wants to spend all of his life with her, every waking moment, so that he can be a good husband and a good partner. Kelly accepts his confession and apology. Embattled but not destroyed, Lane and Kelly renew their relationship and vow to be there for one another.

Just as things are starting to seem as if they have leveled out - Lane has bought a piece of property to build he and Kelly a house, and he has taken to competing in rodeos once again -

Lane goes to his final competition. He rides a particularly tough bull successfully, but is gored by the bull after he dismounts. Lane dies from a punctured lung, and his family and friends are left in emotional ruin. In the final scenes, Tuff declares that he will win the World Championship in

honour of Lane, and as he rides his raging bull well over the 8 seconds required of him, Kelly

remarks that now he is "riding for Lane."

The film ends with titles that explain where the real-life counterparts of the film

characters are now. This is followed by interview footage of the real Tuff Hedeman, who

describes the profound influence that Lane had on him, and as the credits roll, we see photos,

home movies, and television footage of the real Lane Frost. 33 d. The Ring of Fire

Xavier Koller's Cowboy Up (2001) - Starring Kiefer Sutherland and Daryl Hannah - is a fictional tale of brothers Hank and Ely Braxton. The movie opens with a highly stylized sequence of shots that show the moments immediately preceding a bull ride. There is dramatic music, the screen is blackened, and the bull and rider writhe with tension as the bull gets ready to blast out of the chute. The action is filmed at a high frame-rate and set to look slow-motion. The

bull and rider jump from the gate, and the animal bucks with a brute strength that is startling, even in slow motion. The scene is stark in its highlights and shadows. The rodeo clown tries to help the fallen rider up, but he gets gored and is taken out on a stretcher. The lighting changes

and the scene fades.

In the next scene, the injured Ely Braxton comes home. His car pulls up to a barn and he

is lifted out of the car by his family, who carry him into the family ranch home. He wears a neck-

brace and he clearly can't walk. The cowboy reels in his defeat. He relives the stare of the heavy

bull, and we flash back to childhood scenes of him as a boy. His girlfriend Connie comforts him,

as he says "I don't think I chose rodeo. Rodeo chose me." Dejected and injured, Ely demands

that his mom take down the rodeo posters on his wall.

In the next scene, we visit a ranch where Hank Braxton is teaching young gentlemen to

love the bull ride. He begins with a pep-talk: "When you're bullriding, you either make it

happen, or you let it happen." The scene cuts to a makeshift rodeo training grounds, where the

wannabe cowboys watch as one of them rides a beige bull, and gets bucked. After that bull ride,

Ely goes to the chute to prepare the next bull for a new trainee, and the bull begins to buck in the

chute. As he gets frustrated and beats on the bull to subdue him, his girlfriend and brother yell at

him to dismount, lest he get injured again. They let the bull go into the ring, where he bucks and 34 snorts and ropy strands of drool go flying, as Hank plays the rodeo clown and calms the bull down.

Despite his injury, Ely still can't let go of the rodeo life. He travels with Hank to rodeos, where his reputation precedes him. As Hank plays the clown/bullfighter and keeps the cowboys reasonably safe, Ely can't resist the urge to get back on a bull. He approaches the rodeo master and demands to be put on a bull called "Doomsday." Shocked by his brother's surprise entry,

Hank watches with anxious energy as Ely completes his 8 seconds and dismounts safely. In the aftermath, a reporter interviews Ely. Hank warns Ely about his reckless behaviour, and how the family won't approve.

Upon returning home, his mother expresses her anger, and Ely replies that getting back on the bull simply felt great. We cut briefly to a flashback, in which a young Ely, in the company of an older man, is presented with a gun, and told to squeeze the trigger and "cowboy up." We then see that Ely is being asked to shoot a dog. He pulls the trigger, and falls backwards. His

mother shows up, horrified. The flashback ends. When she finds out about his surprise rodeo

entry, Connie is also terribly upset. He visits her at the veterinary clinic where she works; she

calls him a liar and they have a terrible argument. With no familial support, Ely packs up his

belongings and gets ready to hit the road and get on the rodeo circuit. On his way out, his mother

tells Ely that he is not his father, and he should stop acting like him.

At their first stop on the circuit, Hank introduces Ely to Celia Jones, a stunning barrel

racer who has clearly caught Hank's eye. Ely performs a successful bull ride, and the trio of Ely,

Hank and Celia go out for dinner. Hank and Celia break off from Ely and go to the stables,

where they engage in some awkward but sweet conversation. Upon return to the motel, Hank

tells Ely he might give up being a rodeo clown, because it doesn't help him in matters of romance. Ely asks Hank if he thinks their father (who left the family when the children were very young) follows them on the circuit news. We once again return to the flashback of the dog being shot, but this time see that Hank at first refused to shoot the dog himself. At the next rodeo, we see Ely and Celia waving in the winner's circle, while Hank looks on as the clown, perhaps jealous at their shared success and newfound proximity.

The men return home for the 4th of July, both safe and sound, and Ely regales his mother

with stories of how much sponsorship he's received and the money he's going to make. Ely goes

to visit Connie only to find that she has gotten together with the vet who she works with. They

fight once again, and Ely drives off in a huff. At the 4th of July barbecue, Hank explains to a

friend how riding a bull takes much more than brute strength, which leads to an argument with

Ely, who demands to know if his brother thinks he is a bad rider. Hank tells him that if he keeps

riding as he does, he will certainly get hurt again, and possibly worse. Ely replies that Hank

doesn't even ride bulls, and shouldn't be so sure. Ely goes off to a local saloon where he gets

into a drunken brawl and hits his head on a pool table, injuring himself again to the point of

needing to be hospitalized. Once again, the doctor tells him, "No more bulls."

Immediately the next morning, Ely is getting ready to leave for the Salt Lake City rodeo.

Enraged at his recklessness, Hank confronts him, and tells him he is acting suicidal. In SLC, he

performs less well than expected, and gets jostled heavily by the bulls. He runs into Celia Jones,

and they flirtatiously talk about his cowboy boots. At the next event, Ely once again finds Celia

and they retreat to her trailer, where romance begins. A shocked Hank visits the trailer and is

turned away at the door. He peeks in through the window to see Ely and Celia in the heat of

passion, and reels with betrayal. At the next event, Hank plays clown while Ely rides, and gives him the cold shoulder as he conquers the bull. Hank almost gets fired for his insubordination, and the two brothers argue about what just happened. Hank insults Ely by telling him that he is exactly like his father, and then he storms off. The montage that follows shows Hank riding a four-wheeler through the hills of the ranch, while Celia and Ely continue to collect medals. In the pair of scenes that follow,

Connie meets up with Hank for some pie (to celebrate his stock contract providing bulls for rodeo events), and Ely argues with Celia about his brother's feelings and their complicated relationship. The guilt of his transgression forces Ely to give up Celia.

At the next event, Ely discovers in an interview that he will be riding his brother's own

bull, "Bad Boy," a truly fearsome beast. Hank and Ely meet in the stockyard to see the bull, and

Hank passes on his father's address to Ely, so that Ely can see his father again. Ely finds a dilapidated shed in an industrial area of town, and knocks at the door. His father mistakes him

for a reporter, to which he replies that he is a bull rider. In the frighteningly frantic monologue

that follows, the father describes bull riding as an "all out war" where you have to hate the bull

you're riding. Ely is clearly very disturbed, and never tells his father who he really is.

At the rodeo finals, announcers call Bad Boy "perhaps the most dangerous animal on

planet earth." The visual and aural tension builds as Ely prepares to ride. Set in stunning slow

motion with stark lighting, Bad Boy bursts from the gate, and Ely holds on for dear life. He

finishes the ride successfully, but cannot get his hand out of the flank strap. Watching from the

sidelines, Hank jumps into the ring to cut the flank strap and free his brother. Unable to escape in

time, Hank is gored in a brutally vicious attack, and later dies in hospital. In the final scene, Ely

takes the bull out to pasture, with the intention of taking vengeance and shooting the bull down. 37

Instead, he fires a shot into the air and lets the bull free, knowing that it is what Hank would have done. e. Wildly Tame

At a superficial level, there are some obvious similarities between these two films. Both films centre around stories of rodeo cowboys with troubled father figures who persevere in the rodeo circuit despite injury and excessive dangers. The films generally portray women as either nagging girlfriends or distraught mothers, women who work with animals in a more caring capacity and who worry deeply about their sons' or partners' participation in the dangerous

sport. Both plot lines revolve around one season of the American rodeo circuit, and culminate in

the National championships. Both films seriously portray cowboy injury and death, and position

bulls as reckless killing machines bent on human destruction. These are all strictly surface

readings.

The visual construction of animals in these rodeo films is, generally speaking, one

dimensional and centred around a dialectic of wildness and domestication. Though the North

American rodeo comes out of an agricultural history where certain animals such as horses and

cows were domesticated for human use, there is a sense in these films that some of these animals

simply cannot be tamed. They are of a species that has been domesticated, and yet, they retain a

wild nature. It is a strange dialectic that Berger (1980) might attribute to a desire to recapture

something natural that has been lost through industrialization. Is it a coincidence that rodeos and

other forms of animal-based entertainment emerge at roughly the same time as increased animal

use removes them from human view and concern? Berger would argue that it is no coincidence

at all. As we remove ourselves (and other species) from the natural world, we seek to reintroduce

elements of the natural world back into our sphere of vision, by artificial means. Animal-based entertainment such as zoos exist precisely, Berger says, because we have lost a direct relationship with animals elsewhere. I would argue that rodeos fit into this dynamic as well.

In response, it could be said that the rodeo represents an area of human-animal relations where we have actually grown closer to certain species through the process of domestication.

The process of domestication itself and its political dimensions are worth contemplating, then.

Some environmental philosophers (e.g. Livingston, 1994; Zerzan, 1994) have argued that domestication is a destructive process that has resulted in the virtual erasure of species from any sort of ecological context. For these philosophers, there is no remediation, no possibility for a return to the Garden. Instead domesticated animals are seen as "ecological misfits" (Livingston,

1994: 25, 177), beings who have been plucked from their natural setting and who have had their wildness squeezed out of them through confinement and breeding. They are "[g]lazed, dulled, blurred travesties" (24) who "have lost all connection with being, all memory of the sensibility of life context." (136). Humans are included in this discussion as a species whose "self- domestication through language, ritual and art" (Zerzan, 1994: 28) was the beginning of the end of an Edenic world that existed previousl to this era, full of "leisure, intimacy with nature, sensual wisdom, sexual equality, and health" (16). These philosophers deride domesticity, and frame it as a non-porous category, uniformly negative in its characteristics. These theorists might see the rodeo as a game of domesticated animals (humans) playing with domesticated animals

(bulls and horses), a sad vestige of a time when the species might have lived in a more symbiotic

but separate form of communion, and now live in a warlike opposition.

These ideas about domestication (and, conversely, wildness) intersect powerfully with the

concept of simulacra, the "map which precedes the territory" (Baudrillard, 1994: 1) that

characterizes the representations of bulls in both 8 Seconds and Cowboy Up. What we are dealing with in these films is not so much the visual representation of actual animals, but the visual representation of a discourse. The map is drawn out, but there is no actual territory to which it belongs. The reason for this disconnect is quite simply the fact that there are certain elements of the "rodeo story" which are never represented. Where did the animals come from?

How were they treated before they arrived to the ring? How are the animals being prodded into a particular 'performance'? These are questions that are never posed, visually or otherwise. So, in both films, we see the uncomplicated portrayal of animals as brutal and fearsome; the potential to portray the animals as brutalized and afraid, however, is simply impossible. The discourse of bulls as unstoppable killing machines, wild in their power but domestic in their ability to be subdued, is the only discourse that is allowed. This is an act of pretending or simulation which

"threatens the difference between the 'true' and the 'false', between the 'real' and the

'imaginary' (Baudrillard, 1994: 3).

Between the films, there are subtle differences. In 8 Seconds, animals feature prominently in every rodeo scene, though they are, unsurprisingly, always portrayed in a state of aggression and anger. The bulls are shown in a constant state of animal tension, ready to attack and struggle at any moment. Interestingly, prominent shots of bulls walking through pastures and being herded are also used as scene transitions. These transitions are fairly calm and serene, almost showing the bulls in a state of agency and control, before a herder puts them back in their proper place in the hierarchy. Of course, these quiet images are an exception, and the bulls we normally see are enraged to the point of caricature. In the final scene, just before Lane is gored by the bull, we see a shot of the bull bracing his hooves in the dirt, his eyes bright red with cartoonish anger.

In 8 Seconds, animals are also represented through verbal and visual references in scenes where they don't actually appear. After one rodeo scene, when Lane is first getting to know 40

Kelly, he alludes to the symbolic importance of the rodeo bulls: "It's like every wild and free thing in the world in the palm of yer hand," he says, and goes on to describe the musculature of the bulls and the way he rides them. In several other scenes, Lane is seen drinking tall glasses of milk, a product of the same species (if not the same gender) of animal that he rides in other scenes, creating a strange visual connection that may not be apparent or obvious at first glance.

Similarly, the cowboys in the film are replete with leather, literally wearing the skins of the same kinds of animals that they have conquered in their sport.

In Cowboy Up, the bulls are portrayed in a similar way, but with a slight difference. Like

8 Seconds, the film has invested a great deal in the symbolic force of the angry bull. The

difference here is a matter of degree, as Cowboy Up shows the bulls as slightly more out of

control and wild. The bulls in these scenes drool uncontrollably, with ropy strands of saliva

flying through the air as they buck and snort. Several transition scenes also use slow-motion

effects and stark black and white lighting to highlight the sheer brute force of bucking bulls.

These transitional scenes often focus on certain parts of the bulls, such as the legs or the

shoulders, reducing the bulls to constituent parts while perhaps ignoring the whole.

The flashback scenes in Cowboy Up merit special attention. Ely and Hank's father

demanding that the boys shoot a wounded and tied-down dog with a shotgun seems like an

interesting choice for a scene which is meant to tell us something about the characters

themselves. Hank's refusal to shoot the dog means that the father passes the gun to Ely who, in

desperation, shoots the dog to appease the father. The report of the shotgun makes Ely fall

backwards, as his dad laughs. Thus, the boys are initiated into witnessing and participating in an

act of animal cruelty, as it is unclear whether the dog even needed to be put down at all. The

scene is replayed at the end of the film, when Ely has the chance to use a shotgun to kill the bull that killed his brother. Instead of going the way of his father, he fires into the air and lets the bull go, noting, "Hank would've wanted it this way."

What do these representations amount to? Though it is always a difficult and dangerous act to generalize, it might be said that the animals in these films generally represent borderline creatures, not quite wild, not quite domesticated. Even though their subordinate position is never once questioned, and even though they are presented in a virtually monolithic, uncomplicated way, they are still represented as something of a counterpoint to human civilization. Both films use numerous shots of bull's eyes, their inscrutable gaze looking angrily toward a human other.

As Jonathan Burt (2002) notes, "The animal's eye is a very significant motif in films, and we

need to ask what it is that film invokes by delineating this type of contact [...] in the absence of

the possibility of language, [it is] the basis of a social contract" (38-39). But because animals do

not represent themselves, since it is we who represent them, "we might ask ourselves, what kind

of gaze do we want the animal to look back at us with" (42)? The gaze of the bulls in rodeo

movies gives us the strange comfort of knowing that the wild world is a dangerous world, and

that our effort to domesticate animals is a morally defensible position, one of some kind of self-

defense. The angry gaze of the bull in the rodeo ring makes it clear that the social contract is one

of Darwinian opposition: Subjugate, or be subjugated.

f. Only One of Us Walks Away

By questioning the representation of animals (specifically bulls) in rodeo films, in no way

do I mean to suggest that rodeos are not actually dangerous places where cowboys (and animals)

get severely injured through their participation in events such as bullriding and calf-roping. The

ever-present danger of rodeo events such as bullriding is not a mere discourse; these events have

very real consequences for all those who participate. As with any representation, though, it is 42 important to keep in mind who is in a greater position of power, and who benefits from a particular manner of visual coding. In the case of rodeo films, human subjects are clearly in a position of power, not just in terms of their control of rodeo conditions, but in their ability to represent those events back to other people. Likewise, those who participate in rodeos or who enjoy rodeos have a vested interest in showing the rodeo in a particular way, as places where animals need to be subdued and where humans are actually the vulnerable ones. Such portrayals only serve to benefit those who already benefit.

It is certainly hard to imagine a film centred on the rodeo that does not rely on the kinds of visual (and moral) tropes outlined above. Though it might be fanciful to suggest making a film that centres on rodeos but also shows a more complicated and sensitive representation of animals such as bulls, honestly portraying the context in which they find themselves, it seems unlikely that such a film would ever be made. An alternative or counterpoint to modern rodeo movies might forgo rodeo scenes altogether, and visually interrogate the relationships between industry and rodeo events, between rodeo cowboys and economics, between cowboys and the animals they raise and ride. Though modern rodeo films are few and far between, and thus do not have as wide a cultural visibility as films about boxing or superheroes, their rarity also means that each image is precious, and can potentially cause greater impact among audiences who have little to compare them to. Thus, any alternative representation of rodeo culture could have great import and create a strong challenge to the masculine, anthropocentric hegemony of images that currently dominates. 43

III: NATIONALISM AND IDENTITY

"[T]he end of the era of nationalism, so long prophesied, is not remotely in sight. Indeed, nation- ness is the most universally legitimate value in the political life of our time." (Anderson, 2006: 3)

From an analysis of the history and current state of rodeo culture, as well as the

contemporary visual representation that informs (and is informed by) rodeo's contemporary

currency, I now shift my focus to a delineation of some theories of nationalism, and how they

might be applicable to rodeo culture. As stated previously, it is my contention that rodeos, in

many ways, constitute a cultural milieu that is more or less discreet and bears some of the

hallmarks of a "national identity," broadly defined. Rodeo culture, understood not simply as a

collection of sporting events but also as the subculture of people, places, and rituals that goes

with it, is in many ways a "nation," and thinking of it as such opens up new possibilities for

analysis and understanding. I have kept the following section intentionally brief because the

literature on nationalism is vast, and there are only a few aspects of it that I wish to highlight for

the subsequent analysis of interviews with rodeo folks. Furthermore, though I will delineate what

I feel are the most relevant writings (and counter-writings) on nationalism as they relate to this

project, I will refrain from comment and analysis until the following section where I analyze the

interviews with my respondents.

Before defining and discussing nationalism in any context, it is useful to have an

understanding of what exactly a nation-state is. Understanding how the nation-state is conceived

of and constructed - in both theory and practice - will provide a solid base with which to talk

about the complicated and often convoluted Canadian context, and the even more

compartmentalized idea of a "rodeo nation." Though words such as "nation" and "nationhood"

are the kind of vague words that can mean a thousand different things to a thousand different 44 people, I will attempt to define them a little more precisely, to give grounding for further analysis.

Verdery (1996) provides a concise but nuanced definition of "nation," that is useful for provoking further political discussion. She begins by noting the symbolic nature of nations, entities that serve as systems of classification, both social and psychological. She is primarily interested in nations as "sorting devicejs]" (226), geopolitical territories that become filters for defining insiders and outsiders. Going further, she states:

"[The Nation] names the relation between states and their subjects, and between states and other states; it is an ideological construct essential to assigning subject positions in the modern state, as well as in the international order. [It is] crucial to the way a state is linked to its subjects, distinguishing them from the subjects of other states, and to the state's larger environment." (p.226-227, emphasis added)

In other words, nations are social geopolitical constructions that serve to reinforce both similarity

and difference. Additionally, one of the defining elements of "the nation" is that it allows for

drawing points of connection between the people who make up the nation, and the larger

environment where they reside. This "environment," I would argue, can be thought of on many

different scales.

Verdery's definition raises some interesting questions that I would like to grapple with

further using different theorists: How much in common do people have to have in order to be

cohesive? Is a "nation" limited to its geopolitical territory? How can we think of nations or

nationalism in a way that honours the connection of people to land, while at the same time

recognizing the constructed elements of 'national identity'? Wading into these questions, Butler

(2007) discusses the political meanings and conditions of nation-states, and provides a blunt

definition of "the state," calling it "the legal institutions that delimit a certain territory" (3). She

expands the discussion by bringing in the work of Hannah Arendt, and noting that: 45

[T]he nation-state assumes that the nation expresses a certain national identity, is founded through the concerted consensus of a nation, and that a certain correspondence exists between the state and the nation. The nation, in this view, is singular and homogeneous, or at least, it becomes so in order to comply with the requirements of the state. (30)

The key points that I wish to highlight within the definition above are the notions of consensus, homogeneity, and institutionality. There is an institutional imperative that drives the cohesion of the nation, and this cohesion is achieved through some sort of (hegemonic) consensus. Moreover, there is the sense that "the state" - the mass of legal institutions mentioned earlier - is caught in

a tension of both creating and being created by "the nation". Thus, nations may demand some

sort of institutional structure, but this institutional structure in turn makes demands of the nation.

These demands become, to a greater or lesser degree, the features of nationalism.

Benedict Anderson, one of the most influential authors on the topic of nations and

nationalism, defines the nation in subtly different terms, and accounts for the demands of the

nation in an interesting way that is perhaps more salient for a discussion of rodeo culture. For

Anderson, the nation is both a mix of real institutions and illusory relationships. In his seminal

Imagined Communities (2006, original published in 1983), he defines the nation as an "imagined

political community" that exists under notions of finite boundaries, sovereignty and fraternity (6-

7). The concept of the nation as "imagined" is vital to his theory, as it highlights the way in

which people who are spread out across thousands of kilometers can somehow find points of

shared identity: "Members of even the smallest nations will never know most of their fellow-

members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their

communion" (6). Continuing on this point, Anderson remarks that, "[i]n fact, all communities

larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined"

(6). Anderson makes these observations convincingly and with aplomb, but without value

judgment. 46

So what facilitates the imagining of the nation and the sense of imagined belonging among people? Anderson describes in detail the way that modern western nationalism has been made possible through media and communication technologies; he points specifically to the rise of print capitalism, noting that, "the convergence of capitalism and print technology" in the 16th-

18th centuries "created the possibility for a new form of imagined community, which [...] set the

stage for the modern nation" (46). Until that point, common European notions of time, history,

and sequences of events were more contextual, individual, and heterogeneous. Furthermore,

European languages at the time were much more numerous, as different dialects prevailed in

rural regions, and varied widely from place to place. With the emergence of printing press

technology, print capitalism, and the subsequent rise in literacy, however, newspapers became a

vehicle by which perceptions of time and uses of language were standardized and homogenized

(36-46). In other words, newspapers became a vehicle through which history became

encapsulated in daily doses, and language was standardized to increase the profits of publishers.

According to Anderson, this homogenization of time and language created conditions that

were conducive to the solidification of national identities that the emerging nations of Europe

required to consolidate their power (44-45). On the ground, reading the newspaper became a

daily, shared experience among many citizens of a particular region or nation, and this shared

experience is the basis for "the imagined community." Continuing this analysis to the present

day, it is easy to see that newspapers, as well as newer media such as radio, television, and even

film, have continued to fulfill the role that Anderson describes for early newsprint. Each day,

popular (and not-so-popular) newspapers are read by millions upon millions of people

worldwide, shaping what they think about and how they think about those things, while radio,

television, and internet media reach even more people. 47

It is worth noting here that the fact that Anderson focuses on newspapers (and news media more generally) is an historical necessity, and not an arbitrary choice. That being said, it is also worth noting that Anderson's emphasis on the ritual of consuming information through newspapers can also be expanded in contemporary time to include other rituals such as sports. As broadcast media have proliferated, the ritual of consuming a sporting event simultaneously with thousands of other people seems to serve a very similar function to the way that newspapers forged community in 18th century Europe. Even the language around consuming sports rituals as a community can be seen as nationalist in tone (the Toronto "Leafs Nation" comes to mind as one example).

Anderson's approach is not an airtight theory, however, and it is fair to note that it is a fairly limiting and Eurocentric view, which does not necessarily resonate with people on a day- to-day basis. For Anderson, the modern concept of nationalism has its origins in Europe, and the spread of modern nationalism is facilitated by a set of "modular" ways in which nations can be formed and nationalism can play out. If modern nations and nationalisms follow predictable patterns that have origins in Europe then, as Partha Chatterjee (1996) points out, "what do

[postcolonial nations] have left to imagine" (216)? Chatterjee notes that the anti-colonial nationalist aspirations of Asia and Africa are actually posited on a difference from such

"modular" Western forms, and suggest that anti-colonial nationalism is necessarily formed when the dominant (colonial) nation is still in place. Likewise, even in non-colonial contexts, the national imagination does not dominate daily thought. Balakrishnan (1996) highlights

Anderson's acknowledgment that national identity comes to the fore during times of conflict such as war, when membership in the nation is threatened. Furthermore, he states:

Under normal conditions, individuals belong to, and identify with, a vast number of overlapping associations, membership in which can be, to some degree, instrumentally 48

evaluated. This means that most of the time the experience of national membership is faint and superficial. Only in struggle does the nation cease to be an informal, contestable, and taken-for-granted frame of reference, and become a community which seizes hold of the imagination, (p. 210)

While I don't entirely agree with Balakrishnan's conclusions from reading Anderson, I do think that his statement contains a grain of truth: national membership is often a background element in the lives of those who live within the boundaries of the state. That being said, I think we cannot underestimate how the "faint and superficial" experience of national membership nonetheless shapes people's perceptions, and influences our discourses. Furthermore, in the context of rodeo culture, the "faint and superficial" experience of national membership is far less faint and far less superficial than in other contexts. In rodeo culture, both Canadian nationalism and "rodeo nationalism" are constantly pulled to the front of consciousness through various

means and because of various processes.

The above definitions of nation and nationalism, varied in their depth and nuance,

represent an entry point into the discussion of how rodeo culture perceives itself, and is

perceived of by others. Regardless of the valid critiques of Anderson's theory, I find his

elucidation of nation and nationalism to be the most appropriate and applicable to my work, as it

underlines the imagined nature (but also the emotional weight) of communal identity. Because of

his emphasis on sovereignty and fraternity, as well as his focus on shared ritual as a cornerstone

of (imagined) community building, I feel that his theory in particular applies to the "rodeo

nation," which is structured around strong insider / outsider dynamics, a deep sense of

camaraderie, and the highly ritualized performance of various sporting events and social

interactions.

In the following section, I speak with rodeo participants and organizers, as well as some

spectators, about their thoughts, feelings, and experiences of rodeo culture. I've divided my presentation and analysis of their testimony into sections relating to insider / outsider politics, personal identity, masculinity and the notion of sacrifice, animal ethics, economics, and finally, nationalism (broadly defined). Though I do not think that the thoughts of my respondents can truly be compartmentalized in such a rudimentary way - indeed, the complete transcripts of interviews are dense thickets of discourse about culture, identity, and human-animal relations -1 have divided them as such as a method of organization that I hope will make the whole of my analysis more coherent. 50

IV: THE RODEO NATION IN ITS OWN WORDS

To say that rodeo culture has strong insider/outsider dynamics would be a gross understatement. The hesitation that I encountered when trying to verbally engage with rodeo participants and spectators - even before mentioning anything to do with a Master's thesis, interviews, or audio recordings - was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Though I was fortunate enough to be welcomed in to certain groups of rodeo people or to certain rodeo events - including large championship events, smaller rodeos, dances, and even a weekend bullriding clinic -1 would not say that in any way, shape or form, was I an insider. I made a serious effort to fit in - at least as much as would be possible for a researcher - by dressing

properly7 and following etiquette to the best of my ability. It was not done out of vanity or to

misguide people; I simply wanted to make the effort to be present with them in a way that made

them the least uncomfortable as possible, on their terms. Still, I was reminded on more than one

occasion that just because I could dress like a cowboy and converse like a cowboy, it did not

mean I was a cowboy. On one occasion, in front of a group of older cowboys and in response to

a comment I had made about striving to fit in to the dress code, the head of a rodeo association

told me "It won't be your style that'll get you respect from a cowboy." His statement ended

there, and a silence fell over the group, as he left it up to me to figure out what would actually

earn me that respect, and walked away.

At one of the later events I attended, I met a photographer who was celebrating his

second anniversary on the rodeo circuit, as he was doing a long-term photo documentary project

on rodeo culture. Speaking privately, he told me that he felt as if he was just beginning to gain

7 At all official rodeo events I attended it was customaiy for anybody in the performance area (including behind the chutes and around the ring) to "dress western style," as I was told. Photographers and other media who do not have proper attire are given the option of putting on a western style shirt, as well as a wide-rimmed cowboy-style hat, or not having access to those areas and precious angles. The dress code was described to me by one cowboy as "a way of showing the audience where the roots of the rodeo lie." 51 acceptance into the fold as an authentic part of the scene, and that this was one of the most "pure subcultures" he had ever encountered. He described the general responses of cowboys he had informally interviewed as "cagey" and "pre-packaged," saying that it reminded him of when he used to shoot for Sports Illustrated, and be frustrated by hockey players' repeated cliches of

"giving 110%" and "playing tough." I certainly had a similar perception, though I wasn't always certain that the cliched answers were an attempt to hide something, but more likely due to a

"strong, silent" personality type prevalent among the cowboys that I met.

With the above in mind, it was apparent to me very early on in my research that any interviews that I conducted - apart from simply obtaining informed consent - had to be approached with an extra amount of sensitivity to the power dynamics of the situation. In addition to the written informed consent form signed by all of my interviewees, I also provided a verbal explanation of the consent form before and after each conversation. The interviews were all done on location at various rodeo events, allowing the participants to be on their "home turf," surrounded by nearby friends, colleagues and family. The interviews were done one-on-one

(with the exception of two Canadian Cowgirls, who were interviewed jointly), with each

conversation lasting roughly 20-25 minutes. No motivations or outcomes were hidden from the

participants, and they were free to end their participation at any time.

In a further effort to be as unobtrusive as possible, I limited my use of photographic /

audio recording equipment where possible. Apart from being a student, I am a photographer by

trade, and I often shoot documentary-style work for my clients, as well as for my own projects. I

am reasonably adept at staying out of the way and more or less fading into the background of a

scene, even when I am in the middle of the action. Still, I would never initially approach

someone with any kind of photographic or audio recording equipment, as there always needs to 52 be a rapport established before a reasonably comfortable exchange can take place. Some of the rodeo people who were the most open and sharing people I had met became reserved and virtually silent when any sort of recording device was made visible, or when I asked them to be in photographs. Of the people who reacted this way, some claimed that they didn't feel like they could give answers that would be "smart enough" to appear in a university document, and others simply suggested that I use some of their informal comments in my project. Even after reassurance that there were no "smart" or "stupid" answers, the people who didn't want to be recorded held strong to that position. The reluctance to participate based on perceived intellectual difference was just one indication of the power dynamics at play between people embedded in rodeo culture and me.

Over the course of about 8 months of field research, I conducted interviews with rodeo

participants and organizers8 as well as a handful of family members and other "insiders". Though

I could have interviewed people who are strictly spectators (who indeed would have had a rich

source of insight into the sport and the culture), getting a representative group to participate

would be beyond the scope of my research. Instead, I chose to concentrate on rodeo participants

and organizers, as well as people who might be "inside spectators" who could offer me a truly

"insider" take on rodeo culture. As I will demonstrate in the following section, there is a

sometimes fuzzy divide between the people who perform rodeo, and those who watch the

performance. This type of divide is probably a necessity in any kind of sports spectacle, but it

seems more disguised in a rodeo environment. Though spectators may feel like they are a part of

rodeo culture as a whole, the inner circle of rodeo participants, organizers and other rodeo-

involved actors is a much more closed off group.

8 By "rodeo participants and organizers," I mean those people who participate in rodeo events, and those who help in their staging / administration. In the following sections I draw out some of the discursive themes that I noticed in the interviews that I conducted, giving special attention to discussions of identity, insider / outsider politics, masculinity and ritual, and the perception of animals. From there, I make some tentative observations about what I might call the "rodeo nation," the collective identity shared by rodeo participants and organizers, as well as spectators and at-home fans. Though it is not a "nation" in the sense of a collection of institutions organized under a capital-S State, there is an undeniable sense of community and sovereignty, and perhaps even a collection of finite physical boundaries that define the rodeo nation. In the following sections, I hope to begin to define those boundaries, from both the inside and outside of the ring. i. INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE RING

Like so many subcultures, the rodeo has an inner culture, and an outer face that is presented to the public. In this sense, many spectators who are not directly involved in rodeo events themselves could be considered a kind of "second ring" of community, not quite outsiders like the city folk who don't understand rodeo and not quite insiders like the actual participants in the rodeo who "live the life." The intermediary between the spectators and the participants is played by the rodeo announcer, who gives a play-by-play commentary on the events of the rodeo and fills the dead air space as staging is changed between events. The announcer - who sometimes works from a booth off to the side of the ring, or who sometimes rides on horseback and uses a wireless mic to do the announcing - makes a regular effort to let the spectators know that he9 is "just like [them]," and that he shares in their excitement. At the same time, the announcer marks himself as an interpreter of the symbols and codes of the rodeo, and its participants:

91 use the pronoun "he" intentionally here, as I have not yet encountered a female rodeo announcer. 54

My name is Joe Scully and I'll be your host, your guide into the sport of professional rodeo. We'll do the tradition and the heritage starting things off with 1869, and do the journey all the way up to professional rodeo here today. I'll tell you a little bit more about the events, get you into the mindset of the cowboys and cowgirls, their goals and their dreams and their aspirations as they get ready to rope, run, and ride here this afternoon. I have the greatest job in the world because I, like you, am a spectator. I have no idea what is going to happen, but I know one thing: It'll be wild, it'll be Western, and it'll be professional rodeo presented by Rawhide Rodeo.

There are minor differences between rodeo announcers in terms of style and the exact wording of their speeches, but the jocular nature of how they colour the action and the authoritative way that they propel it forward with their speech was the same at any rodeo I attended. Likewise, the way the speech highlights western tradition is a particularly canny move, and shows a great understanding of the rodeo audience, who tend to attend rodeo events based upon an affinity for

"western heritage" (Daneshvary, Schwer & Rickman, 1993: 90).

Like many of the other positions in the rodeo spectacle, the announcer travels from event to event, and is often retained by the particular rodeo tour company to provide them with an exclusive voice. So, for example, Joe Scully exclusively announces Rawhide Rodeo events, Ross

Millar announces at all of the Dodge Rodeo Tour events (which he also has a major hand in organizing), and so on. These announcers tend to have decades of experience with rodeo, having

been involved for a long time as participants or organizers, which gives them a natural ability to describe the action. In this sense, their authority on the proceedings is very real and trustworthy, and their role as intermediary between the rodeo spectacle and the spectators is entirely appropriate. They represent an individual, personalized face of rodeo that is very confident and

very public. Before and after the rodeo events, they can be seen out in the fairgrounds, chatting

with spectators or participants. For all intents and purposes, they remain "in character" while in

the public eye, and only "break character" when they are comfortably away from public view,

with microphone turned off. They are the public face, but remain in the inner ring. 55

Rewinding for a moment, and stepping back into the inner ring of rodeo culture, perhaps the question of why the insider/outsider dynamics are so strong should be addressed up front.

After all, sports such as hockey can certainly be said to have their own culture, and yet there is not such a strong sense of who is in and who is out. Why? In the interviewees' own words, and by what they infer but do not say, there seem to be two main points of division: 1) a rural / urban divide, characterized as the difference between a hard-working, agricultural way of life versus a fast-paced, "easier" life in the city, and 2) the issue of animal cruelty, characterized as an information disconnect with people from outside being either unfamiliar with how the rodeo operates, how agriculture operates, how the animals are treated before, during, and after the events, or a combination of all of the above. Both of these points of division seem to indicate fundamental differences between rodeo people on one side, and everyone else on the other.

Firstly, the rural / urban divide is not simply a matter of perception or interpretation: there are very real reasons why rodeo culture is a rural culture, and why city folk are excluded on various levels. First and foremost, the history of the rodeo, and its agricultural roots are not debatable, and the fact that rodeo has never "broken through" to become a more mainstream sporting event is somewhat understandable given its rural roots. Secondly, and perhaps just as importantly, rodeos and related events tend to happen in rural areas (with the exception of some of the larger championship events which take place close to city centres). They are organized by locally-based community groups (gathered into a rodeo committee) and the rodeo events tend to be advertised only to the local community. Unless you are a rodeo aficionado and follow the 56 rodeo association or tour news, you might not know that a rodeo is happening in your area, and you might not even be aware that there are rodeos in Ontario at all.10

Secondly, the issue of animal treatment and the divide it creates between insiders and outsiders is also a very real one. As noted in Part II, rodeo associations and animal protection groups have historically been at loggerheads to define what happens at rodeos as either cruel or humane. And it isn't simply a matter of a definition with little consequence, as the debate can have very real consequences for the rodeo industry. Off the record, many respondents bemoaned the fact that this or that local rodeo had faced recent opposition by some "city-slicker" group

who had come from outside to tell the rodeo people what to do. Some respondents even gave

anecdotal testimony (again, off the record) about rodeos actually being shut down, either by city

bylaws or by the rodeo committee, to avoid the potentially dangerous situations that arise from

the interactions between rodeo folks and protestors. The debate over animal cruelty at the rodeo

is clearly alive and well, in Ontario and beyond.

Still, to say that the animal cruelty issue is "debatable" might indicate that there is a set of

agreed upon facts, and that someone from a rodeo could have their perception changed by a

particularly persuasive argument by an animal rights activist, and vice versa. In reality, however,

the positions are deeply entrenched for both sides and furthermore there is no basic agreement on

a set of facts as to what constitutes animal cruelty or even what actually happens to animals at

the rodeo events. For example, many animal advocates claim that the metal spurs used to goad

bulls and horses into bucking cause considerable pain, while rodeo organizers and participants

claim that the spurs are not metal at all but plastic, and though they do induce bucking, that they

are not actually painful for the animals (eg. SHARK, 2008 vs. Professional Rodeo Cowboys

10 Indeed, when discussing my project with others, many of my colleagues were surprised to learn that there are rodeos in Ontario, and that between the three different rodeo associations that govern them, there are over 40 rodeos each year in southern Ontario alone. 57

Association, 2008). This is just one example of the way that the animal cruelty debate in rodeo is polarized and revolves around a set of subjective judgments about what animals are feeling and thinking. Nobody argues that spurs aren't used or that they are used to induce bucking: the debate arises in the interpretation of the bucking and what it might mean in terms of an ethic.

In many ways, the rural/urban divide and the issue of animal cruelty represents a sort of finite boundary between the rodeo nation and the outside culture. Though the "rodeo nation" as I am defining it is not delimited by a particular physical territory (though some rural areas could certainly be thought of as "rodeo country" at different times), the cultural divides represented by rurality and animal treatment act as fairly clear boundaries with very little room for nuance and bridging. Furthermore, the strong boundaries are difficult to permeate from either side, and leave rodeo insiders and rodeo outsiders on very different ground.

When they were asked about outsiders' perceptions (and misperceptions) of what goes on at the rodeo, almost all of my interviewees heartily suggested that those unfamiliar with the sport should simply "come on down" and be shown a good time. This is at once a sincere and disingenuous statement. Sincere, because I think the desire to be understood by outsiders and have their culture valued in and of itself is a genuine desire. Furthermore, there is certainly the desire on the part of many to have the sport of rodeo grow and attract more spectators, more participants, and more sponsors. Still, the statement is disingenuous to a degree because of the simultaneous wariness of outsiders on the part of the respondents as these events unfolded.

Despite the invitation to come and be a spectator, the division between rodeo culture and outsiders is very strong, and the wariness is palpable. In my own experience, when I arrived at a rodeo in my "regular" clothes, I was subjected to long, suspicious stares from participants and spectators alike. When I made a more concerted effort to "dress western" as was required to be 58 able to conduct interviews, participants and spectators treated me very differently, as if I was one of them. Perhaps this sort of separation is to be expected, but I found that it made the respondents' invitations to "just come on down and watch" the rodeo ring hollow. There is no

"rodeo outreach" happening. If an outsider attends a rural rodeo, at least in Ontario, they can expect to be largely ignored, and left to interpret things on their own.

In the following sections I move away from insider/outsider dynamics to focus on the inner aspects of the rodeo nation. Though insider/outsider dynamics have an effect on every aspect of rodeo culture, I set those dynamics aside as much as possible to focus on how rodeo people define themselves apart from any outsider influence. Where the insider/outsider dynamics

are particularly salient, I will mention them again, but generally speaking I leave the outsider

perspectives out of the discussion.

ii. THE LASSO OF CITIZENSHIP

All of the official rodeo events that I attended (though not the social events or the

bullriding clinic) were initiated by a few opening announcements, closely followed by the Rodeo

Cowboy's prayer, which is more or less the same from rodeo-to-rodeo, regardless of the

association:

Our gracious and heavenly Father, we pause in the midst of this festive occasion, ever mindful and thoughtful of the guidance and many blessings you have bestowed upon us. As professional cowboys and cowgirls, Lord, we don't ask for any special favours. We ask only that you'll let us compete in this arena, as in life's arena. We don't ask to never break a barrier, to compete only in the daylight or to draw around a chute-fightin' horse, a steer that's hard to throw, or a bull that is impossible to ride. We only ask that you help us to compete as honest as the horses we ride, in a manner as clean and pure as the wind that blows across this great land of ours, until we do make that last ride, that is inevitable for us all to make, to that place up there where the grass is lush, green and stirrup-high, and the water runs cool, clear and deep; that you, as our last judge will tell us as we ride up that our entry fees have been paid. These things we ask in your gracious and heavenly name. Amen. 59

The prayer is widely attributed to a man named Clem McSpadden (Mikkelsen, 2008), a 60-year veteran rodeo announcer from Oklahoma who wrote the prayer in the 1950s to commemorate several of his friends who had fallen victim to the physical dangers of rodeo. Though rodeo events can differ in many ways from place to place, the rodeo cowboy's prayer seems to be a remarkably homogeneous aspect of rodeos as a whole and the hush that falls over the proceedings as it is read aloud has to be heard to be fully appreciated. It is obvious, even to an outsider, that the prayer is a reflection of the deep reverence that rodeo participants have for their sport; it also appears to be a strong religious touchstone for both the participants and the spectators, with a markedly Christian undertone.11

The cowboy's prayer is just one stark example of how the identity of the cowboy (and a

sort of "citizenship" in the "rodeo nation") is constructed, presented, and reinforced throughout

the various rituals of rodeo culture. The rodeo cowboy represents an identity position that is

rooted in dedication to the sport and a philosophy that mixes religion and rodeo culture together

into an all-encompassing worldview. Perhaps the most common discourse that I encountered

among my respondents (and perhaps the most unsurprising discourse as well) was the marking of

rodeo as a lifestyle. One of my respondents, a professional bullrider who also runs a bullriding

school and works for a prominent rodeo company, said bluntly:

Every weekend, I'm somewhere at a rodeo. During the summer during the week we're at rodeos. Pretty well that's all I do, every day, all day. I work for a rodeo company as well. [...] I eat, sleep, and breathe it. It's all I wanna do. Everywhere I go I wear a cowboy hat, boots and a belt buckle. I could go to downtown Toronto and this is exactly how I'm going to be dressed. Maybe a cleaner pair of jeans [laughs].

This type of dedication and passion for the sport was very typical of respondents, who alternately

made statements such as "It was my dream when I was 6 years old to jump out of planes for the

11 In addition to The Cowboy's Prayer, cowboy folklore contains many references to a "cowboy heaven" that is a sort of idyllic and pastoral image of country life where water is plentiful, grass is green, and the ranching isn't so arduous (Lawrence, 1982). 60 army and be a rodeo clown, so I did 'em both," or "Not for the money, not for fame, I just love it. It's something that gets in you and it's kind of an addiction," or even more simply, "It's what I was born to do. I love rodeos." Though the responses are so similar that they may start to sound like rhetoric as opposed to answers based on genuine emotions, my perception of the respondents' answers was that they sincerely meant what they said: Rodeo is a passion, a purpose, a way of life.

Though the rodeo participants tended to highlight the way that rodeo was a personal passion for them and part of a lifestyle, the importance of a family lineage in the rodeo culture cannot be overstated. Almost all of the respondents described some degree of family involvement in rodeo that encouraged them to start or acted as early exposure, and more than half of the respondents described their families as comprising several generations of rodeo folks.

One respondent, a professional bullrider with many years of experience, noted:

I was born into it. I'm three generations deep: My grandfather rodeoed [sic] in Ontario, My other grandfather rodeod in Colorado for years, and I just kind of grew up around it and that's how I got into it. [...] My younger sister, she barrel races and ropes, my mom used to barrel race and now she just times the events. My dad's a team roper and pickup man. My younger brother used to ride bulls, and now he's a professional bullfighter. Pretty well everyone I hang around is in rodeo somehow.

His experience is echoed in the words of a younger steer-wrestler, who described both his history of getting into rodeo, and his family's ongoing involvement:

I grew up in a rodeo family. Ever since I was two years old my mom has been taking me to horse shows and rodeos. As soon as I was old enough to ride steers, 7 years old, I was riding junior bulls. I did that until I was 16.1 started team roping when I was 13. When I was 18,1 started steer wrestling, which I do right now. It's been a family sport and a family tradition. [...] My dad has been involved in rodeos for twenty years or so, and that's how my mom and dad met, at a rodeo. It's a way of living for us, and it's good to make a business out of it.

Though the depth of their family experience and personal involvement with rodeos was

somewhat exceptional among respondents, they do represent the more "serious" participants, 61 who all told similar stories. One respondent, a former bullrider and team roper who now helps with bullriding clinics, was introduced to rodeo through a friend, and through the surrounding rodeo culture:

I got a guy up in Sundridge, a friend of mine, and he's a roper, a team roper. I've always kind of liked it, my family kept horses off and on, and I just wanted to give it a go. I don't do much competing anymore, but I come to [bullriding clinics] and videotape the guys so they can see what they're doing. [...] I just love the culture and music and all the other things that go with it. It's got its own culture. Music was probably the main way that I even heard about it. Country music, rodeo, the horses and all that kinda stuff, that cowboy kinda stuff. And I said to myself, 'hey, sounds kinda cool, I guess I'll give it a go-'

Still, even the less-directly immersed respondents had family stories they wanted to relay. In one

interview with a junior bullrider's mother, she reflected on her and her son's rodeo lineage:

Friends of ours have horses, and we've always been involved with horses, with trailriding. He [one of the family friends] is actually a pickup man and goes to all of the Rawhide Rodeos and so he started taking my son to junior steer ride. We did one session at someone's farm where he rode a few steers, and he just started going to rodeos. [...] I was a barrel racer but I wasn't a very good barrel racer. I didn't have a good horse. We were sorta the ones who went out with a clown hat on. For me, barrel racing was a 4-H activity. You had to do different things or different trail competitions where you had to ride your horse through a maze of tires and whatnot, and you had to make sure that your horse would go through, and that you could do it also on foot. Barrel racing was one of the activities. My parents had horses and part of having the horses was going to competitions.

Commenting further on her son's involvement with rodeo and how it is related to their family

dynamics, she noted:

He is a totally different kid, even in our family environment, or with work friends. When we're around our 'horse friends', he's much more laid back, he's more confident in himself [pause] it's like he's more at home, like he doesn't have to prove himself. Even with the grandparents, my husband's parents don't [do rodeo], they're beef farmers, and my son is more relaxed with my parents than he is with them. It's his realm. He just feels comfortable here.

The linking of family and rodeo seems particularly potent in the process of identity formation,

and some respondents even gestured towards the idea that they will be bringing their children 62 into rodeo when they get old enough. One respondent, a veteran bullfighter and rodeo clown who travels from rodeo to rodeo in a trailer with his young daughter, put his lineage in these words:

I was a professional bullrider for a long time. I quit when I received a gift [gestures towards his daughter], this little girl right here. I've been in the horse business all my life, riding horses around Ontario, and I've had all the chance in the world to ride whatever I wanna ride. Because of what my dad did for me, I've been able to do this, and I'll do the same for her.

His daughter always watches the events from the sidelines, and during the barrel racing events

(when the respondent's bullfighting services are not needed) he watches with his daughter and they talk in quiet tones about her future participation in the sport. In some of the most touching moments I witnessed during my time as a researcher, I watched her and her rodeo father actually exchange words during the events by sign language. The sign for "I love you" was the most often used sign.

Outside of references to the real family lineage there is a less common but equally

powerful discourse of the rodeo itself as a family of sorts. One respondent, who was actually the only interviewee who didn't have family members involved in the rodeo, said "I'm the only one

in my family that has anything to do with it. I'm kinda the black sheep of the family. Now I've

been doing this, going on 16 years, so this is pretty much my family." One of my respondents,

the mother of the junior bullrider described previously, also described the rodeo as her son's

"family" and gave this description of how the rodeo family plays itself out:

If you watch up on the chutes, all of the bullriders, even the 18-year-old younger bullriders, they're usually down with the junior steer riders, the 11 and 12 year old kids, teaching them. The older guys look out for the younger guys and teach them. They teach them things they don't need to know, but also teach them things they do need to know.

Indeed, the recognition that rodeo culture constitutes a sort of family for its participants is

widespread. One of the bullfighters I interviewed put it in these words: 63

The bullfighters that we have out there are amazing guys, you see what they do out there. My job is a little different. My job is to entertain the crowd. So when I play with the bull, I'm playing with him on my terms, nobody's in danger, really. Those guys look after the bull. They're the greatest guys in the world, they look after me, they put their life on the line, and look after everybody.

A former bullrider and team roper described both a sense of hierarchy and of camaraderie about the rodeo, saying that the "old guys help young guys and the young guys are willing to listen.

Everybody's glad to help each other out and promote the sport, support each other and compete against each other too." Likewise, in a lengthier statement in response to a question about travelling as a team, a lead member of the Canadian Cowgirls colour guard team, described her team's camaraderie and dedication:

As far as the travelling aspect, we have a big variance of ages for our girls that are with us and the youngest can be as young as 14 or 15 years old, so we have very strict rules that we have to follow. When we're at an event like this, usually the fairgrounds aren't in the best part of town, so our girls are not allowed to walk to the outhouse by themselves or anything like that. They stick together, buddy system, and we always make sure that there is a safe and dry place for our girls to crash. It's not a matter of "let's figure it out when we get there," we have friends that we rent trailers from. All of the girls are either full-time students or full-time employed. We load up Friday after work, and we'll be home by midnight Sunday [when the rodeo is done], if we're lucky, and most of us have to work again at 8:00 or 8:30am tomorrow morning. And we'll do it all over again next weekend. We love every minute of it.

Taken separately, these statements show the commitment and passion of all kinds of rodeo

participants, and also speak to what might be referred to as a "rodeo nation," a network of people

who know each other, compete against each other, and perhaps most importantly, help and

support each other based on their common interests, backgrounds, and goals. Hearkening back to

Benedict Anderson's definition of nation as an imagined political community based on notions

of boundary, sovereignty and fraternity, the rodeo nation delimits itself through ideological and

physical boundaries (the ideas and spaces of rodeo events), a kind of acting cultural sovereignty

(the more or less autonomous decisions about where and when to hold rodeos, and the power to define what they mean) and fraternity (the family atmosphere described above). In the following subsections, I look more closely at the hierarchy of citizenship that constitutes the rodeo nation, and begin to unpack some of the power dynamics within the "nation" itself. iii. MASCULINITY, MUSCLE, AND SACRIFICE

There is an obvious abundance of male energy that goes into the production and promotion of rodeo. The display (and tacit valorization and promotion) of masculinity within the rodeo is perhaps as old as the rodeo itself, and it very much feels like a "fish in water" situation where the participants and other associated rodeo people do not really think about it all that much, and thus seem to lack a basis for self-reflection about it. Even though women are very visible in the rodeo, and have been described bluntly as the "support system" of the rodeo

industry (Forsyth & Thompson, 2007: 400), questions to my respondents - whether male or

female - about masculinity and male/female dynamics tended to fall flat, either responded to

with one-line answers, or even briefer "I dunno"-type statements. This, of course, does not

necessarily mean that there is no self-reflection about it, but rather that it is seldom (if ever)

verbalized. The closest that one respondent came to verbalizing an opinion about masculinity and

manhood in rodeo was the statement: "There's no excuses in rodeo. You get out there and go.

Don't matter if it's raining or you're hurt or it's cold, you get out there and go. There's no

whining. Cowboy up, get out and go," and later adding a softer spin with the statement: "I just

love the good old boy mentality, just coming to hang out, everybody's on an equal playing field,

everybody does their best and offers what they have to give."

Still, ideas around masculinity and machismo do manifest themselves quite strongly in

rodeo culture, but under slightly different and less overt guises. The discourse of pain and

sacrifice (and its relationship to personal character and the ability to "cowboy up") in particular 65 is very powerful among rodeo participants, and most often manifests itself as a "tough guy" attitude that marks the cowboy as someone who can take a beating and come back for more. As rodeo is an extremely dangerous sport, the question that most (male) participants have in the back of their mind is not when they will get injured, but how badly.12 "If you want to try it, go for it, but expect to get hurt," said one respondent, echoing the words of another respondent who saw injury as inevitable, saying "I've lost all of my teeth, I've had more concussions than birthdays, [pause] If you're gonna play with bulls, you're going to get hurt."

Perhaps it is simply a logical conclusion then, but where pain is seen as inevitable, the amount of injuries a man can sustain and keep going becomes a strange point of pride. One respondent, a veteran bullfighter (and sometimes rodeo clown), stated confidently:

I've been pronounced dead, put in a coma, about 2,000 stitches. I had this asked to me not too long ago, so we clocked it up and I've broken 168 bones as of January of [2010]. [...] Not too many people make it fighting bulls and clowning, but I do both. The average person will do it 2-5 years. They just can't take the pain. You wake up every day in pain. You spend two nights straight driving to another show. You're kind of the unsung hero. Your best job is when nobody ever knew you were there. When nobody knew you existed, and nobody got hurt, you did your job. You may get hurt, and everyone goes to the ball or goes home, and you go to the hospital or lay in your truck, hurt. You just smile and go to the next show.

It is at once a thrilling and sad statement, as it shows the respondent's clear enjoyment of what he does (it is hard to imagine a person being injured that much and continuing to do something if they didn't enjoy it), but also a grave personal sacrifice in the sense of the amount of physical

pain and "unsung" sacrifice required to maintain a career. Still, a veteran bullrider described very clearly that the same danger that props up the intense machismo of the rodeo also serves as a

reminder of the passion that needs to be present to rise above the machismo and perform safely:

121 say that it is something that "most (male) participants have in the back of their minds" because it is traditionally the male-dominated sports - bullriding, bronc riding, steer wrestling - that hold the most potential for injury. Though the sports dominated by women - such as barrel racing - could present their own dangers, they do not tend to produce injuries in their human participants. 66

If you wanna do it, you have to really wanna do it for yourself, not to impress girls. It's gotta be something that just drives you crazy and it's all you think about, because it's such a dangerous sport. Every bull could be your last bull. You never know what could happen, and it happens [snaps fingers] like that. I had a buddy about 9 years ago who died and they brought him back. Another guy had a 50/50 chance of living from getting a horn in the face.

Again, it is at once thrilling, but also chilling. There is a seemingly inherent machismo and daredevil aspect built into the competition, but the events themselves are revered with a stark humility. The reverence towards the events is also passed down to the spectators, as one former team-roper and bullrider (who now helps with filming rodeos and going over the tapes with eager-to-learn junior riders) explained the respect he had for the participants in the ring:

One fella, one of the bullfighters, I was at a rodeo with him and just when the bull was about to get at him and nail him, he put his foot up on the bull's head and just pushed up. He came flying over the stands and I thought I was going to have to catch him, but he caught his foot in the barrier, stuck his hands out like spiderman and just stayed there. He smiled and winked at me. Anybody else would've been banged up, but that's just part of the daily rodeo routine.

He told this brief story with a gravitas in his voice that showed both a reverence for the danger presented by the animals, and a great respect for the bullfighters who risk great injury with every run, without any overt display of fear. A recent study noted that despite public perception of

high-injury rates and a general paucity of longitudinal analysis, cowboys (and some cowgirls)

had an injury rate of just over 3%, and that re-injury was uncommon. Still, the same study

admitted that "voluntary injury reporting remain[ed] a limitation" to gathering reliable data

(Butterwick, Hagel, Nelson, et al, 2002: 198). I myself witnessed many roughstock riders limp or

stumble away from the medic tent insisting that they were "fine" despite the protests of the

medics, who had no power to keep them there.

As the rodeo competitors and bullfighters shrug off the fear (and injuries) with an "all in

a day's work" manly attitude or simply acknowledge the danger present and soldier forward, 67 there is a real and palpable fear that trickles down to the girlfriends and mothers watching the events. One mother explained to me one of her son's proudest rodeo moments in these terms:

[My son] won the ORA junior steer riding in 2007, and that was pretty special for us. It's nice to see your kids achieve something that's so important to them. At the same time, I'd just love for him to quit. I just don't want him to get hurt. He gets hurt worse at rugby and hockey than he ever has [doing rodeo], touch wood. It's just a lot more dangerous. But he loves it, and there's far worse things that kids his own age or his friends are doing at home because they don't have a rodeo to run to on the weekend. So they're tripping around on the streets and they're into a little more than they should be.

Without prompting, she offered this advice to other parents in a related statement:

Make sure they actually learn from somebody who knows what they're doing, so that they can learn all the safety, have the proper equipment, and be a smart enough parent to let your kid know if they're not good enough. There's one young lad here, he's not good enough, and he's gonna get hurt, and it's those kids that shouldn't be doing it. Because you don't want anyone to get hurt. Sure, you have to let them do it to a certain extent, but if they're not good enough, it's not just a matter of, like hockey, where they'd be on the "A" team or the "B" team. It's whether they're going to be on top of the bull or under the bull.

That final statement, "whether they're going to be on top of the bull or under the bull," shows

that even those who do not directly participate in the more dangerous events know the stakes

involved. What's more, the masculine energy of the competition and the abject danger involved

seem to be passed down especially to the female spectators who watch "their men" compete. 13

All of this noted, it is equally important to note that women are not officially excluded

from the rodeo, but instead have had a place set aside for them (or looked at another way, carved

out for them by themselves), in which they participate. For example, the sport of barrel racing is

the quintessential female rodeo sport, has historically been one of the only pro-rodeo sports that

women are allowed to enter (Lawrence, 1982: 37), and it is in many ways just as fast-paced and

exciting as the roughstock events. In barrel racing, the senior levels are completely female, and

13 Though this manifested itself in only one official interview, I heard seemingly endless anecdotes from female spectators about watching their boyfriends/brothers/sons getting injured. 68 the presence of boys in junior level barrel racing is rare.14 Women also participate in rodeo as the majority of the carriers of the introductory colour guard that opens every rodeo15, and there is a considerable number of medics and judges who are women. This compartmentalization of women's roles is something that is, like masculinity, not something that seems to be critically reflected upon, and the women that I interviewed did not have much of an opinion on it. Even though it is well established that "scores of unknown women have contributed in less public ways to the success of the rodeo" (Forsyth & Thompson, 2007: 395), the women that I interviewed would never reflect on such dynamics without prompting. Whether it is an absence of a language to describe their position in rodeo culture, a desire not to upset the established order, or simply a genuine lack of concern for gender dynamics, most of the women that I interviewed were not interested in reflecting upon masculinity/femininity in the rodeo at all.

And yet, a small percentage of women try to break the gender barrier that keeps them from competing in the roughstock aspect of rodeo, and are willing to share their experiences. In keeping with the "strong, silent" style of many of the other cowboys I interviewed, one of the

female respondents (who also happens to be the only female bullrider competing on the 2010

Dodge Rodeo Tour) explained to me that "I've always watched guys do it, I've always had

friends that do it, I grew up around horses, and I just decided that I wanted to do it one day. Try

it, at least." She put her experience into a handful of strong words:

14 In all of the rodeos I attended, I did not see a single male barrel racer at the senior level, and other senior riders confirmed that there were no senior male barrel racers on either tour. In junior barrel racing, I witnessed only one boy who competed in one event, and he was given a polite but muted response from the crowd. 15 Participating in a colour guard for the rodeo opening - usually at the request of male organizers - is a point of pride for many women. One of the leaders of the Canadian Cowgirls colour guard team told me in an interview: "I was one of the founding members of the Canadian Cowgirls, so I've been on the team since the start, which was approximately 8 summers ago. That first full year that the cowgirls were performing, we approached Rawhide Rodeo and [the male organizer] and showed him what we had to offer and he gave us our start, actually. We were just a young team getting started and getting a name for ourselves. He saw the potential that we had and gave us the opportunity to travel with the Rawhide Rodeo." She related this story with near tears in her eyes and was very proud of her position in the rodeo. 69

It's hard [being a female bullrider]. Most times I don't fit in. There are guys who know me now, but guys who don't know me [pause] it took me a good two years to get respect from the guys, and to actually get them to help me, because at first it was like 'why is a girl doing it?', and lots of females have different opinions about a girl being back there with their boyfriends, you know? It's hard. But now it's good. Now they know I'm serious.

Her experience of having to earn her keep in the male dominated sport frames her as an outsider, but she also differentiated herself from another female bullrider who participates in the Rawhide

Rodeo tour by telling me that she did it because she loved it, while the other woman rode bulls simply to get attention, and made a big deal about the fact that she was a female bullrider. My respondent was alluding further to the idea that the best way to be a female bullrider is to just be one of the guys. Now, after two years on the tour, she says she's reached the level of camaraderie

where she feels that "We all take care of each other. We see each other every weekend, and we

make sure we take care of each other." While male roughstock competitors may feel that

connection right away, it takes a longer time for a woman to be brought into the fold, if ever.

What's more, when asked about her most memorable moment as a female bullrider, again the

discourse of pain and pride came to the fore when she said: "My most memorable moment was

probably the day that I got my ribs trampled on, and still stood up and walked away."

iv. THE QUESTION OF THE ANIMAL

Having made some preliminary observations on insider/outsider politics and the inner

structure of citizenship in the rodeo nation (including the issue of imbalance of power between

men and women), I now turn to an examination of the discourses of human-animal relations

relayed by my respondents. Rodeo events are sports that could not exist without the forced

participation of the animals involved. This is not something that is widely debated, or even

debatable. And yet, questions about animal use and abuse are seemingly not discussed at all 70 within rodeo culture. Behind the chutes, I never heard any discussion amongst cowboys, handlers, or stock contractors about the comfort or well-being of the rodeo animals. If these insiders were asked about animal issues, there was a fairly narrow range of discourse that emerged.

Outside of rodeo's inner circle, there is a self-conscious effort made to present a kind of animal-friendly image to the public. In perhaps its most contrived discourse, the rodeo language of "animal athletes" is one that is worth examining from a few different angles, because this discourse that is presented to the public also reflects back upon the inner circle of rodeo participants, who in turn perpetuate it further. The rodeo announcer makes repeated references to the "animal athletes" throughout each rodeo performance, whether during the timed events or the roughstock events, and sometimes when there are no winners in a given competition (for example, if none of the junior steer riders make a qualifying 8 second run), the announcer will often say that "the big winners today are our animal athletes." The animal athlete discourse trickles down from the public presentation of rodeo events into the consciousness of spectators on the sidelines. One former steer roper and bullrider (who now acts as a rodeo videographer) noted:

These animals are athletes. You can't have the event without them. They treat them very well, and they're in top notch physical condition or they don't come out. There are rules that you're not allowed to injure them, and if it appears that you've tried to injure them or harm them in any way, you're disqualified and probably kicked off the property.16 Even the bulls, which are probably the most ornery of the bunch, they still take care of them.

In this way, the "animal athlete" rhetoric is the key discourse that shapes the way that human- animal relationships are packaged and presented to the rodeo watching public.

16 In my entire time on both rodeo circuits, I only witnessed one person reprimanded for being too rough with an animal. During a calf-roping run, this cowboy was actually disqualified and the announcer said over the P.A. that it was for "unnecessary roughness." It is worth noting, however, that I witnessed (in my opinion) far more brutal calf- roping, steer wrestling, and bullriding runs, without any reprimand being given. Before moving ahead further, though, the use of the word "athlete" needs unpacking. In general, the word "athlete" is defined as "a person who is proficient in sports or other forms of physical exercise" (Oxford Dictionaries, 2010; my emphasis). The question of willingness or consent to participate in a particular sport is not part of the definition, for perhaps it seems like a strange and unnecessary question to ask. When and why would a participant in a sport not be willing to participate? Of course, this standard definition of "athlete" is based on a presumption of humanness, and it is difficult to imagine adult humans beings forced into participation in sports such as Hockey, Basketball, Baseball, and so on. However, if animals are truly considered to be "athletes," (or persons, as the combination of the discourse and definition would suggest) their willingness - or lack thereof - to participate in the adversarial and dangerous events of rodeo demands a closer examination.

With the rodeo being such a carefully managed visual event, it is worth noting first and foremost that the "animal athletes" are almost always presented without history or context.

Though the announcer may note that this Cowboy is a local boy or that this Cowgirl has travelled a great distance to be here and this is her first semi-pro barrel race ("so let's give her a big round of applause"), the stories of the animals, where they came from and how they got there, is never told. There is a small amount of recognition that the animals (or "stock") are brought in by a stock contractor, who is paid a certain amount of money to bring a certain number of animals to the event, in healthy condition, to act as competitors. The rodeo announcer may make a statement that it is these animals' first time at a rodeo, or that these bulls are a particularly ornery stock, but beyond that, the animals are discussed as a mass, and rarely (if ever) individualized.

This discussion of the animals as a mass continues when the bridging the topic of animal welfare, where more facets of the "animal athlete" discourse emerge. Criticism about the 72 animals' welfare and treatment before and during a rodeo event was responded to at length by one of the professional bullriders (with over a decade of professional experience) that I interviewed:

Most of the people that I've found that are opposed to it don't know anything about it. It's just all hearsay and they're uneducated about it, and the statements they all make are uneducated statements. If people came out and really sat there and watched it [pause] we don't do nothin' that's gonna harm these animals, they're our livelihood. We take care of them. They eat better than I do! I guarantee that. They get better care by us and the stock contractors, and if it wasn't for rodeo, these animals wouldn't exist. These are horses you can't break. They're mean bulls that are bred to do that. It's genetics, just like a racehorse has, for these bucking animals and if we weren't riding these bulls, someone would've killed them as calves for veal or something like that, so it gives them a job.

Later in the conversation, he continued:

There's so much time and effort and thought that's gone in to breeding these bulls, the way they're bred to be the best, people just care about 'em. Being a stock contractor's not really profitable, but because they love the animals, they love the sport, they get such good care, it's unreal. They get their feet done every 6 months, they get the best feeds there is. Guys have gone through with scientists and made feed plans for these bulls to better them, and they make 'em stronger with a better muscle build. There's a lot that's gone into it. It's not just something we go and do with some old ratty farm bulls. These bulls are all born and raised to do this, and they love it. They like it as much as we do.

His statement was echoed by almost all of my other respondents. A veteran professional rodeo

clown gave the following description:

Unfortunately, and not to be negative, but uneducation is probably the main reason they say that. When someone makes an assumption based on lack of education, they make a false assumption. If you're going to spend $20,000 on a bull, are you gonna take care of it? You're gonna take real good care of it. That's how these people make their livelihood, and how I make my livelihood, so why not take care of that thing that's helping you go down the road? If something gets hurt, they'll stop the show and the vet will come in and take care of it. It's ethical, and it's just the right thing. You've seen these animals. How many of these horses are small and skinny? They're big, huge, muscled-up animals, and it's because they're well-fed and well taken care of.

Further on, the mother of a 17-year-old junior bullrider gave a very similar statement as well:

The livestock here is brought in usually by one or two owners, they own the livestock. If they don't look after their stock they're not gonna make any money off of their stock. I know that, just like dog farms or whatever, there are some good ones and some bad ones, 73

and probably there are rodeos out there that have poor livestock. So far, at any rodeo I've been at I haven't seen any animals [pause] sometimes you'll get a bull that maybe breaks a horn, well that's like a kid falling down and breaking his arm - it happens. If it's someone who looks after their livestock, they're well trained, they run the animals around to train them, how to go in, how to go out [of the chutes], so that no one gets hurt, so that they don't get hurt. I think for the most part they're probably looked after well, because, well, if they're not looked after, they're not going to make any money using them.

A female bullrider put her opinion in more succinct and concrete terms:

[People concerned about animal welfare at rodeos] need to come live on a horse ranch and see how the animals really are treated. Me being a horse owner, if I see a cut on my horse, I'm freaking out, I'm calling a vet. These animals mean more to us than ourselves, you know, they come first, over anything.

A bullrider, bullfighter, and rodeo clown put his perspective on animal welfare in these words:

How many car wrecks have you ever been in? You don't want it to happen. There's nothing really in rodeo that's brutal. It's nothing that you wouldn't see [pause] people eat beef, they eat hamburgers, they eat chicken. It really doesn't matter what it is. They catch those animals and these are events that these people use, day in and day out to work cattle, doctor cattle and you know, to [pause] they're training these animals. You don't see them roping something and dragging it out here on its back half-dead. They're trying to lead it out so it understands that's the way out. It's a learning process for them too. And they're never rough with them.

And finally, a mother of a young bullrider who had competed in rodeos at a younger age was the only respondent who expressed any concern for the animals in an immediate sense, outside of her standardized response mentioned previously said:

The events are exciting. It bothers me. [pause] I'm a beef farmer. We have animals, we have livestock. I hate seeing the animals jumping around in the crates, but most of the time they don't get hurt. And if they do, they get the vet.17

What these statements reveal is a virtually closed discourse about the "animal athletes" that is common among rodeo's inner circle, regarding the status of rodeo animals both inside and

17 At a rodeo that I attended after this interview, I found out that the smaller rodeo tours her son participates on do not actually require vets to be present ringside, but that they are "on call" in case anything happens. The larger and more public rodeo events such as the Calgary Stampede, however, do have teams of vets waiting ringside in case of emergency, but they only ensure animal care in the event of injury, not in the moment-to-moment experiences of the animals. 74 outside the ring. The contents of the discourse reveal a deeply engrained position related to animal ethics, and human-animal relations.

First and foremost, the discourse centres on the issue of financial gain and animal use.

The stock contractors who bring animals to the rodeo are seen as business people who are selling

(or rather, renting) a product - their stock - for use in the rodeo, and it is seen as incumbent upon them to provide the best quality product to demand the best possible price (and thus create the best possible show). This focus on financial gain is bolstered by statements such as "if we weren't riding these bulls, someone would've killed them as calves for veal or something like that, so it gives them a job," the implication being that being bred as a rodeo bull is actually a favourable fate to that of other male bovine in the larger North American farming industry. 1 fi

What both of these aspects of the central discourse reveal in their subtext is that the question of

animal use itself is not a question at all. Even though one respondent described being a stock

contractor as "not really profitable," the issue of making a livelihood from the use of animals is

one that implies the philosophical position that these animals are ours to use, and that we decide

their fate based on what sort of financial gain can be made from them.

Where the discourse becomes more complicated is when the central issue of money and

use becomes conflated with the issue of "care" or "welfare." It is arguable that there are just as

many definitions of "animal welfare" as there are people. In many ways, terms such as "good

treatment," "welfare," or "care" are subjective and nebulous terms that elude solid definition.19

18 The admission that the bulls would otherwise be raised as veal was something that shocked me, because among animal rights activists there is a fairly well known argument that veal is a by-product of the dairy industry, as male calves cannot be put back into milk production. Having confirmation of this fact (that seems little know to most non- animal activists) from my respondent was surprising. 19 Of course, there are legal definitions of animal welfare (see Wepruk, 2004) that do act as some sort of "official" definition in cases where someone might be charged with animal cruelty, but I would argue that the legal definitions of animal welfare/cruelty have little to do with the definitions of animal welfare/cruelty espoused by individuals. Furthermore, even these "official" definitions are vague and open to definition. On a federal level, legislation protecting farm/rodeo animals prohibits cruelty that is "willful or without lawful excuse" and also prohibits "undue 75

The conflating of animal use and financial gain with animal care indicates that there is indeed an

ethological knowledge (albeit a limited one) of farmed animals, such as what foods will help

them be healthy and strong, what kind of exercise they need to maintain musculature, and so

forth. This type of knowledge should not be discounted. However, it is a curious logical leap to

claim that the application of proper nutrition and exercise regimens is the same as showing an

ethic of care to the animals or taking their welfare into deeper consideration. The subtext of the

statement is something like "to perform rodeo tasks well, the animals need proper nutrition and

exercise; to make money, the stock contractors need their animals to perform well, and therefore,

they provide the proper nutrition and exercise to their animals." In this sense, what the discourse

of livelihood linked to animal care reveals is a recognition of the animals being necessary to

perform the sport; in the same way that sticks, pucks and skates are required to play hockey, and

that the better the equipment is used, the better the performance might be, the better the animals

are fed and exercised, the better they will perform in the ring. The difference between rodeo

animals and the equipment used in some other sport, however, is that the rodeo animals are

sentient beings, and so the scrutiny on their use should be much greater (and justified) than

scrutiny on other sports equipment.

Secondly, and perhaps equally important (though less controversial, in some respects), is

the idea that outsiders to rodeo culture are ignorant about the needs and welfare of rodeo

animals. This discourse dictates that outsiders either don't actually know what really goes on, or

misinterpret what they have seen in anti-rodeo campaigns. This is a fairly straightforward

argument in many ways and doesn't warrant a great deal of explanation. As mentioned

previously, the rodeo nation is extremely wary of foreign influence, and takes great pains to put

suffering during transport and loading" (Wepruk, 2004: 1; author's emphasis). The fact that these definitions use language that is open to interpretation is crucial in their application. It's also worth noting that across Canada in 2002, no province exceeded a rate of 1.6% charges per investigations (Wepruck, 2004: 3). 76 up a veil of spectacle in the way of any true understanding of the animals' experiences. More controversial, though, is that this aspect of the discourse suggests that outsiders don't have a true ethological knowledge of rodeo animals, and thus can't judge what happens to them properly, even if they see it. This discourse is not exclusive to rodeo, though, and has been noted in varying ways in examinations of other aspects of agriculture and pastoralism (Mullin, 1999). It also echoes my earlier discussion of images, reality, and interpretation, and plays on the fact that when it comes to images of animals, we can't always be sure that what we're seeing is what we think it is, and we often have a psychological investment in interpreting images in our favour

(Fudge, 2005). As someone who did indeed "come on down" to the rodeo to observe, I didn't simply watch the events and have all of my animal cruelty questions vanish. My respondents sensed this to different degrees, and would sometimes make a point in their off the record comments to tell me that a certain behaviour that a bull was exhibiting wasn't "fear" but

"excitement," and so forth. Even as I was getting an up-close-and-personal look at the situation of rodeo animals, it was constantly suggested that what I was seeing wasn't what it appeared to

be. Even as a temporary insider, I was an outsider by virtue of my opinion. This obvious division

between rodeo insiders and rodeo outsiders reinforces the boundary between the rodeo nation

and everyone else, and also speaks to an issue of cultural sovereignty in the rodeo nation. The

subtext is always that, unless you absolutely live it, there is no way you can know what the animals are thinking and feeling, and therefore you don't belong to the group. Membership in the rodeo cultural is conditional based on your adherence to an ideological position.

The third aspect of the animal athlete discourse that fits into this category is the idea of

having to train the animals to do what they do, and where to go. Though this is framed as a sort

of voluntary (or at the very least non-violent) process, there is actually a good deal of visible 77 stress that is induced as this happens. As an outsider who did indeed "really sit there and watch

it," as was recommended by many of the rodeo people I spoke with both on and off the record,

some of the things that I witnessed during my attendance at rodeos clearly indicated that

participation in rodeo activities does not come naturally to the animals. The prevailing discourse

among cowboys, exemplified by a veteran bullrider's statement that "these bulls are all born and

raised to do this, and they love it. They like it as much as we do," is one that might make sense

outside of the rodeo, but is contradicted by the behaviour of both cowboys and animals when the

rodeo is actually happening.

In many ways, the most popular rodeo events are built expressly around the "animal

athletes'" desire to not participate. On the surface, roughstock events such as bronc and bull

riding feature cowboys whose goal it is to stay atop the animal that is struggling in a violent way

to get them off. The event ends when the animal succeeds in removing the cowboy who was

aggravating them, or when the cowboy has ridden for the maximum of 8 seconds, and has thus

achieved a qualifying ride. In these events, the announcer will sometimes characterize the

"animal athletes" as having a particularly aggressive demeanor, or using the cliche rodeo

expression of being "born to buck." In this discourse, rodeo animals (and historically, other

frontier animals such as coyotes and wolves) have been defined as dangerous and in need being

controlled, serving as "metaphors for oppositional thinking and feeling" (Emel, 1998: 112).

Beneath the outward image of the event, however, it is fairly obvious that the animals' demeanor

and desire to struggle is not necessarily part of their nature. Animals that are being prepared to

go into (and out of) the chutes for a bucking competition are not-so-subtly goaded into an

angered state. It is very common for cowboys to yell at, kick, spur, prod, pull hair, and slap or

punch the bulls and horses in the chutes as they mount them and prepare for the ride. This often results in visible agitation in the animals where there was none before, as they struggle in the chutes and at least a few times in every rodeo event, try to actually climb out of the chutes. In perhaps the most obviously rough treatment I witnessed - of a bull who had simply decided to lay down in the chute so that it couldn't be ridden - the organizer of a weekend bullriding clinic steadied himself with his hands on either side of the chute, and jumped up and down repeatedly on the bull's head with his cowboy boots. Again, this was all because the bull simply laid down in the chute in a rather docile fashion and wouldn't get up. In the actual rodeo, when a bull or horse lays down in the chute (this is something that happens once or twice per event), there is an effort to hide them from the audience's view while prods and boots are used to rouse the horse or bull up again. During the official rodeo events (as opposed to the bullriding clinic where I first witnessed this animal behaviour) the audience is waiting, not so patiently, to be entertained, and a horse or bull that lies down and needs to be put back on his feet in a hurry, to maintain the flow of events.

This type of "coaxing" is, of course, a deeply engrained aspect of the rodeo and most of the respondents didn't see those types of things as overtly cruel because they don't damage the

animals in any kind of serious way. Fear, stress, and minor cuts and scrapes are not seen as

cruelty, and the aggression shown towards the bulls and horses (as well as to the junior steers

that are involved in steer wrestling and calf-roping) is seen as no different from the aggression

that two opposing teams might show each other in a game of hockey. Shouts of "Be aggressive!"

and "Watch your spot!" (referring to the spot on the back of a bull's neck that the riders are

instructed to keep in visual contact in order to stay balanced) saturate the air just before a

bullrider and his charge bust out of the chute. Aggression is not seen as something to be

concerned about, and is in fact required if a cowboy or cowgirl wants to be successful in these 79 events. Likewise, the events serve as an important outlet for the cowboys' aggression. As one cowboy told me: "I started team roping because it involves a bit more aggression and more of an

adrenaline rush. I need that."

I have thus far been dealing with issues of more-or-less overt cruelty, and the roughstock

events that put animals in direct physical danger. Still, there are other issues of animal welfare in

the rodeo that are far less visible, and deserve to be addressed. The less-obvious issue that I

encountered most was a discussion of the fear and stress involved with horses in the noisy and

crowded atmosphere of the rodeo ring, and the measures taken to reduce or mitigate this fear as

much as possible. One of the more experienced Canadian Cowgirls that I interviewed described

how grueling the rodeo can be for the team's horses, even though they aren't doing roughstock

style bucking events or even racing them around the barrels:

We do demand a lot of our horses, and it takes a special kind of horse to be able to do this sort of thing. We do earplug all of our horses, it's a requirement. When we ride by those speakers it hurts our ears, and the horses' hearing is much more sensitive. Any parades or performances our horses go in with earplugs. That does help a lot. The horses have to get used to it, and we ask a lot out of them. A lot of the horse and rider combos have a bond, and our horses trust us and we just get it done.

She went on further to describe the way that horses are selected to be in the rodeo, and that many

horses simply cannot be trained to accept the stresses and rigours of the ring:

Sometimes, when a girl tries out for our team, she may make the team, but the horse may not. It's not a package deal. There are a lot of different aspects that can be an issue. Some horses can't cut it because we demand a lot of our horses, it's hot and we're performing a lot and running and some just lose condition and can't do it. It's high stress. If my horse comes up lame, I'd be riding someone else's horse, if they lend me a horse.

Regardless of whether the horses are theirs or not though, the respondent emphatically added:

All of the girls on the team are very capable riders, and they don't just get on a horse and ride in a show. They usually have some warm-up time and practice time with that particular horse just to figure out their buttons. 80

This type of acknowledgement of how the horse experiences the rodeo environment, and what can be done to make it a less traumatic experience for them, begins to approach what I think is more akin to an ethic of "animal welfare," though it could also be argued that a truly caring perspective would be not to put them in that environment in the first place.

The recognition of the horses' experience of the rodeo ring (and the argument that perhaps it would be better if they were left out entirely) is further supported by the Cowgirls' and horses' experience of "flag breaking." In one respondent's words:

Flag broken means that your horse is not afraid to carry a flag. A horse is a prey animal, so things being above them is kind of an issue for them sometimes, so you have to teach them to accept it.

The other Canadian Cowgirl that I interviewed explained the process further:

There are a lot of different methods and it really depends on the horse. It's a lot of leading the horse and telling the horse where to go. When I first started my horse with a flag, he had no problem with it from the start and I could just put the flag right on him and we could tell that. With other horses you need to work with them, and you need to have a couple of girls on horseback, and there are different techniques of doing that depending on the personality of the horse.

Again, even the simple recognition that different horses require different kinds of training and

that each horse will have a slightly different experience of the training is a marked difference

from the way that it seems that the rest of the rodeo animals are treated. This is not to say that it

is desirable, in the end, to put the horses through that, but it begins to approach an ethic of

mutual respect that Donna Haraway (2003) calls the "joint dance of being" (62) when she

describes her experiences with her dogs in agility training. The bond between human and non-

human animal can be a deep and meaningful one, and the relationship between horses and riders

has been highlighted as one where virtually invisible communication regularly takes place and

that this generates a great deal of respect and empathy (Brandt, 2004). Unfortunately, most of the 81 sports in rodeo are do not depend on respect or empathy, or even clear communication. Instead, they tend to be borne of brute force and coercion.

All of this begs the question(s), though, is the consent of the animals to participate in the events something that needs to be considered at all? Is their lack of visibility outside the ring

(and the lack of context for their life before they entered the ring) really a cause for concern? Is their use justified so long as the elements of stress, fear and injury that seem prevalent in rodeo are addressed? At the outset of this project, I noted that I would not be debating the "rightness" or "wrongness" of the rodeo, and so I still leave these questions unanswered and unaccounted for. Even though I won't answer those questions, I feel it is important to let them hang in the air, in the same way they hang in the air above the rodeo nation, posed by outsiders to a culture that they are not a part of and don't fully understand.

Whether it is sincere or simply a convenient rhetoric that masks an ethic of control and use, the discourse of "animal athletes" is a very powerful one that places rodeo animals in a very strange spot in terms of the rodeo nation. Though they are vital to the rodeo experience and the rodeo ritual could literally not go on without them, there is no way that the rodeo animals are offered citizenship into the nation. Though the "animal athlete" discourse positions the animals as partners of a sort, their forced participation puts them third on the hierarchy below women, and then men at the top (there may be even further layers above them if one considers children and other groups as subsections of the already entrenched and discussed male/female divisions).

The discourse of "animal athleticism" is both based on and a reinforcement of the division that needs to exist in order for the economics of the rodeo to fiinction. In the political economy of rodeo, it is the "animal athletes" unpaid hard labour (including their fear, stress and injuries) that 82 serves as the bottom of the pyramid upon which further layers of the financial pyramid can be built. v. THE NATIONAL ECONOMY

The rodeo, like other organized sports - and like other nations - is its own economic entity and the state of human-animal relations in rodeo is very much dependent on the economics of the events. Unfortunately, in the same way that newspapers do not sell news, but rather sell an audience to advertisers (Chomsky, 1997), the purpose of the rodeo is not really to sell the events to the audience, but rather to sell the audience to the sponsors (Hibdon, 1989). Attracting large sponsors - which also means attracting big audiences - has to be a primary objective, because the events are not profitable on their own. As one respondent, a steer wrestler and operations manager for one of the major Ontario rodeo tours, told me: "It's just like hockey, every year we change up rules to fit the sport, keep it exciting, we're always trying to improve it, and animal safety and animal care is our number one concern." Keeping things exciting and attracting the crowd is absolutely key.

Though it has been stated in preceding sections that some of the key positions in rodeo aren't profitable (two among them being the crucial positions of cowboy/cowgirl and stock contractor), there is certainly money to be made, and it is made at the expense of the participants more than any others, it seems. Despite assurances that "[Rodeo] is really growing huge now.

The sport has really grown in the last few years. It's getting bigger and bigger and more people

-JA are getting involved," it is important to remember that the perceived growth in the sport doesn't necessarily translate into greater money for the participants.

201 say "perceived growth" here because I have been unable to find evidence to either support or contradict this statement. Outside of the Calgary Stampede, Canadian rodeos still fly under the radar of any significant media coverage or public interest. 83

One of my respondents, part-time steer roper and full time operations manager for a major rodeo tour in Ontario, went far to summarize the economics of the rodeo in a response to a question that I posed about making money as a cowboy:

I don't make a living from competing, because I'm only competing at a semi-professional level. It's sort of like the OHL or AHL compared to the NHL. You still have jobs during the week, and you can win money on the weekends to help pay for your costs, but it's not until the high pro levels that it starts paying. But even at the pro level the guys are always broke at the end of the year because they're travelling 100,000 miles per season, living out of a trailer and your horse is retired at the end of the year, you're burnt out. It's a hard way to make a living, for sure. The way that I make a living and that my family makes a living is that we produce the [name withheld] Rodeo Tour - which puts on the top 15 rodeos in Ontario - and we have a big sponsorship program, so when an organization like a Lion's Club wants to do a rodeo as a fundraiser, we give them a complete marketing package, to produce the rodeo and make it successful. We do websites, print ads, and all of that kind of stuff. We give [local rodeo committees] the tools so that they can make an event succeed. We've had committees that have been with the tour for 13 years, and they obviously do really well for their charities.

In his model, it is the rodeo tour, the local rodeo committees, and the local charities make the

money, while the cowboys and cowgirls essentially gamble with their bodies to get a limited

prize purse at the end. As one bullrider told me in fairly stark terms, "You can make a good bit of

money in the rodeo if you go places. If you're good enough, you can make a living at it. If you're

injured, you don't get nothin'. You can also show up and ride one, and if you don't have enough

points, you don't get paid either." For the cowboys and cowgirls, it is an all or nothing game, and

what's more, the public face of the rodeo makes no mask to hide this fact. It is common for

rodeo announcers to follow an unsuccessful run by a cowboy or cowgirl with a call for crowd

appreciation, saying, "let's make some noise for [name withheld], because all they will go home

with today is your applause." Of course, the spectacle is structured - and the norms of rodeo are

long established - so that an announcement such as this doesn't provoke a second thought, or

seem like it speaks to a power imbalance in the economy of the rodeo nation. As presented to the crowd, the economics of the rodeo seem entirely reasonable and are normalized through the presentation.

The participants on the inside know the stakes and still choose to participate, often at a great cost to themselves. Whether this is because of the belief that they are good enough to make money (at least some of the time, as nobody makes money at every event) or just sheer passion,

rodeo participants who continue for any length of time learn to develop a shrewd sensibility in

spite of their desire for community. When asked about the differences between rodeo tours, the

first thing that one of the bullriders that I interviewed remarked upon was how cowboys were

paid:

Our [Rawhide Rodeo] money stays in Ontario and it's handed to you in cash at the end of the day. With the Dodge Tour, the money is sent out to Saskatchewan and it comes back to you in the mail as a cheque a couple of weeks later, and I'm not a big fan of that.

It's not surprising then that, considering the incredible physical danger involved (and the

overhead costs associated with travelling from event to event), at least some cowboys and

cowgirls would prefer an instant cash payment to having to waiting for a paycheque in the mail.

Continuing the conversation about his efforts to teach younger bullriders through weekend

bullriding clinics on his ranch, he said "The way I look at it is, we're building the sport, and I'm

gonna win money off some of these guys, or some of them could end up taking my money too.

It's building the sport and getting more guys involved." This is the same respondent who told me

that most of the time most of the participants don't get paid at all, so in all of this, he is acutely

aware of the math involved in rodeo economics.

Some other cowboys and cowgirls, though, develop a rather hardened outlook on their

participation, their fellow participants and the community they belong to. One respondent, a

sometimes rodeo clown, sometimes bullfighter, sometimes bullrider, relayed the following with a 85 smile: "I don't care if they call me a rodeo clown or a bullfighter. As long as they write a cheque,

I don't really care." Another one of my respondents, in hushed tones and with the explicit instructions that they didn't want to be identified in any way with this statement, said to me bluntly, "Nobody in the rodeo is your friend. Of course we look out for each other and we'll go out for beers and whatnot. But at the end of the day, we're competing against each other. We may hang out together, but that doesn't mean we're friends." In this sense, the members of the rodeo nation are acutely aware of the space they occupy and what they're worth to the industry and to each other. It is not surprising that, given the brutal economics of the rodeo nation, this type of perception exists.

As mentioned in previous sections, rodeo is often an inherited love and a childhood-to- adult passion for the cowboys and cowgirls involved. As with many childhood passions, which

kids can participate in without the concern for commerce and financial considerations, (as one

respondent told me "I grew up on a farm. When I was 17 years old I started working for Rawhide

rodeo in Western New York, living on the farm, taking care of 200 head of horses, 50-100 head

of bull, and by day we did farm work, and went to rodeos, that's all we did."), when those

passions are carried into adulthood, the financial considerations become much more central and

of greater consequence. I would say that most of the adult cowboys and cowgirls I met are still

compelled by their childhood passion to compete in these events, and they end up pouring a great

deal of money into what is essentially a very dangerous hobby. They compete at a semi-pro level

(most of the rodeos in Ontario are semi-pro, while the various rodeo circuits in Western Canada

and the US have more pro-rated events), and try their hardest, but ultimately, they cannot depend

on the rodeo for an income, despite the dangers involved. There is never a guarantee of income for cowboys, and this often keeps "amateurs" from rising into the professional ranks (Hibdon,

1989; Forsyth & Thompson, 2007).

It is important to note that there are many support staff members that are hired to make each rodeo event run smoothly, from people that take admission at the gates to the medics to the sound technicians to the judges. They receive a paycheque at the end of the day, no matter who wins. One of the more dangerous guaranteed paid jobs in the rodeo is that of the bullfighters and rodeo clowns,21 the men who oversee the roughstock events and ensure that the riders get out of harm's way when their rides are over. It would seem like a safe assumption to think that these men - who are in the ring for almost the entire rodeo event, who place themselves in between the bulls and riders during every single run - would be paid reasonably well for their work. Instead, many of the bullfighters that I spoke with say that it is up to them to negotiate prices individually, and that there can be a great disparity between the danger involved and the compensation given. When asked about what advice he would have for anybody thinking of getting into bullfighting, one of the bullriders and clowns gave me these words of wisdom:

Don't just do every show you can. They'll hire you for $50, and when you're broken and you can't do it, they'll find another guy for $50. Unfortunately, it's a business, and they know that. Do your job well, market yourself good, and you're an asset to their business.

The self-promotion he mentioned is apparent with any of the more popular rodeo clowns, who maintain their own in-depth websites (often geared towards a young audience), giving their personalities an added dimension of interactivity. As the rodeo nation grows and the audiences expand, the rodeo clowns take it upon themselves to make sure that the demand for their personalities grows as well.

21 Rodeo clowning is only slightly different from bullfighting, in that the clowns are also responsible for entertaining the crowd between runs and maintaining a banter with the rodeo announcer. Though the bullfighters are, for all intents and purposes, mute during the rodeo, the rodeo clown performs many of the same duties but also has a public persona or character that they perform to the crowd. 87

The subject of growth of the rodeo seems to be a subject of some confusion. Is rodeo growing? Is it bigger than ever? Speaking with some of the rodeo organizers off the record, many of them were adamant that their numbers were consistently getting bigger, and that the sport was growing. When asked about strategies for growth, one of the fulltime bullriders that I interviewed was quite certain that "[Rodeo] just needs more airtime on TV. I don't think it'll ever be as big as hockey, but it's gotta get out there more, and the more people see it, the more people will get into it. In Ontario, there's not as much interest or publicity [as in the US]."

Another respondent echoed his sentiments but lamented the lack of coverage, stating "We see

more of the American PBR [Professional Bullriders, Inc.] on television than we do of the

Canadian associations." It seems that while the organizers suggest the rodeo is growing, the

lower rungs of the rodeo ladder recognize there is much work to be done in spreading the word.

Regardless of whether the rodeo is growing or not, it is apparent that the economics of

the rodeo, like the economics of any other nation, are rife with inequality at the most

fundamental levels, and that growth doesn't correct the inequality. In this sense, there is nothing

special about the economics of the rodeo nation in comparison to other nations. Also, like other

"national" economies, those who put their bodies on the line are rarely compensated to the same

degree as those who produce the grander spectacle. Though cowboys and cowgirls put their

physical well-being at constant risk, they also deal with the most amount of "luck" in earning

their money, and the stakeholders who arguably face the most constant hardship - the animals

involved - are not really "compensated" at all. Though they may be fed well and given shelter,

there is no reward for their (forced) participation in the events. In fact, the fate that many of the

rodeo animals face when the season is over - the slaughterhouse - is perhaps the most blunt

reminder of where the economics of the rodeo ultimately end. 88

vi. DRAWING THE BORDERS

Having sketched out some of the defining cultural aspects of the "rodeo nation," including how the rodeo nation both mimics and deviates from Anderson's broad definition in terms of citizenship and identity, I turn now to look at how rodeo culture and Canadian culture collide both inside and outside of the ring. I see the "rodeo nation" as a sort of "nation within a

nation" in the sense that the people who comprise it also hold a more "official" citizenship in the

actual nation state of Canada. It is not the same as Canada's other most prominent "nation within

a nation" of Quebec, in the sense that the rodeo nation will never seek to separate, and doesn't

see itself as a "distinct society" in the same way, but the rodeo nation does remain a somewhat

discreet entity, as it maintains its own mini-economy, social structure, and symbols around which

people gather and define themselves. Even still, nestled within the more clearly defined

Canadian nation, the rodeo nation draws from Canadian norms, traditions, and symbols as one of

the sources of cultural definition.

Generally speaking, my respondents did not make a clear or coherent connection between

Canadian identity and rodeo culture. When asked about the links that they saw and felt between

themselves as Canadians and themselves are rodeo people, they were often at a loss to put the

two together. It was somewhat confusing as the researcher, then, to receive seemingly befuddled

answers about Canadian identity while simultaneously seeing Canadian nationalism so deeply

imbued into the spectacle of the rodeo. The rodeo ritual invariably starts with music, a display of

"colour guard" cowgirls carrying Canadian flags (alongside flags with major sponsors' logos),

and the Cowboy's Prayer. After all of this, the crowd is asked to "rise and remove cover" for the

singing of the national anthem. Just before the national anthem of one of the rodeos I attended, 89 the announcer made his feelings about Canada abundantly clear within the first five minutes of action:

[Announcing] is a job I get to do all across North America, and for the first time in 2010, I get to do it inside of my own province, and my own country, the greatest country in the world: Canada. At this time, I wanna pay some homage to this great country of ours and I'll ask you, my friends and my neighbours, to help me unite under one flag. Let's rise, stand, and remove cover, for the number one song in our nation's playlist. This is our Canadian national anthem.

This unambiguous set of statements was followed by a decidedly "country" version of "Oh,

Canada!", with two male vocalists using common and recognizable harmonic intervals from the

"country-western" genre, as well as adding a kind of southern US rural "twang" to their voices.

When the anthem ended, the announcer reiterated emphatically: "Proud to be Canadian on a

Sunday afternoon in Lindsay, Ontario, Canada." This ritualistic celebration of Canadian identity

at the beginning to the rodeo repeated itself almost identically at every rodeo event that I

attended.

The Canadian Cowgirls colour guard, a team of about 20 women who travel to rodeos

across Ontario, other parts of Canada, and also into the US, is probably the most prominent

example of a group that espouses the symbols and rhetorics of Canadian identity into their

performances. Though other cowboys and cowgirls may wear red and white chaps, or

incorporate a maple leaf into some aspect of their dress, the Canadian cowgirls go all out, with

flag-bearing horses each carrying an identical Canadian flag, complete and matching red-and-

white outfits, and entrance music with lyrics that talk about being proudly Canadian, before they

stand in line with their horses for the national anthem. They usually ride at the beginning and

closing of the rodeo event, and they provoke a very passionate response from the audience, most

of which seems to stand and cheer at the mere sight of the Canadian Cowgirls team. 90

Outside of their effect on the crowd, however, the Cowgirls themselves have a very deep experience of the promotion of their national identity surrounding their performances. In interviews with two Canadian Cowgirls (one who had been with the cowgirls since their inception about a decade back) and another who had only been with the team for two years, they made fairly obvious statements about what motivates them to do what they do ("You always have to represent where you are," said one, about the Cowgirls' main purpose), but they also reflected upon their past experiences and what being a Canadian Cowgirl had meant to them. The more experienced of the pair related her fondest memory:

I was with the team when we travelled to the Calgary Stampede in 2006, and one of my favourite parts of that trip was riding in Banff for Canada Day. I've never lived out west, but I've always loved it, and so going out there was really awesome. When we rode in the Stampede we won the Best Horse Entry and the Best Mounted Colour Guard awards.

It was unsurprising that one of her highlights was riding on Canada Day, in addition to

performing in Canada's biggest rodeo event. What was surprising, however, was hearing about the incredibly warm reception that the Cowgirls get when they perform south of the border:

The Americans are an awesome audience. They love us. We love Canada, we love our country, and we love representing our country in the US, and sometimes the girls are sad to come home because we're, like, famous down there. We were at a show called Equine Affair and we were walking through the trade show area there and we were in our costumes, our uniforms, because we were doing a sponsor booth. I was walking along and I could hear two little girls talking to each other, and I heard one say 'There's a Canadian Cowgirl, go up there and touch her!' and this kid walked by and I could feel her just grab the fringe on my chaps, and it's pretty cool. They enjoy our performances, they really accept us well, and we carry our Canadian flags just like we do here. Sometimes we'll do a little tribute to the US, or to soldiers or something like that, and we will shoot a US flag through there, but we carry the red and white maple leafs through and through.

It was an at once endearing and strange story. On the one hand, the respondent seemed genuinely

and deeply affected by the positive attention from abroad and very proud that her contribution to

the larger international rodeo scene was appreciated. On the other hand, there was a self-

consciousness to her story about the way that the Canadian Cowgirls were exoticized by the 91 young spectators that spoke to an awareness of the superficiality of the Canadian symbols. The tone with which she told the story gave a subtext that seemed to indicate that she was a bit taken aback by how the Canadian contingent was perceived. I interpreted the way she inflected her story as trying to say that, in the end, she didn't see herself as any different from the American rodeo people, and saw much more commonality than difference, despite her adornment in red and white from head to toe.

In addition to the somewhat standard (or perhaps expected) accoutrements of the national anthem and the flag-waving "colour guard" cowgirls on horseback, there were other, perhaps more subtle forms of Canadian nationalism that crept their way into the rodeo ritual as it played out over the hours of the performances I witnessed. For example, it was common at the rodeos I

attended for the announcer to give repeated verbal tributes to Canadian troops in Afghanistan, or

to local police and firefighters who were helping out with the events. These intentional and

repetitive tributes to military and paramilitary arms of the Canadian state were always presented

uncritically and garnered large amounts of applause from the audience. Another example of more

subtle nationalism was outside of the rodeo ring and stands itself, where vendors on the

fairgrounds invariably sold products while loudly and proudly proclaiming that these products

were "Made in Canada," or "100% Canadian" or even "Canadian Born, Canadian Bred." Yet

even more subtle was that the official logos of both main rodeo tours I attended in Ontario were

comprised the same hues of red and white that make up Canada's national colours. Seen

throughout the fairgrounds, flags with the tour logos even looked like Canadian flags at a

distance. Though the exact purpose of these references to the Canadian nation within the rodeo

performance was unclear to me (beyond the simplistic kind of "You always have to represent

where you are" discourse mentioned previously), what was clear to me was that the references 92 were potent and meant something to the people in attendance, even if they couldn't pinpoint what that meaning was.

In the end, though, my desire to focus on Canadian identity and nationalism as it related to rodeo culture became somewhat derailed by the lack of identification that my respondents had with the subject. Though all of the respondents seemed willing to identify themselves as proud

Canadians and also expressed a desire to see the rodeo grow in Canada, they seemed unwilling or unable to reflect upon the use of Canadian nationalism in the rodeo itself. In the end, my analysis of Canadian nationalism and rodeo culture became a smaller supplement to the analysis of what I've been referring to as the "rodeo nation." I believe that the "rodeo nation" does fit

Anderson's definition of nation as an imagined community brought together under notions of

boundaries, sovereignty22 and fraternity. What's more, rodeo culture seems to be the "nation" that my respondents were most equipped to speak about - and felt more open identifying with - even more than the larger Canadian nation in which they reside.

22 Though I do elaborate in some ways, I should note here clearly that I use the concept of "sovereignty" a little bit differently than Anderson in discussing the "rodeo nation." Unlike nations such as Canada, that enact and reinforce sovereignty through a state apparatus as well as a cultural apparatus, the rodeo nation has no official state apparatus to help it define itself. Likewise, unlike aspiring nations (or what some people dub "nations within nations") such as Quebec, the "rodeo nation" does not have statist aspirations towards the kind of legal or social functions that other nations might have. Regardless, there is a strong desire in the "rodeo nation" for "sovereignty" in a broader sense of the term, which would be more akin to a cultural self-determination and the freedom to practice their culture without interference. 93

V: A PHOTO/JOURNAL OF MY TIME AT THE RODEO

Generally speaking, I was (and am) a perpetual outsider to rodeo culture, and my time touring rodeos was (and is) marked by periods of intense immersion followed by a virtual vacuum of exposure. When a fellow photographer documenting the Rawhide Rodeo tour called the rodeo "one of the purest subcultures [he had] ever seen," I knew what he meant right away. If you are not a rodeo participant or an attendee, you might not know that the rodeo exists at all in

Ontario, or beyond the borders of places like Alberta or Texas. Many of my Toronto colleagues that I spoke with as I worked on this project have given me looks of befuddled amusement and mild concern that I was going to have to travel all the way out to Alberta to do any research. Of

course, most people (peers and otherwise) were fairly aware of The Calgary Stampede, but

outside of that, there was little to no awareness of rodeo culture on a large or small scale, and

especially in Canada. So, as I attended rodeos across southern Ontario, I spent entire days

amongst thousands of people whom I had never met, researching a culture that flies almost

completely under the mainstream radar. When I returned home after a weekend of rodeo -

meeting dozens of new people, perhaps having a few of them get comfortable enough to talk on

the record -1 returned to a completely different social and political milieu, where the awareness

of what I had just immersed myself in was virtually nil.

I note this not to generate respect or sympathy. Apart from witnessing some (what I

would call) fairly cruel treatment of animals right in front of my eyes, I would not say that

attending the rodeos was an unpleasant experience. People were mostly friendly, the organizers

were mostly helpful, the cowboys and cowgirls were reserved, but not hostile. Though there was

certainly a wariness of me on the part of the more veteran rodeo cowboys or the occasional

organizer who had been burned by animal rights activists, it was neither surprising nor 94 unexpected. I walked into the project knowing that I would potentially be put in some

uncomfortable situations with people who would rather I just go away, for everyone's sake. But

that being said, my time at the rodeo wasn't generally unpleasant. What it was, however, was a culture shock.

It feels like an odd admission, to say that I felt culture shock in my own country, with

people who are - in many ways - just like me. My alienation at the events could not be chalked

up to socio-economic demographics: A quick visual survey of the rodeo crowd would show that

it was predominantly working-class, male, and white, a reflection of my own positionality. The

major difference between myself and the rodeo participants and attendees was where and how we

were raised, or where we found ourselves now. Again, I found the chasm between rural/urban

culture to be a wide and yawning gap, virtually impossible to bridge. It was pronounced to a

point that, if I introduced myself as living in Toronto (which is true), I would get a fairly icy

response. If I said that I grew up just outside of Peterborough, in Omemee (which is also true), I

would invariably get a warmer reply. These kinds of reactions happened, quite literally, without

exception, and speak to the real and perceived differences between rural and urban life, and the

politics that might go along with those differences.

Still, the purpose of attending rodeos and immersing myself in a subculture I'm not

personally familiar with was not a mission to mark differences. I do not mean that one can

divorce or excise the politics from rodeo culture, but rather that any personal assessment of what

those politics might be wouldn't be academically sound, or even relevant to my project.

Furthermore, the scope of my project did not (and does not) revolve around a debate, and it was

not (and is not) my intention to weigh positions and make an ethical analysis. Instead, I include a

journal of my time at the rodeo to place the testimony of my interviewees in its very particular 95 symbolic setting. The interviews discussed in the previous section did not happen in a sterile vacuum, but within the rodeo nation itself, amid all of the dust, animals, fans and food. Through photos and brief journals, the following entries will contextualize the interviews as they describe my impressions of each event that I attended.

The photographs are included as part of my thesis to illustrate some of the aspects discussed in the previous chapters and to show how the kind of visual representations and constructions I discussed in my analysis of rodeo films manifests itself in very real ways in the rodeos that I attended. I present these photos without any sort of claims to "the truth" through them, but rather to give one visual perspective on some of the details discussed above. The photos are presented with the journals to provide context for the images, and vice versa. I understand that my journal entries are completely biased by my positionality and what I have chosen to highlight (in the sense that what might seem remarkable to me might not be remarkable a rodeo veteran), but I also believe that my "inner outsider" perspective gives both the photos and the journal entries a strange sort of authenticity. As someone who was a pretty

"pure" outsider to rodeo culture at the outset, I felt somewhat akin to an alien coming down to

Earth, trying to understand the meaning of things that are taken for granted. With very little frame of reference, every aspect of the rodeo proceedings was curious and fascinating to me, and

I hope that my journals and photos reflect that.

i. THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL WINTER FAIR RODEO

The first thing I noticed about the Royal Winter Fair, long before I entered the rodeo ring,

was the smell: Held in the Ricoh Coliseum, in the heart of Toronto, it was a strange experience to

go from the "smell of the city" to the "smell of the country" simply by opening a door and

walking into a building. Inside Exhibition Place, there were stock shows (with prizes awarded for 96 best livestock), educational booths, and all sorts of vendors selling everything from artisanal cheeses to battery cages for chicken farms. Billed as an event where the "country meets the city," the Royal Fair was very well attended (tens of thousands of visitors each day, according to some of the organizers I spoke with), and no one seemed to mind the smell.

Though I didn't know it at the time, the Royal Fair Rodeo was a different kind of spectacle than what I would witness afterwards at the smaller outdoor rodeos around southern

Ontario. Held in an indoor stadium-type facility (which might on another night hold a rock concert by Green Day, or another large trade show), the Royal Fair Rodeo was a large production replete with booming sound system, lighting effects, horses with braided manes and backsides covered in glitter, major sponsorships, pyrotechnics between events, and enough concessions to fill every stomach in the stands.

The Royal Fair Rodeo happened before I had completed an ethics review for this project,

and so any conversations I had have been kept strictly off the record. I actually went to the Royal

Fair on assignment from NOW! Magazine, and did a series of photographs for them that never

ended up being published. Having a media pass was good, but it did not grant me access to the

most coveted place for rodeo media, behind the chutes, where the action happens before the

action happens in the ring. Though my media pass didn't technically grant me access to that area,

a few well-placed handshakes and a friendly conversation with the operations manager was the

only special pass that I needed. The operations manager was an affable man who was more than

happy to help me out, introduce me to anyone that I wanted to be introduced to, and generally

encouraged me to ask questions and find out more about what I was seeing.

The production value of the Royal Fair Rodeo was very high, and it was very well

attended. The rodeo participants seemed to think that the crowd was predominantly from 97

Toronto, and the operations manager of the event estimated that there were approximately

20,000 people in attendance. This would make it not only the first, but the largest rodeo that I would attend. The show unfolded in a typical fashion, with rodeo clown banter, a hype-man announcer giving play-by-play coverage, beginning with some of the timed events and working up to the roughtstock events that were the crowd favourites. This was a championship-level event.

Behind the chutes, the cowboys and cowgirls mostly kept to themselves in between events, and weren't big on conversation with me until I was introduced to them by someone else.

Actually, one of the most powerful moments that I witnessed (and was able to catch on camera) was the sponsor from Dodge Trucks, who had supposedly put up $250,000 to put on this rodeo alone, being introduced to some of the cowboys and cowgirls. That was a serious set of handshakes, and the feeling of big money was palpable. Even though I wasn't told until later who the man was, and why he was being introduced to the cowboys, it was obvious that he held a lot of sway, and demanded respect. 98

A group of cowboys and cowgirls enjoys some pop behind the chutes at the Royal Fair Rodeo

Behind the control panel / sound system of the Royal Fair Rodeo. 99

Cowboys shake hands with the Dodge Trucks representative, sponsor of Royal Fair Rodeo.

Horse with extra accoutrements, Royal Fair Rodeo. 100 ii. HILLSBURGH BULLRIDING CLINIC

A couple of months later, on an overcast, chilly, and occasionally rainy end-of-April weekend in Hillsburgh, Ontario (just outside of Gueiph), I attended an annual two-day bullriding clinic, where kids as young as 8, as well as teenagers and even some older men, learned the basics of bullriding. Organized by two professional bullriders and put on at one of their ranches, the clinic was a chance for boys who had never been on a bull before to get their feet wet and begin to get used to the experience, while for the more experienced boys it was a chance to begin the transition from junior steers to full sized bulls. There was also a group of four city men who attended, two of whom were fulfilling lifelong fantasies of riding bulls, while the other two documented everything. They came from Toronto to participate, while the rest of the boys came from the surrounding rural areas.

Before attending, I had been in touch with the main organizer of the weekend, a kind man

who shocked me when he told me he was actually younger than I was. His body and face were

weathered and he spoke with a southern twang, though he said he grew up in upstate New York.

He was friendly, but not warm. Typical of many cowboys I would subsequently meet, he seemed

to have been plucked out of a western film (or one of the rodeo films discussed previously), with

a strong and silent personality that would have been just as suitable to Clint Eastwood. Still, he

seemed genuinely happy to have me there, and to know that there was some interest in his sport

outside of the relatively small circle of people at the clinic. He agreed to be interviewed that

weekend, and he answered my questions with depth and sincerity. When being interviewed, he

more or less dropped the stoic and silent attitude and opened up about this sport, which he also

considered his way of life. The two ideas that stuck with me most from that weekend (I spent both Saturday and

Sunday there) were the ever-present ideas about fear and family that permeate the rodeo culture.

Fear is everywhere in the rodeo, on the tip of the tongue (though rarely verbalized), and easily seen in the eyes of the cowboys of all ages as they prepare to bust out of the chute on the back of a 20001b bull. The fear of the cowboys parallels (though likely doesn't surpass) that of the animals, who are herded through pathways and chutes in which they cannot turn around, tied up

with flank and bucking straps, and then mounted for their ride. In many ways, the saddest

moment of my whole study was seeing the look of complete and utter fear on a twelve-year-old

boy's face as he mounted a junior steer who looked equally terrified to be there. What was the

point of all that fear? If both the bull and the rider were terrified, couldn't they just agree that

neither of them wanted to do it? Of course, these are the simple questions of a rodeo outsider,

and the people who can truly offer the answers do not pose them.

And yet, apart from the fear, I also came away from the weekend with a strong sense of

the rodeo culture as a family. Because rodeo is such a hereditary sport, there seems to be a great

responsibility on the part of the elders to pass down their knowledge to the younger generation,

and the older men take this responsibility very seriously. Even the teenage boys see it as their

duty to mentor and support the younger ones, in any way that they can. Yes, this support and

familial education takes place in an atmosphere of male dominance and hard masculinity, but

there is also a surprising amount of tenderness that is displayed to the younger generation, and

that the younger generation displays within its own ranks. As I watched the older men show the

teenaged boys the proper bucking position, giving them no quarter as they messed up, it seemed

typical of any sports camp I had attended when I was younger. Still, within one minute of being

hard on them for a mistake they made, they were joking around with them, tussling their hair and 102 otherwise making sure that the boys felt like they belonged. Though they would all compete against each other at the end of the day, there seemed to be a deep recognition of the importance that community played in their sport, and that before being competitors, they were a fraternity of sorts. Likewise during the intermission, when the boys would rejoin their blood family members who were watching from outside the ring, congregating with them under an outdoor pagoda to review video of the practice runs, there was a unity to the group that I found heartwarming. In many ways, I was welcomed into this atmosphere, and many of the young kids had interesting questions about my project, and wanted to know what my pictures looked like. Of course, I gladly showed them. 103

A cowboy demonstrates the proper way to hold a flank strap, Hillsburgh Bullriding Clinic

A teenage cowboy mounts and prepares a reluctant bull, Hillsburgh Bullriding Clinic A group of young boys with a parent, Hillsburgh Bullriding Clinic

Cowboy prepares to cane a bull as kids look on, Hillsburgh Bullriding Clinic 105 iii. LINDSAY RODEO

A couple of weeks later, at a large fairground only minutes away from where I grew up as a child, I visited my first rodeo of the season, and the first rodeo of the season for the Rawhide

Rodeo Tour, in Lindsay, Ontario. Being the first rodeo of the season, I suppose it was only natural for me to make a rookie mistake. Since the first rodeo I had attended (at the Royal Winter

Fair) had been in the city and since the bullriding clinic hadn't been a formal rodeo event, I wasn't yet used to the dress code involved for shooting behind the chutes. I had certainly heard of the dress code before, but it wasn't at the forefront of my mind, and so I showed up to the rodeo wearing the clothes I had been used to wearing in these situations: a pair of boots, jeans, and a t-shirt or a short-sleeve button up shirt. Upon my arrival at the manager's trailer, where a number of cowboys milled about and looked at me like I was very out of place, I signed the typical waivers that were required of me and waited for the manager to show up. When he eventually appeared, the first words he said to me, before even shaking my hand, were "you're not going to be wearing that, are you?" The cowboys around me snickered under their breath, as the manager proceeded to ask me very pointed questions about my research, which I answered openly and honestly in front of everyone present. I would learn from various people that this manager - even though he had seemed fairly friendly over e-mail - had no interest in me being at his rodeo, was going to be watching me closely while I was there, and looked forward to me leaving them alone. He turned down repeated requests for an interview. After his public questioning, one of the cowboys there offered to lend me a long-sleeved shirt that I could tuck into my jeans, and I would buy a cowboy hat from one of the vendors to complete my outfit and

be allowed to the restricted area behind the chutes. 106

The Lindsay Rodeo was certainly different than the Royal Fair Rodeo, in ways both obvious and subtle. It took place outside, in daylight, and was attended by probably about half as many people, though this still put it at a respectable 8,000 to 10,000 by the manager's own estimates.23 On a more subtle level, the event was put on by Rawhide Rodeos, an "independent" rodeo company which doesn't rely on a single major tour sponsor (such as Dodge Trucks), and instead gathers more local sponsors to accumulate its sponsorship revenues. According to one of the organizers who wished to remain completely anonymous, this means that the Rawhide Tour has to work a bit harder to make the same kind of money, but also wasn't subjected to the whims of the sponsors in the same way. He believed that the Rawhide Rodeo tour was superior in this sense, because it allowed it to stay truer to the roots of the rodeo and provide the audience with a

more authentic experience.

With the above noted, however, the Lindsay rodeo was outwardly very similar to the

other rodeos I had read about (and would later visit) in its adherence to the general rodeo

template: opening ceremony (including colour guard and national anthem), timed events,

intermission, roughstock events, closing ceremony. The announcer interacted with the audience

and the show's clown in the same way, the events were generally run the same way, and the

vendors that populated the midway were virtually the same as at other rodeos. Perhaps more

importantly for my own research, the elements of "nationalist" reinforcement (both in terms of

the Canadian nation and the "rodeo nation"), were very much intact. The culture of the rodeo

was on full display, from musical selections to fashion to the style of speaking of the announcer

to the country-western version of "Oh Canada!" While the announcer at the Royal Fair Rodeo

23 Considering that each ticket cost $20 (a standard price for all of the rodeos I went to), this would mean that the gross ticket sales were somewhere between $160,000-200,000. This revenue does not include sponsorship revenues, the prices that the vendors paid to rent space, or the prices that the midway folks paid to rent areas to set up their rides. There is obviously a great deal of overhead to be covered, but it became obvious from this first event of the season that the business could be quite lucrative for the people organizing the events. 107 had been very cognizant of the fact that much of his audience was from the city and thus geared

his announcing to that element of the crowd, the announcer at the Lindsay Rodeo knew he had to

make no such concessions, and seemed much more relaxed because of it. Repeated references to

rural life, to the "cowboy way," to "the hard working men and women out there [in the

audience]," and that he was "just like [the audience]" peppered the announcer's commentary.

Combined with the icy reception I received from the operations manager and my dress code

mishap, the presentation and clear targeting of the Lindsay Rodeo was my first visceral

experience of being an outsider in rodeo culture. It was a feeling that would follow me closely to

the two subsequent events. The Canadian Cowgirls prepare for their grand entry run at the Lindsay Rodeo

Younger and older cowboys enjoy bronc riding at the Lindsay Rodeo. 109

The bull looks back, Lindsay Rodeo.

Teenage cowboys watch steer wrestling, Lindsay Rodeo 110

iv. DORCHESTER DODGE RODEO

A few weeks later I found myself in Dorchester, Ontario (just outside of London), for the

Dorchester Dodge Rodeo, the first stop on the Ontario Dodge Rodeo Tour. Like the previous events that I had attended, my presence was telegraphed ahead of time with one of the main organizers, so that I wouldn't be surprising anyone. Having heard about and experienced the wariness of the rodeo nation towards outsiders, making advanced contact for these events was crucial to ensure that I was meeting people on their terms, and that they had a sense of safety and control over the proceedings. Perhaps the biggest (but not the most obvious) difference that I noticed between the Dodge Rodeo Tour and the Rawhide Rodeo Tour was their slightly warmer treatment of me as an outsider. Though I still didn't feels as though I "belonged" in a meaningful way, I was made to feel as though I could be curious and that there "were no dumb questions."

This, of course, didn't mean that I was free to do whatever I wanted or to start brazenly interrogating the people there, but there was a certain amount of leeway provided for me as the

"ignorant outsider."24 By this point I was also starting to notice some familiar faces among the competitors (who often compete on numerous tours), and they were starting to notice me. This recognition was undoubtedly helpful in setting people at ease.

The main visible difference between this show and the previous ones I had visited was the presence of an extensive vendor section and children's entertainment section that took up the majority of the fairgrounds. Unlike the Lindsay Rodeo (which had vendor sections and children's

24 The Dodge Rodeo Tour makes a concerted effort to reach out to media and get positive coverage for its events, as evidenced by the media section on its website. There you can learn about the various "photographic opportunities" and find contact info to arrange your presence at a rodeo (Turner, 2010). This type of outreach is atypical of any other rodeo organization or association that I came across in my research. Ill areas that were quite small) and the Royal Fair Rodeo (which had a huge vendor section that could only be accessed through purchasing a separate ticket), the Dorchester Rodeo had booths where visitors could buy the typical cowboy hats and belt buckles, but also had booths selling farm equipment, booths where you could place orders for farm feed, all of the usual concession

booths, and kid's attractions such as a subdued mini-mechanical bull and a petting zoo. The

strangest of all of these was a section where parents could put their young ones on the backs of

one of six different ponies, all tethered by their mouth bits to a central pole that was then rotated

to force the ponies into walking in a circle with the children on their backs. To my outsider's

eyes, this seemed incredibly sad and almost torturous to the ponies; it is pure speculation, but I

would guess that the "ride" operator would have told me that I didn't know what I was talking

about.

A second disturbing event happened that weekend, when I was behind the chutes and one

of the barrel racers approached the rodeo announcer between events and informed him of one of

the horses in the stable nearby, bleeding profusely from her eyes. Though it was my

understanding that vets were on site and on duty during every rodeo event (something that was

impressed upon me by various cowboys and cowgirls during my interviews), the announcer of

this event told the girl (with his microphone off) that the vet was on call but was actually not on

site. He instructed the girl to call a number, and she returned a few minutes later to say that the

on-call vet could not be reached. This seemed to frustrate the announcer a great deal, but what

frustrated him more was when the girl told him that the horse in question was supposed to be

performing in one of the races.

These unsettling sights and sounds were contrasted against some of the more wholesome

aspects of rodeo that I witnessed that weekend, such as an intermission dance party that 112 happened spontaneously among a crowd of young girls and boys near the sound system as I stood by and conducted an interview. This entirely unscripted (but, I was told, not uncommon) moment was heartwarming and showed how this community of people who seemingly didn't know each other very well could come together based upon their shared identity and love for country music in a matter of minutes. Secondly, I also witnessed a saddlebronc rider who had just been bucked particularly violently and then trampled hard, yell out "Fuck!" at the top of his lungs as the horse's hoof came down hard on his chest. The wholesome part was when an older cowboy reprimanded him, loudly and semi-publicly, for swearing. The seemingly injured cowboy tried to shrug off the criticism and ignore it (as well as his injury), but the older cowboy reminded him that he could be fined $500 for the offence, and that it didn't matter if you were

getting trampled to death, "You can't act disgracefully," he said.

I stayed at the rodeo well after it was over, watching the spectators milling around,

sharing a drink with the cowboys and cowgirls in the beer tent, and just observing. I watched

cowboys who had just been engaged in intense competition joking around with each other,

watched introductions being made among new friends, watched knowing nods exchanged when

a popular country song came on the radio, and watched the reverence reserved for the rodeo

clown, who made a late exit after taking (most of) his makeup off. Eventually, into the evening,

the crowd cleared as the crew packed things up in preparation for the next weekend's rodeo in

Milverton. 113

Rodeo announcer with his horse, Dorchester Rodeo. 114

Horse saddle emblazoned with bible reference, Dorchester Rodeo: Gen 1:26 - "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Pony tethered to a "Free Pony Ride" apparatus, Dorchester Rodeo. 115

v. MILVERTON DODGE RODEO

The Milverton Dodge Rodeo has a history that is just as long as the Dodge Rodeo Tour itself. The Dodge Tour has had a stop in Milverton for each of its 13 campaigns, and according to the announcer at the beginning of the event, Milverton has been the most successful stop on the Dodge Tour for the local businesses involved, and the local rodeo committee. Some members of the local rodeo committee had been with the rodeo since the beginning, and there was a great sense of heritage, both in terms of western heritage, but also in terms of the local heritage behind the event. Even before hearing the announcer give his speech, I could tell there was a longer history here, as numerous families (and individuals) greeted each other with words like "So good to see you again this year!" The fact that the rodeo had been running there for so many years had made it a kind of yearly reunion, perhaps the only time of the year that certain people saw each other, and the feeling of gathering was perceptibly more palpable here.

Like the Dorchester Rodeo the week before, the Milverton Rodeo was replete with many

rural-appropriate vendors, a children's entertainment section and, of course, three hours of high-

energy rodeo entertainment. What seemed slightly different in this event was the concentration

on some of the timed events, especially the steer wrestling, which had a considerable number of

participants and also seemed to generate just as much audience interest and reaction as the

bullriding. Having witnessed steer wrestling before I was certainly prepared for what I saw, but

there was something about this particular event in this particular venue that seemed more

aggressive than before. Perhaps it was the competitors. They burst out of the chute on their

horses, the frightened steer galloping just ahead, just barely ahead; the riders caught up, off the

horse, and then despite all their might those steers went down. Hard. The force with which the wrestlers could twist their necks and bring them onto their sides was impressive, and the fact that most of the steers could take it without seeming injured (though one unfortunate steer had to be carted out, unconscious25) was doubly impressive. Some of the steers fought with extreme tenacity, which just made the cowboys seem more aggressive and worked up, and the struggle sometimes went on for over a minute, which - in addition to being a terrible qualifying time - is an eternity to watch an animal being manhandled. There seemed to be so much potential for injury, for both steer and wrestler, at every moment.

My most interesting conversations at the Milverton Rodeo were with the rodeo medics, who wanted to remain strictly anonymous and unofficial, but also seemed to genuinely want to talk to me as we milled around behind the chutes waiting for something to happen. I found out through those conversations that they are (like many positions in the rodeo) contract workers who are hired on a weekend-to-weekend basis. They also have no power to actually help the cowboys if they don't want the help. Of course, if a cowboy is seriously injured to the point of unconsciousness (or worse), they can't protest, but I saw numerous cowboys refuse treatment for what seemed like mild concussions or even severe sprains. They would exit the ring into the care of the medics for about a minute, the medics would do a quick inspection, and the cowboys

would insist they were fine and go on their way. This frustrated the medics, who felt like they

were hired to essentially be "the conscience that [the cowboys] don't pay attention to," and

collecting a paycheque to be ignored. When asked about serious injuries they had witnessed, the

medics would go quiet, relate a vague story, and talk about it's something you just hope to never

see, and when you do, you hope to never see it again. Between the steer wrestling and my

conversations with the medics, there was a certain macabre atmosphere that I was left with as I

25 Again, there didn't seem to be a vet present, as the people that carted the steer away had other duties and didn't seem to provide any care before carting the animal away. 117 drove away from the fairgrounds. That feeling would fade, of course, but those grim feelings are never really far away at the rodeo.

The Milverton rodeo would be my last stop on the official tour that I would do as part of this project, but it wouldn't be the last rodeo that I would attend. I have plans to continue this study of rodeo culture beyond the end of this project, with the hopes of gaining further knowledge, making further connections, and understanding the rodeo nation even better. 118

job®

Rodeo audience stands during O Canada!, Milverton Rodeo.

•'__ — r ' Calf-roping in action, Milverton Rodeo. Twisting the neck of a steer during steer wrestling, Milverton Rodeo.

% !&»•

A rodeo paramedic watches the events unfold, at the ready, Milverton Rodeo. 120

PART VI: CONCLUSIONS

I have been talking about rodeo culture in general terms, and I do believe that rodeo culture is likely quite similar all across Canada, and even into the United States. Many of the people that I interviewed spend a great deal of time touring around to do what they do, and though I only interviewed Canadians, I met many people from the U.S., whose participation in and perception of rodeo culture seemed virtually identical to their Canadian counterparts. It genuinely seemed that the cultural aspects of the "rodeo nation" that I encountered (like the language, music, attitudes and social mores) would be transferable to any other small town, anywhere in North America. There would be, of course, variations on the themes, different rodeo associations and tours doing things slightly differently and different styles of performance from place to place. Still, the overall nationalism would remain the same and the rodeo nation

would remain more or less intact. The interviews conducted with my respondents and the

informal conversations I had with cowboys and cowgirls from the US seem to suggest that

wherever you go, the rodeo family will take care of you provided you adhere to their cultural

codes.

That being said, it hasn't been my intention to give the impression that the history of the

rodeo or the experiences of the people involved are homogenous across locations. The history of

rodeo in Canada is relatively short (about 100 years in Canada, about 50 years in Ontario), and

so it is in many ways a culture that has been adopted over time by different populations and

geographies, and is likely experienced differently because of that rolling history. Someone living

in Ontario may have two (or at the most, it seems, three) generations of rodeo participants in

their family, while someone living in Montana or Alabama may have 4 or 5 generations behind

them. That sort of deeply embedded historical memory simply cannot be replicated in Ontario, 121 and this certainly colours the perception. The Canadian cowboys and cowgirls who I interviewed tended to come from a farming heritage, with their knowledge of rodeo history mostly passed on through cultural products. Cowboys or cowgirls living in the southern US might also come from a farming background, but would additionally have a great deal of their rodeo knowledge passed down through their direct ancestry as opposed to media exposure. This might be, in some ways, a more "authentic" knowledge, though my position definitely prevents me from drawing any conclusions on that. I think, though, it is at least arguable that being located near the physical roots of rodeo culture might result in a different experience than being a cowboy or cowgirl in

Ontario.

To some degree the difference between "authentic" cowboys and the media representation of cowboys has become negligible. As discussed previously, the rodeo has always been wrapped up in performance, ritual, and spectacle, and the proliferation of the rodeo cowboy as a symbol is very difficult to separate from the proliferation of the rodeo cowboy as a real and material existence. With the help of cultural products such as films and advertisements that have

promoted and capitalized on the cowboy image, I can meet a cowboy who has grown up just outside of Guelph who talks with the same twang and walks with the same swagger as a cowboy

I met from Texas. The cowboy image that became standardized through spaghetti westerns and

subsequent rodeo films such as 8 Seconds and Ring of Fire still holds a great deal of currency in

rodeo culture, and virtually all of the cowboys I met acted like slight variations on the narrow

range of representation present in those films. Some cowboys even asked me if I had seen those

movies. Just the same, virtually all of the cowgirls I met held to the roles and representations

created for them in cinema and advertising. I say this not to trivialize anyone's personalities, but 122 to highlight how entrenched those representations have become, and how difficult it has become to tell whether it is the people or the representations that are the simulacra.

The reality of rodeo cowboy and cowgirl life seems just as hard and unforgiving as it has even been. The rodeo nation depends on cowboys and cowgirls to put their bodies on the line while accepting the very real possibility that they could walk away at the end of the day with nothing but broken bones. The rodeo depends on their unquestioning passion and their willingness to rise above pain and danger for little to no compensation. They drive thousands of miles each year, often pouring their winnings straight into their gas tanks to be able to get to the next town to do the sport they love. They often do this on weekends between weeklong stints at their own farms where they also work for little money so that people in cities can have a steady, cheap food supply. I do not wish to paint the cowboys and cowgirls as victims, as they are choice-making agents who could relinquish their participation at any point. However, it is clear l that in the inner ring of the rodeo nation, the cowboys and cowgirls may be the face the public sees, but it is the organizers and local committees that keep much of the public's money.

The image and reality of the situation for rodeo animals has likewise become clearer over my time in the rodeo nation. Though they are described as "animal athletes" and romanticized by the announcers while the rodeo show goes on, when the show is over, they are packed into shipping trucks just like livestock headed to slaughter, and put out of public view until the next rodeo. Like the cowboys and cowgirls, the rodeo simply couldn't exist without the participation of the animals involved, but the fact that the animals have no choice in the matter places them even below cowboys and cowgirls in terms of the rodeo hierarchy. Of course, the forced nature of their participation is disguised both visually and through discursive practices that obscure their fear, naturalize their anger, and exoticize their behaviour. Rodeo audiences are not-so-subtly led 123 to believe - through the use of equipment that helps to hide their pain and discourses that make them appear to be willing - that rodeo animals actually enjoy events that are built around their struggle and panic. Some animals simply don't survive. As I write this, the 2010 Calgary

Stampede has gotten underway and the last 24 hours have resulted in the deaths of 4 horses and the serious injury of one human ("4 Horses Dead", 2010). Worse than the cowboys and cowgirls, who might face severe injury for very little pay, the animals that survive the rodeo are simply given food and shelter, while their ultimate fate after "retirement" awaits them at the slaughterhouse.

In the end, this project has been both disturbing and encouraging for me, as someone who participates in a good deal of animal activism: disturbing, because of the amount of animal cruelty that I witnessed and the (no pun intended) cavalier attitude with which it was inflicted and justified; encouraging, though, because behind the machismo, power, and brutal economics

involved in putting on a rodeo, there are regular people, people embedded in a subculture that

they have often known since a very young age. It seems that that the rodeo is no different than other cultural practices and traditions that involve animal cruelty, in that they are largely subject to cultural paradigm shifts and are often relinquished as history moves forward. Though I believe

that the animal issues raised by the rodeo demand a great deal of attention right now, both in

terms of welfare and abolition, it has never been clearer to me that the activist fight against

rodeos needs to be approached with a cultural sensitivity first and foremost. In the same way that

campaigners against shark fin soup need to recognize that framing the debate as an issue of the

"savagery" of Chinese culture is not only racist but counterproductive, I think that rodeo culture

must be approached gingerly at first, with the recognition that it is not a simple matter of choice.

People's identities are at stake in a serious way, much more so than if they were being charged 124 with the (relatively) simple task of giving up a particular food product. Rodeo culture is strongly tied to a sense of self and a way of life that goes beyond simple choices. As such, activism needs to be conducted in a way that recognizes the importance of personal identity, and can oppose the rodeo in a way that keeps the focus on animals as opposed to the individuals or the culture where the practice is rooted. It may sound idealistic, but I believe the recognition of personal identity and how important it is in building the rodeo nation can actually begin to shift the paradigm of animal treatment and use, while keeping the threats to the personal identity of rodeo participants to a minimum.

Considering my sample size and the vastness of rodeo culture both in Canada and the US, it was apparent from the beginning that my findings and conclusions could only ever be partial ones. The rodeo nation that I encountered in Southern Ontario was in many ways just a small sliver of the rodeo nation as a whole, and though time, money and geography prevented me from studying the rodeo nation as a whole, my discussions with the people that I met spoke volumes to the depth and breadth of the experiences in the rodeo nation more broadly. I came to this project with a theoretical knowledge about nations and nationalism, but through my experiences in the

rodeo culture, I saw first hand just how deeply the ideas of "nation" and "nationalism" can run,

even without the knowledge of the people that cling to them. It should also be clear as I conclude

this project that there is no value judgment in the recognition or critical analysis of a "rodeo

nation." It is no different from any other subculture that defines its inner ties and outer borders

strongly, such as the punk rock subculture that I have so long been a part of. There is nothing

inherently good or bad about these nationalisms. Still, they do define us as we define them, and

the more we acknowledge this - no matter what subcultural nation we call home - the more we

can all interrogate our own positions and build bridges between our imagined communities. 125

VII: BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, New Edition. London: Verso.

Avildsen, J. G. (1994). 8 Seconds [Motion Picture]. United States: Jersey Films.

Balakrishnan, G. (1996). The National Imagination. In G. Balakrishnan (Ed.) Mapping the Nation (pp. 198-213). London: Verso.

Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Berger, J. (1980). About Looking. New York: Pantheon Books.

Bisgould, L. (2008). Power and Irony: One Tortured Cat and Many Twisted Angles to Our Moral Schizophrenia About Animals. In J. Castricano (Ed.), Animal Subjects: An Ethical Reader in a Posthuman World, pp.259-269. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press.

Brandt, K. (2004). A Language of Their Own: An Interactionist Approach to Human-Horse Communication. Society & Animals, 12(4), 299-316.

Burt, J. (2002). Animals in Film. London: Reaktion Books.

Butler, J. & Spivak, G. C. (2007). Who Sings the Nation-State: Language, Politics, Belonging. Calcutta: Seagull Books.

Butterwick, D. J., Hagel, B., Nelson, D. S., LeFave, M. R. & Meeuwisse, W. H. (2002). Epidemiologic Analysis of Injury in Five Years of Canadian Professional Rodeo. American Journal Of Sports Medicine, 30(2), 193-198.

Chattetjee, P. (1996). Whose Imagined Community? In G. Balakrishnan (Ed.) Mapping the Nation (pp. 214-225). London: Verso.

Chomsky, N. (1997). What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream. Retrieved March 22, 2010 from Z Magazine Website: http://www.zcommunications.org/what-makes-mainstream-media-mainstream-by-noam-chomsky

Daneshvary, N., Schwer, R. K. & Rickman, D. S. (1993). Determinants of Demand for Professional Rodeo Attendance. Journal of Cultural Economics, 17(2), 77-92.

Emel, J. (1998). Are You Man Enough, Big and Bad Enough?: Wolf Eradication in the U.S. In J. Wolch & J. Emel, Animal Geographies:Place, Politics, and Identity in the Nature Culture Borderlands (p. 91-116). London: Verso. 126

Ferguson, W. (2002). Ride 'Em Cowboy... Or Maybe Not. At the Calgary Stampede, Albertan Will Ferguson Tries to Unleash His Inner Cowpoke. Flare, 24(7), 60.

Foran, M. (2008). The Stampede in Historical Context. In M. Foran, Icon, Brand, Myth: The Calgary Stampede (pp. 1-19). Edmonton: AU Press.

Forsyth, C. J. & Thompson, C. Y. (2007). Helpmates of the Rodeo: Fans, Wives, and Groupies. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 31(4), 394-416.

Francione, G. L. (2000). Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Fudge, E. (2005). Animal. London: Reaktion Books.

Guba, E. G. & Lincoln, Y. S. (1998). Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, pp. 195-219. Sage Publications.

Haraway, D. (2003). The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness. Chicago, Prickly Paradigm Press.

Hibdon, J. E. (1989). The Economics of Rodeo Cowboys. The Social Science Journal, 26(3), 237-248.

James, N. (2008). Head Poncho. Sight and Sound, 18(9), 23.

Kelm, M.-E. (2009). Manly Contests: Rodeo Masculinities at the Calgary Stampede. The Canadian Historical Review, 90(4), 711-751.

Kirby, S., Greaves, S. & Reid., C. (2006). Experience Research Social Change: Methods Beyond the Mainstream, 2nd Edition (pp.133-143). Peterborough: Broadview Press.

Koller, X. (2000). Cowboy Up [Motion Picture]. United States: Code Entertainment.

Kurz, P. (2004). The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Broadcast Engineering, 46(8), 91-93.

Lawrence, E. A. (1982). Rodeo: An Anthropologist Looks at the Wild and the Tame. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Livinston, J. (1994). Rogue Primate: an exploration of human domestication. Toronto: Key Porter Books.

Mayer, V. (2008). Studying Up and F**king Up: Ethnographic Interviewing in Production Studies. Cinema Journal, 47(2), 141-148. 127

Mikkelsen, G. (2008). A Spurring Soul: A Tenderfoot's Guide to the Calgary Stampede Rodeo. In M. Foran, Icon, Brand, Myth: The Calgary Stampede (pp. 203-233). Edmonton: AU Press.

Mullin, M. H. (1999). Mirrors and Windows: Sociocultural Studies of Human-Animal Relationships. Annual Review of Anthropology, 28, 201-224.

Nemeth, M. (1995). Rodeo's Adrenaline Rush. Maclean's, 108(30), 45-46.

Osborne, S. (2000). The Wild West: Where the Bulls Are Always Mean, the Hats Are Always Wide, and the Cars Are Always Stolen. Saturday Night, 115(2), 61-62.

Oxford Dictionaries. (2010). Definition of "Athlete". Retrieved April 10, 2010 from Oxford Dictionaries Online Website: http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0046610#m_en_gb0046610

Pearson, D. W. & Haney, C. A. (1999). The Rodeo Cowboy: Cultural Icon, Athlete, or Entrepeneur? Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 23(3), 308-327.

Penaloza, L. (2000). The Commodification of the American West: Marketers' Production of Cultural Meaning at the Trade Show. The Journal Of Marketing, 64(4), 85-109.

Petrakis, J. (2006). Heartbreak Mountain. The Christian Century, 123(2), 43.

Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (2008). Livestock Welfare Rules, Retrieved February 12,2010 from PCRA Website: http://www.prorodeo.com/animal welfare.aspx?xu=::::3

Ramage, N. (2006). Bronco Branding. Marketing, 111(24), 9. th Rodeo Management Group (2010). Welcome to our 13 Anniversary Season! Inside Rodeo Magazine, Dorchester Rodeo Edition (May), 2.

Seiler, R. M. & Seiler, T. P. (1998). The Social Construction of the Canadian Cowboy: Calgary Exhibition and Stampede Posters, 1952-1972. Journal of Canadian Studies, 33(3), 51-82.

Seiler, T. P. (2008). Riding Broncs and Taming Contradictions: Reflections on the Uses of the Cowboy in the Calgary Stampede. In M. Foran, Icon, Brand, Myth: The Calgary Stampede (pp. 175-202). Edmonton: AU Press.

Shapiro, K. (2002). The State of Human-Animal Studies: Solid, at the Margin! Society & Animals Journal, 10(4), 331-337. 128

SHARK (2008). Shark Exposes the "Over 60 Humane Rules" of the PCRA. Retrieved February 12,2010 from SHARK Online Website: http://www.sharkonline.org/index.php?&page=0000000276

SHARK (2008b). The Truth about Bull Riding. Retrieved February 12, 2010 from SHARK Online Website: http://www.sharkonline.org/?P:=0000000441

Starr, M. E. (1984). The Marlboro Man: Cigarette Smoking and Masculinity in America. Journal Of Popular Culture, 17(4), 45-57.

Stoeltje, B. J. (1989). Rodeo: From Custom to Ritual. Western Folklore, 48(3), 244-255.

Swaab, P. (2005). Homo on the Range. New Statesman, 18(889), 40-42.

Turner, S. (2010). Media Relations: Don't Get Hung Up Wondering What To Do! Retrieved April 10,2010 from Ontario Dodge Rodeo Website: http://www.ontariorodeo.com/Media%20Questions.html

Verdery, K. (1996). Whither 'Nation' and 'Nationalism'? In G. Balakrishnan (Ed.) Mapping the Nation (pp. 226-234). London: Verso.

Wepruck, J. (2004). A Report on Animal Welfare Law in Canada for Alberta Farm Animal Care. Calgary: Alberta Farm Animal Care Association. Retrieved May 13,2010 from AFAC Website: http://www.afac.ab.ca/lawsregs/awlcanada.pdf

Wetherell, D. G. (2008). Making Tradition: The Calgary Stampede: 1912-1939. In M. Foran, Icon, Brand, Myth: The Calgary Stampede (pp. 21-45). Edmonton: AU Press.

Zerzan, J. (1994). Future Primitive and Other Essays. Brooklyn: Autonomedia.

4 Horses Dead, Rider Injured at Stampede. (2010). Retrieved July 14, 2010 from MSN News Website: http://news.ca.msn.com/canada/cp-article.aspx?cp-documentid=24856051