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Rodeo Queens and the American Dream | 
 enlarge | Author: Joan Burbick
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 1428029
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.4 x 1
ISBN: 1586481118
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.840973
EAN: 9781586481117
ASIN: 1586481118
Publication Date: October 9, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A bittersweet journey into the lives of women who have worked the rodeo circuit from the 1930s to today. . Rodeo has always been considered a supremely masculine sport, a rough and tumble display of macho strength and skill. But author Joan Burbick shows us the other side of rodeo: the world of rodeo queens-part cowgirl and part pageant princess-who wave and smile and keep the dream of the ideal Western woman alive. So who are the women behind the candy-red chaps, Farrah Fawcett curls, and rhinestone tiaras? Burbick traveled the backroads of the rural West for years, trying to find out. She interviewed dozens of queens, including rodeo royalty from the 1930s and 40s, women who grew up breaking wild horses, branding calves, and witnessing the sad decline of the ranching life. Stories from white and Native American rodeo queens in the 1950s and 1960s, the golden age of rodeo, reveal the conflicts over gender and race that shaped the rodeo and the Cold War politics of small Western towns. Finally, rodeo queens from the 1970s to the present describe a more fiercely commercial rodeo, driven largely by TV-ratings and sponsorships, glitter and hairspray. Illustrated throughout with wonderful photographs, this rich tapestry of women's voices echoes and challenges our clichs of the rural West. Their combined stories of fulfilled dreams and lost hopes reveal the tenacity of the myth of the American West, a place of muscled men, golden-haired women, relentless beauty and tragic limits.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 I was disappointed, but it wasn't the author's fault. June 10, 2005
Dan Scheraga (NYC)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
The mistake I made here was judging the book by the cover. I picked it up because I thought the topic was interesting, and I thought it would detail the lives and personalities of the kind of sassy, salty, almost defiant cowgirls like the ones depicted on the cover. I knew next to nothing about the rodeo and never heard of a rodeo queen before, so I thought she was a sort of cowgirl, not a beauty queen. I expected to be taken on a wild ride through the rodeo circuit. But instead I found myself reading a pseudo-feminist treatise on the shallowness of rodeo and the empty mythos of a West that never existed. I found myself disappointed in the subject matter, much as I imagine the author became disappointed when she delved into it. The only thing I wish the author could've done differently was to view the rodeo more as a community of characters and personalities, rather than as an abstract construct.
 the real deal May 5, 2005
Caldonia (Corvallis OR USA)
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
As the great-granddaughter of one of Pendleton OR.'s first rodeo queens, and the daughter of a former Wa-Hi Farmerette, I believe Burbick hits the bull's eye with her exploration of western women. Only those so entrenched in the false mythology of the west would take offense at these incredibly sensitive essays. Burbick uncovers yet another way in which women participated in the real west - a place of hardship and hard work.
Anyone who thinks that this region is the result of anything but violence, hardship and heartbreak is delusional - and the sense of entitlement whites have with regard to what the west really is is a load of horse manure.
My mother learned from her mother, and her grandmother, how to be a strong woman, and this message was passed along to me. We are cancer victims, alcoholics, intellectuals and damn hard workers. Burbick knows this about these women, and portrays them with respect. Her critique is not that these women, or women who are now involved in the rodeo queen circuit are the problem - rather the commercialized, capitalistic society that has perpetuated the wrong and bad idea that women are for show is at fault.
 Book is Falls into Stereotype Trap December 9, 2004
JMP
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
Burbick may have done considerable research, but for the most part relies on sterotypes. Any sport or pasttime can fall victim to stereotyping (think cheerleader, football player, chess player, etc.), but an author should search beyond the stereotypes. Burbick may have her historical facts in order, but fails to recognize that today's rodeo queens are intelligent marketing representatives for their organization, their western heritage, and the sport of rodeo. Most rodeo queens are professional, talented, poised, gracious, and competitve young women who take their job as rodeo's face to the public very seriously. In addition to riding well, they must be knowledgeable in current events, horsemanship, and rodeo. If you look at the bios of many queens, especially state queens, you will find college students or graduates with aspirations in the fields of law, medicine, and business.
I also found some of Burbick's descriptive phrases very offensive. I don't understand why she thought that "shocking" us would make for a better book.
 Here's the reality of the "myth" of the cowboy West December 6, 2004
Theodore A. Rushton (PHOENIX, Arizona United States)
2 out of 15 found this review helpful
By all standards, this is a superb book about a seemingly innocuous weekend sport that inspires young girls throughout the western states; by the same token, it's also very unfair and elitist in its approach.
It could be the basis of a superb film about life west of the Mississippi. Think of rodeo queen version of 'Friday Night Lights' and similar football films over the years. Becoming a rodeo queen is about beauty and and those who are merely pretty, which in a world of images and make believe of the modern West rates far higher than just a bikini and a smile.
"Borrrrrring" is the first term that comes to mind to describe the West, in fiction and reality. It's "boring" in terms of the daily drudgery; for many girls, being a rodeo queen will be the only real excitement in their dull lives. Football has a few stars, as do cheer and pom and basketball and homecoming queen and even the chess team. For most westerners, devoid of any of the culture or intellect of eastern states, even little excitements are welcome.
Burbick nicely describes this intensity and commitment; rodeo queens are the daughters of successful entrepreneurs who can afford the considerable expense. They know success came from working 16-hour and longer days when necessary; the girls do the same to become a queen; just as Burbick consulted more than 150 sources, plus dozens of interviews of rodeo queens from as far back as the 1930s to write her short but astute book.
Burbick is a "queen" in terms of her commitment to this topic and the quality of her book. Although she's superb in linking the rodeo sport to conservative attitudes in the west, her weakness is not linking it to the intense competitive spirit that produces excellence in academics, in sports, or on the dark side in the form of juvenile crimes and mindless rebellion -- all of which characterizes the West.
She deftly outlines the Western myth of rugged individualism and self-sufficiency; but fails to understand that such myths create the limited acumen expressed in Western social and political attitudes -- even if they are more fiction than practical. Anyone who reads this book will understand why the West is solid Republican in politics, as well as the "Texas" attitude now in the White House.
Granted, rodeo queens won't regard this book as the best thing since chili and beans, or cold beer in longneck bottles. But, anyone interested in the relentless competition of life which shaped the daddies of these precocious queens (the academic experience is very similar and is based on just as rich a background of myths and dreams), it's a superb look at one of the crown jewels of the western experience.
Women's stories tell of their successes and failures March 4, 2004
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Joan Burbick's Rodeo Queens And The American Dream examines the women of the rodeo: those who traveled the rural West for years and who became 'rodeo royalty' from the 1930s onward. Women's stories tell of their successes and failures riding the rodeo circuit in this involving guide.
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