DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-663943
title: OmegaKondre and horseface minstrelsy in the western

description: Both the critical and the creative elements of my dissertation propose a re-examination of conventional literary tropes and stereotypes central to the popular western. Likewise, both projects are informed by my California ranching background and my work as a large animal husbandry specialist for the U.S. Peace Corps in South America. My novel, OmegaKondre, offers a good example of how my practical experience has influenced my dissertation. The book is set in the Amazon basin and features a modern cowboy capitalist working to convince the members of a tribe to adopt his version of the “cowboy code,” even as the code’s moral certitude comes unraveled for him. Drawing upon my extensive research on westerns, I manipulate and build upon the recurring theme of colonial development “south of the border” - all to better serve the story I am trying to tell. Also, the choice of setting allows me to bring a greater degree of authority and authenticity to the novel since I have actually lived in the Amazon. Similarly, my critical project is informed by my extensive research into the films and literature of the American West, but is additionally influenced by my practical experience with horses and my knowledge of them as real animals rather than western stereotypes. In my dissertation, Horseface Minstrelsy in the Western, I argue that while the fictional horses presented in popular westerns are no more authentic than the fictional cowboys who ride them, these horses are homogenously inauthentic from western to western, suggesting that a larger cultural impulse is at play. Scholars have argued that the literary traditions of the western and the plantation romance were “fused” sometime in the 1890’s, and have specifically cited as evidence of this fusion the transference of the stereotypical plantation master’s southern chivalry onto the stereotype of the cowboy. In light of these claims, I suggest that the stereotypical character most intimately associated with the plantation master - the devoted slave, or “Uncle Tom” - has his own western incarnation in the form of the cowboy’s horse. ❧ To support my argument, I cite Toni Morrison’s articulation of the “Africanist presence” in canonical American literature. Morrison suggests that the African American experience is so essential to American identity that it simply must make itself known in our literature, even when that historical presence is ignored or removed. She argues that this strategy of “erasure” can make the historical presence of African Americans difficult to recognize, but explains that this cultural presence must persist in some form, even if it has become deeply encoded. Significantly, Morrison points out that this encoded Africanist presence is sometimes reflected through animal symbols. Building upon Morrison’s theory, I argue that the transference of the Uncle Tom stereotype onto the cowboy’s horse was intuitive for a racially-troubled postbellum culture that already had a tradition of associating slaves with horses. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin reflects this practice by giving her reader at least four references to slave auctions in which the examination of the slaves for sale is directly related to the examination of horses, and Frederick Douglass puts this impulse into a historical context by stating that during slave and livestock auctions, African American women were valuated with the cattle, their children with the pigs, and African American men were valuated with the horses. Building upon this cultural impulse, the popular western further fortifies a strictly-defined racial hierarchy by literally placing the white cowboy “on top” of a representative African American character, symbolically reinforcing collapsing racial boundaries for a nostalgic white audience. Additionally, redrawing the Uncle Tom stereotype as an animal allows readers - even those who might have opposed African American slavery - to freely enjoy the perpetuation of a beloved racial stereotype without the moral complexities that come along with forced human bondage or overtly-derogatory racial representations. ❧ This disturbing cultural impulse continues to hide in plain sight, even in our “post-racial” age. Animated children’s films such as Shrek, Madagascar, and Tommy and the Cool Mule all feature equine characters voiced by African American actors - a revealing casting choice, since the visual representation of a character in an animated film does not have to reflect the appearance of the actor providing the voice of the character. Marketing derogatory racial stereotypes towards children serves the dual function of driving the stereotype underground while simultaneously perpetuating it. This ongoing subliminal impulse to portray African Americans as less than human is profoundly disturbing, and merits attention from scholars seeking to understand and transcend the racial divisions of prior historical periods.