Convict Cowboys is the first book on the nation’s first prison rodeo, which ran from 1931 to 1986. At its apogee the Texas Prison Rodeo drew 30,000 spectators on October Sundays. Mitchel P. Roth portrays the Texas Prison Rodeo against a backdrop of Texas history, covering the history of rodeo, the prison system, and convict leasing, as well as important figures in Texas penology including Marshall Lee Simmons, O.B. Ellis, and George J. Beto, and the changing prison demimonde. Over the years the rodeo arena not only boasted death-defying entertainment that would make professional cowboys think twice, but featured a virtual who’s who of American popular culture. Readers will be treated to stories about numerous American and Texas folk heroes, including Western film stars ranging from Tom Mix to John Wayne, and music legends such as Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. Through extensive archival research Roth introduces readers to the convict cowboys in both the rodeo arena and behind prison walls, giving voice to a legion of previously forgotten inmate cowboys who risked life and limb for a few dollars and the applause of free-world crowds.

Best known to Americans as the “singing cowboy,” beloved entertainer Gene Autry (1907–1998) appeared in countless films, radio broadcasts, television shows, and other venues. While Autry’s name and a few of his hit songs are still widely known today, his commitment to political causes and public diplomacy deserves greater appreciation. In this innovative examination of Autry’s influence on public opinion, Michael Duchemin explores the various platforms this cowboy crooner used to support important causes, notably Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and foreign policy initiatives leading up to World War II. As a prolific performer of western folk songs and country-western music, Autry gained popularity in the 1930s by developing a persona that appealed to rural, small-town, and newly urban fans. It was during this same time, Duchemin explains, that Autry threw his support behind the thirty-second president of the United States. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, Duchemin demonstrates how Autry popularized Roosevelt’s New Deal policies and made them more attractive to the American public. In turn, the president used the emerging motion picture industry as an instrument of public diplomacy to enhance his policy agendas, which Autry’s films, backed by Republic Pictures, unabashedly endorsed. As the United States inched toward entry into World War II, the president’s focus shifted toward foreign policy. Autry responded by promoting Americanism, war preparedness, and friendly relations with Latin America. As a result, Duchemin argues, “Sergeant Gene Autry” played a unique role in making FDR’s internationalist policies more palatable for American citizens reluctant to engage in another foreign war. New Deal Cowboy enhances our understanding of Gene Autry as a western folk hero who, during critical times of economic recovery and international crisis, readily assumed the role of public diplomat, skillfully using his talents to persuade a marginalized populace to embrace a nationalist agenda. By drawing connections between western popular culture and American political history, the book also offers valuable insight concerning the development of leisure and western tourism, the information industry, public diplomacy, and foreign policy in twentieth-century America.

Did you know that Pocahontas probably never fell in love with John Smith, as the Disney and other film versions of those events pretend? That Godzilla was originally an anti-American and anti-nuclear movie, heavily cut and supplemented with new material? That Zorro was not created by an American author but derived from the much older Mexican struggle for independence? That Anna and the King was largely invented? That the myth of the sexually eager Hula girls is based on misunderstandings by the first explorers? That Black Hawk Down and many other war movies were censored and indirectly subsidized by the Pentagon? Screening Difference takes us on a fascinating voyage through major movie blockbusters that deal with the encounter between "us," based on white Hollywood, and "them," the filmic representations of other races, ethnicities, and cultures. Looking at subtle orientations in casting and make-up, sets and props, lighting and camera movements, music and language, this lively book follows the best-known genres and subgenres: from animated cartoons to wilderness films, from romantic movies to colonial adventures. Screening Difference tracks the stories back to their origins and patiently dissects the hidden messages that have gradually crept into them.

Published for devotees of the cowboy and the West, American Cowboy covers all aspects of the Western lifestyle, delivering the best in entertainment, personalities, travel, rodeo action, human interest, art, poetry, fashion, food, horsemanship, history, and every other facet of Western culture. With stunning photography and you-are-there reportage, American Cowboy immerses readers in the cowboy life and the magic that is the great American West.

Verhoeff investigates the emergence of the western genre, made in the first two decades of cinema (1895-1915). By analyzing many unknown and forgotten films from international archives she traces the relationships between films about the American West, their surrounding films, and other popular media such as photography, painting, (pulp) literature, Wild West Shows and popular ethnography. Through this exploration of archival material she raises new questions of historiography and provides a model for historical analysis. These first traces of the Western film reveal a preoccupation with presence and actuality that informs us about the way in which film, as new medium, took shape within the context of its contemporary visual culture. In The West in Early Cinema gaat Nanna Verhoeff op zoek naar de nog onbekende beginjaren van het westerngenre tijdens de eerste twee decennia van het medium film 1895-1915). Aan de hand van onbekende en vergeten films uit internationale filmarchieven traceert zij de relaties tussen films over het Westen, omringende filmgenres uit deze periode, en andere populaire media als fotografie, schilderkunst, (pulp)literatuur, Wild West Shows en populaire etnografie. Deze sporen van het genre tonen een grote actualiteit en variatie, die laat zien op welke manier de film als nieuw medium een vorm vond binnen de toenmalige visuele cultuur.

Drawing on the fruitful insights of queer theory, this study departs from the notion that popular culture can function as articulations of resistance to the discourse of heteronormativity that is being reiterated and consolidated in popular culture products. In particular, this study focuses on the potential of gay representation (representations of those who are identified and/or self-identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual) in contemporary television fiction to resist heteronormative institutions, practices, norms and values.