{"product_id":"cowboy-hero","title":"Cowboy Hero","description":"\u003cp\u003eLike most other serious students of American popular culture, William W. Savage, Jr., believes that by examining our heroes we learn about ourselves. In \u003cem\u003eThe Cowboy Hero\u003c\/em\u003e he takes as his subject the cowboy of myth, dime novel, wild West show, legend, Hollywood, museum, and television.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith an introductory discussion of the elusive historical cowboy and an occasional return to his real world to keep the reader in balance, Savage reviews the cowboy hero in his various guises-as a cowboy doing the work of cowboys (seldom), as musician, as performer on state and in wild West shows, and above all as a man’s man, the object of whose affections is most generally his horse (other objects of the historical cowboy’s affections are courageously alluded to).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen there is the cowboy the purveyor of macho cigarettes, sugarcoated cereal (\"the historical cowboy was the very picture of malnutrition, but the cowboy hero might well hold a degree in home economics, so ardent is his praise of brand-name foodstuff\"), coughdrops, painkillers, barbecue sauce, and laundry detergent. \"No matter how much the American people revere their heroes or tout their myths,\" says Savage, \"they will sell them all to any buyer and at nearly any price.\" The approach is topical rather than media-oriented, though it is largely through the cowboy’s media appearances that we come to know and love him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith the (no doubt temporary) absence of the cowboy from the television screen, the cowboy hero is today most revered as rodeo performer-participant in a sometimes brutal sport that has nothing to do with cowboying. The author’s description of the young western boy’s initiation into the sport turns little-league horror tales into bedtime stories. The inevitable result of all this is summed up in the title of the last chapter, \"A Bore at Last.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book, often funny and expectable ironic but with a serious pu\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Oklahoma Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52649891627375,"sku":"9780806119205","price":159.85,"currency_code":"BRL","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0921\/9384\/9711\/files\/0806119209.jpg?v=1770665636","url":"https:\/\/internacional.umlivro.com.br\/products\/cowboy-hero","provider":"UmLivro Internacional","version":"1.0","type":"link"}