Actually, it's not really fake. Denver and the Front Range have a real Western heritage: mining. That's what brought the white settlers here in droves and resulted in the establishment of the state. The fake part is the imagined Hollywood-style cowboy heritage.
We get a walloping dose of that fakery every year around this time because of the stock show. There are TV and radio ads featuring gravelly voices speaking with that bizarre distortion of a Southern accent that Hollywood uses to depict anything Old Wild Western (and sometimes anything rural, no matter what part of the country a movie is set in).
The real history of the West in general and Colorado in particular is fascinating, colorful, and an important part of US history. I wish we'd hear more about that and less of the Hollywood version, although I fear that most Americans see their entire history through the lens of the movies.
Speaking of movies, Benjamin Button sucks.
2 comments:
You'd better watch how you talk 'bout Mr. Button there, podner. Seems there's some anonymous folks 'round here don't take kindly to that sort of thing.
Wal, ya know what what we Western folk think of a man that won't look ya right in the eye and speak his handle straight out!
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