Taking the Reins: A Documentary About the Cowboy Icon and American Identity

FAIN: TD-297029-24

Center for Independent Documentary, Inc. (Newton, MA 02458-1341)
Sally Rubin (Project Director: August 2023 to present)

Development of a feature length documentary about the figure of the cowboy in American popular imagination and its role in shaping myths and identities throughout U.S. history.     

TAKING THE REINS examines the figure of the cowboy in America’s popular imagination and its role in shaping myths and identities throughout our nation’s history. The film explores the unexpected ways in which marginalized Americans, often cast out of both regional and national narratives, have reimagined, reinvented, and redeployed the iconic cowboy archetype as a means of demanding inclusion into an “authentic” American identity. Throughout American history, the figure of the cowboy has coalesced identity markers such as independence, resilience, self-invention, and freedom. Now, on the eve of another pivotal presidential election, as we find ourselves more bitterly divided than ever, the debates roiling the national conversation center on questions about who belongs on this soil and what it means to be American. Our film rides into that conflicted space, exploring the cultural and political significance of the cowboy, how and why we have crafted its image, and who gets to claim it.