Posted on 06/24/2005 9:28:51 PM PDT by neverdem
DEADWOOD, S.D.
The actors from HBO's "Deadwood" are coming to the scene of their crimes today, and they can expect a hero's welcome when they pose for pictures on Main Street. Some people in the real Deadwood are offended by the series' lurid language and scenes, but the ones who work in the tourist industry recognize a central truth about the Old West: violence sells.
The casino operators here stage shootings on the hour. At 1, 3 and 5 p.m., you can sit inside Saloon No. 10 and watch Wild Bill Hickok gunned down at a card table. At 2, 4 and 6 p.m., there are gunfights in the street. The bodies aren't being fed to hogs yet, as in the television series, perhaps because that would hurt the restaurant business.
Between the murders on "Deadwood" and the massacres on "Into the West," the Steven Spielberg epic that seems to be playing round the clock on TNT, the popular version of the frontier looks scarier than ever. There's nothing like blood on high-def TV to illustrate Hobbes's theory that life before government was nasty, brutish and short.
But if you talk to some historians and economists about Deadwood and the rest of the West, you get a much different picture from what's on television - or what's been taught in history classes.
These revisionists' history, unlike the one now fashionable in academia, is not a grim saga of settlers exploiting one another, annihilating natives and despoiling nature. Nor is it like the previously fashionable history depicting the settlers as heroic individualists who tamed the frontier by developing the great American virtue of self-reliance.
The Westerners in this history survived by learning to get along, as Terry Anderson and Peter Hill document in their new book, "The Not So Wild, Wild..."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I live in the West and South Dakota is no where near here.
Speaking as a history teacher and a published author (I even have an agent) -- Well, yes, the language of the old west was colorful. But in a tv series, IMHO, when every other word is the "F" word, that's not colorful, it's an example of weak writing. Profane language and it's proper use is an art. Ask any marine D.I. Those guys can curse for fifteen minutes and not repeat themselves once. But for a writer, such language should be used as a surgeon's scalpel for maximum effect. When it's used as a bludgeon, as it is in Deadwood I find it get's old and boring real fast. Historically I don't think the show is very accurate, either. Too much intrigue.
How many blacks are on the show? I can't remember. But one in seven cowboys was black. There were very few gunfights in the real west, because most everybody carried a gun as has been posted here. Same reason each town had one sheriff and a couple of deputies. When the good guys had their hands full the whole town loaded rifles and made their desires known.
How many blacks are on the show? I can't remember. But one in seven cowboys was black
I would very much like to learn about this and the stat. Do you have an url, pls?
However, on another score.. In re weaving a fabric of utter brilliance using profanity? You think Marines got the corner on that Market? Meet some soldiers.. (grin)
I totally agree. Sure there was colorful language and lawlessness, but the show is way over the top. I enjoy the show, but cringe a lot also. I have been to Deadwoob several times, but when I think of it, I more often think casinos than anything. Of course, the town was all but dead before the casinos.
I spent 14 years as an officer of army infantry. I know. But yes the corps DI's still have the corner on profanity as an art form.
Not to nag; but do you have that url or book/article about the black cowboys of the west being ratio'd at approx 1:6?
I got this from Ask.com: By 1877 and the end of Reconstruction ... 94% of blacks lived in the South, did not own land, few had gone west to homestead ... 50% of cowboys were black (poor pay) ...... and it is a Georgetown University class....synopsis. Of course as economic advantages rose or fell, the percentage of all occupations shift by demographics.
Not only had I heard this; but it is logical and fits perfectly in with all other available data.
Buffalo soldiers, for one. Here's a link:
I hadn't quite thought of black cowboys fully -- but you are right: These were amazing men.
"Over 180,000 African-Americans served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Of these, more than 33,000 died. After the war, the future of African-Americans in the U.S. Army was in doubt. In July1866, however, Congress passed legislation establishing two cavalry and four infantry regiments (later consolidated to two) whose enlisted composition was to be made up of African-Americans.
Cowboys. On horseback. Buffalo Soldiers.
If I may be so immodest, of course I'm right. I was social studies teacher of the year at my high school in 2001. Teaching is one of the very few things I do very well. But you did the right thing. Something I drill into my students daily. Don't take anything anybody says as being absolutely true. Check it yourself. Find the other side. Especially: Look for a person's AGENDA when you are told something!
My classes always seem to fill first. I have had parents with children who had me in the past call the school to demand the younger sibling be put in my classes or moved from another class into mine. That's a responsibility I take seriously and so I do my homework before I open my mouth. Seventeen years and counting.
A gifted teacher creates a perfect and wholesome hunger in any student. Thank you for teaching; and teaching so well.
~Blushes Furiously, scuffs toe in the dust~ Aw shucks ma'am. Thanks.
:) Thanks, again, for challenging me to make the connections! I had data.. I hadn't quite connected it in the way you suggested.
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