Beckham, Football, and the Wild West

By Valentina Borodina, Bianca Steffen, & Henna Räsänen

Our artifact is a video clip that we found on youtube. It is a commercial for the soft drink brand Pepsi. The spot is created by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO and the English football player David Beckham is the star of the clip. He rides into town with four of his Manchester United teammates for a showdown with Real Madrid, so it is a battle between two of the most successful football teams in Europe. Both teams have a sponsorship deal with Pepsi.

The commercial came out in 2003 and was directed by Tarsem Singh, who has also, for example, directed the Jennifer Lopez film 'The Cell' or the video for REM's 'Losing My Religion'.  There are also other Manchester United players like Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Juan Veron, as well as Real Madrid’s players such as Roberto Carlos, Guti, Raul, the former captain, and Iker Casillas, the goalkeeper as well as the present captain of Real Madrid and Spain’s National Team. The reason why we picked this ad is because it was made in Almeira, Spain, the location of many spaghetti westerns. It is produced in Europe but supposed to look like it was made in the American West. Despite the fact that Pepsi is actually an American brand this video still has many western stereotypes in it, which will be analyzed in the next paragraph.

The commercial starts with a group riding into a western town. The setting is copied from all the famous western movies: two storey wooden houses with porches, dry sand roads that blow clouds of dust when trampled by horse hoofs and a saloon with typical revolving doors and customers playing cards around round tables. The surrounding area is almost completely treeless, making it look barren, with mountains rising from the horizon.

As the group enters the saloon they are immediately noticed by the others as rivals. The atmosphere in the establishment gets brooding with the anticipation of a conflict. The leader of the new group orders a drink; here it is a bottle of Pepsi instead of a glass of whisky or other hard liquor. He gets challenged when a man from the other group catches his bottle and arrogantly drinks from it. This results in a command to step outside the saloon for a shootout. As the two men are facing each other on the sandy main road of the village they take off their capes and hats revealing the typical football outfits in their teams colors. They stand in a shootout position with their hands eager to grab their imaginary revolvers. The shootout position parallels that of a penalty shot making the comparison between these two situations distinct.

The setting is a mixture of the stereotypical portrayal of American West and European sport culture. Instead of cowboy boots the men are wearing football boots, and on the backs of their capes they have their player numbers. However, they are still recognizable as western heroes with their cowboy hats and leather capes. Furthermore, the teams can be divided into a “good” and a “bad” group, the good group being the one riding into town. They are identified as an English football team, and the bad group consisting of players of the Spanish team. This division has its reasons, since in many western movies Spanish-speaking cowboys, i.e. often Mexicans, are depicted as the ones creating mayhem: robbing banks and trains etc. This is played upon the fact that most players from the Real Madrid are either Spanish or South American making them the perfect villains for the commercial. Moreover, the good guys are English-speaking players from an English team, referred to as gringos, i.e. foreigners or whites, at the end of the film. In addition, the main character, David Beckham, has the same facial expression as many of the heroes in western movies, e.g. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, as he squints his blue eyes when looking at his opponent.

The commercial is not without a bit of humor. Right before the kick a man appears right next to a sign “Wanted Rivaldo”, it is Rivaldo himself, a former player FC Barcelona, the biggest rival of FC Real Madrid. The kick happens, David Beckham became the victor of the shootout but not without cheating. As Roberto Carlos emerges from the house with a ball, a sense of revenge is in the air, leaving the whole good versus bad debate in the open. Just like in the real American West, there are no clear good or bad guys, the strangers often are not welcomed but can earn the respect of others and one victory doesn’t mean there would be no more battles.

‘Cowboy und Indianer’ – violent conflict reduced to mere entertainment

By Susanne Reiche & Rachael Farnworth

Held in Munich, Bavaria since 1810, Oktoberfest or "die Wiesn" is one of if not the most renowned annual festival in Germany, maybe even in Europe.  People gather together for sixteen days each autumn from all over Germany and the wider world to consume large amounts of beer, eat traditional German food and dance and sing into the early hours. It could not be a more German event.

Yet, amidst the merriment, is an American West influence in the form of the ‘Cowboy und Indianer’ song; complete with dance moves. The lyrics roughly translate to:

Get your lasso out
Let’s play cowboys and Indians
We’ll ride our horses without resting 
Or having a goal of any sort really
You’ve got me surrounded so I’ll give myself up 
And you can tie me to a giant pole
Come on get out your lasso, 
It will be like the very first time (wink wink nudge nudge)

On first impressions the song’s fast rhythm and upbeat melody makes you want to join in with the seemingly harmless fun, but looking at the lyrics more closely it is hard to ignore the song’s popular notion of “play[ing]” Cowboys and Indians. This led us to consider where this notion actually comes from.  Leaving the fun and games behind, we wanted to focus on the harsh truths that surround this stereotypical idea of ‘Cowboys verses Indians’ that is present in Germany and wider Europe.

When the White settlers sailed over the Pacific Ocean and arrived at the American coast in the 1600s, no one foresaw the lasting consequences that the creation of White settlements would have on the lives of the ‘Indian’s’ that already lived there. Even though the Indians helped the new settlers survive the first harsh winter by providing them with food and showing them how to assimilate to the landscape, the Whites branched out and soon inhabited much of the country; the Indian’s were indeed “surrounded.”

The White’s (or Cowboys) brought with them European traditions and customs, not to mention alcohol – satirical considering this is an Oktoberfest song - and disease, which had detrimental effects on the Native population. The vicious fight between the two groups started due to false treaties, made by the greedy settlers who took advantage of the Indians’ hospitability. What stands out though, is the sheer number of deaths on the Indian side. Many Indians did “give [them]sel[ves] up” after the brutality they faced at the hand of the Cowboys’ “lasso”. Today, this conflict has been turned into a game between two groups, with the Cowboys deemed as the heroic group, despite their actions and the overall harsh reality that the two groups were part of.

The idea of Cowboys riding “[their] horses without resting” could relate to the wide, open country and the freedom and opportunity for White settlers in the West. It could also touch on the Cowboys eagerness to catch the inferior Indians. The song also states that the Cowboys rode after the Indians without a “goal of any sort really”, and maybe there is some truth in this.  Perhaps even some Cowboys at the time viewed the suffering of Indians as nothing more than a necessary game of ‘catch us if you can’. Certainly, the Indians did not view being tied to a pole, and having their country and culture exploited, as just a game. Moreover the euphemistic connotations in the last two lines of the song, which are also reflected in the dance moves, further emphasises the idea of Cowboys and Indians is purely entertaining and is not taken seriously.

Even though there are many ways to enlighten Europeans nowadays and spread the truth about the take over of the Natives’ land by White settlers, it seems that Europeans, including Germans, still view Cowboys and Indians as nothing more than fun; a game between two groups. Perhaps this is the case because people would prefer not to think about the violence, hidden behind the entertainment factor. Consequently, we believe this song reflects the still existent, wide spread ignorance concerning the treatment of the Indians by European settlers and supports the indifference towards the violation of Native Americans, their land and their culture.

Sources:
This International Life blog: http://www.zurika.com/2011/09/the-real-dance-moves-you-need-for-oktoberfest.html

‘How to dance and sing Cowboy und Indianer’ – video: http://youtu.be/9KV8voYSP-w

Oktoberfest Official site: http://www.oktoberfest.de/en/

The VW Amarok

By Katharina

Within the past few years, SUVs and pickup trucks became more and more fashionable in Germany. Before I associated them only with the U.S., especially the American West as a means of going back and forth between towns and being able to transport a lot of things because it is quite a long ride to town. Furthermore, every time I watched an American TV show or movie with the American West as its focus, pickup trucks, amongst others, were depicted almost every time. So those cars are something associated with the U.S., but not Germany.

After having spent a year on a farm or somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Montana, as others might refer to it, I knew that people living on farms needed big pickups for hunting, driving out onto the fields or simply in order to get to town, when a blizzard had hit your place and the “regular” car would not be able to manage the snow down in the reservoir or the icy roads. I was also aware of the fact, that people would not drive the pickup just for fun, as it has a bad gas milage and is simply too expensive to be the daily ride. Of course, there are exceptions, like young people who have gotten a car for their 16th birthday or some other occasion and enjoyed the power that comes with the car.

But pickups here in Germany?! I was not aware of them until I returned and saw more and more large pickups driving around town, like the Dodge Ram, of which I think it is simply over the top here in our urban areas. I know there are farms around my place and the farther away one is from the city, the more rural it gets. The interesting thing though is, that it is not the farmers driving around in those cars, but people living in the city.

The artifact I chose, is the VW Amarok and the commercial showing how the driver of the car imagines how he is driving around the desert and a mountain terrain even though he is only taking his son to basketball practice. The interesting aspect is that the car has a license plate sign for Hannover – a not so rural place to live in. Furthermore, the vehicle was not produced for the American market, but all other continents, including Australia – a place where it is better to have a larger car as well. But pickups to me are something that belong to rural areas, as small cars sometimes do not suffice anymore and larger wheels and a larger car in general are necessary. So it can be said that those large cars, not only the VW Amarok, but also the Audi Q7 or the BMW X6 are more fun cars in Germany for those with the extra cash that can be spend on whatever they desire.

The reason for choosing the car in general is the fascination of driving on an endless road found in the American West and enjoying the countryside while it might also be snowing along the way. It is just amazing to see the endlessness of the countryside which is something going through my mind when reading My Antonia and Jim‘s experience in the new country. Nowadays the country is something that one is able to reach faster by car than it used to be the case with only horse carriage or train available.

Maybe it is justified to say that in those big cars the longing and the idea of those large landscapes and big skies for which the American West is so famously known, is reflected for people living in Germany and other urban areas. A lot of commercials convey the image that it is possible to break free from everyday life – from the road into the open country. Just like the commercial of the VW Amarok which breaks out of the urban road network in Germany into the open one in the American West.

My Name is Nobody

By Nornia Nitschke, Lisa Walter, Johannes Wilhelm

"My Name is Nobody" is one of the famous Italo-Western (Spaghetti Western) movies. It was released in 1973 in Italy and directed by Tonino Valerii. The idea for the movie was by Sergio Leone who mainly built this sub-genre of Western films.

The story centers on the young ‘Nobody’. A young blond and blue eyed cowboy living from one day to another. He is a gambler and thus sees life as a whole big game. He comes across the so-called ‘Wild Horde’, a gang of thieves. This is where ‘Beauregard’ comes into play. He is an old and tired man, but was once considered a legend among the cowboys and the populace of the south-west. Nobody idolizes him, but quickly recognizes that his idol is a man which does no longer live up to his legend. But since he came across the Wild Horde he now has a solution for Beauregard in order to depart in glory. He is supposed to die in combat with the Wild Bunch, facing them alone and taking them out, but dying along the shootout. That is when Nobody begins to tail Beauregard throughout New Mexico (1898) and by that encountering many of Beauregard’s old enemies and learning of his plan to set out for Europe from New Orleans. During this voyage Nobody sets in motion his plan through a certain turn of events that gets him engaged with the leader of the Wild Horde ‘Sullivan’. There he learns of the equipment of Sullivan’s gang and how Beauregard is related to them. He finally accomplishes his goal of the final showdown between the lone Beauregard and the whole Wild Horde. Nobody tells Beauregard of dynamite inside the saddle bags of the Wild Bunch and thus enables him to disable many enemies with a few precise shots. At the end of the showdown they escape in a stolen train and Nobody helps his idol one last time. They both fake a showdown within a city in which Beauregard is killed by Nobody, for the audience. Beauregard then slips away in silence and is able to depart to Europe. Where Beauregard was supposedly killed the movie then shows a sign that reads: ‘Nobody Was Faster On The Draw’

In this movie we can find several of the most dominant themes when it comes to the American West. First of all are the cowboys. Terence Hill is the perfect actor for portraying the cowboys. He is handsome, witty and cunning. He displays every aspects that everyone expects of the cowboys. Even the later glorification can be found, displayed onto the character of Beauregard. He takes his glorified last-stand and even survives that in order to depart with dignity, memorized by everyone. They are the knights of their time. But with losing their armor, they found their freedom and where able to explore the land. But we can see another part of the American West portrayed here.

New Mexico consists mostly of an arid and desert-like landscape and therefor stands for the hardships which the people of the west had to tackle every day. Hard labor, marauding bandits and the hard climate which they had to face. The relentless sun and the constant wind ad to all what made life hard in this area and the movie shows some significant insight into all that.

But the movie also tells us of a very important part of the life in the Wild West. Nobody can survive alone. Everyone depends on one another in order to survive all the struggles they are put through. The harsh environment, landscape and people alike, demand the most of everyone. Just through unity they can overcome such villains like Sullivan, which existed sure enough. The west was a dangerous place, but the movie shows in several ways how this was overcome.

Through the humoristic attitude added to the character of Nobody, the movie was less grave then it could have been. That makes it a very fine example of European culture, which portrays the American West.

The movie surely is an older example of the European popular culture since it is nearly 30 years old. But at least in Germany it is one of the most famous Spaghetti Western films and enjoys cult status. Therefore we thought it worth to be mentioned.

Friendship

By Paul Wrobel & Chantal Franz

The German film production Friendship which appeared in 2010 tells the story of two friends who live in East Berlin. With the fall of the Berlin Wall the two friends Tom and Veit decide to go to San Francisco, USA. The idea of Veit is to travel to the most westerly part of the world. Tom is just as thrilled about the idea and both decide to go to America. Unfortunately, the friends do not have enough money to fly straight to San Francisco but they are only able to afford a flight to New York. From there they go through a lot of adventures to eventually arrive at San Francisco.

Later it turns out that Veit believes that his Dad who has fled from the DDR twelve years ago is supposed to live there but for our further analysis this part of the story will not play an important part. What is interesting is the idea of visiting the very West of America.

We have chosen this item because it relates to the notion of the American West as well as the desire of people from all over the world to go there. It appeared quite striking to us that the two friends are not satisfied by just going to West Germany but crave for absolute freedom and experiences in California which they believe will not get in BRD.

Although the movie takes places in 1989 the experiences of Tom and Veit are similar to what immigrants had to face about a hundred years ago. Willa Cather’s novel My Antonia reflects that well. The story starts with Jim entering the Great Plains and with his descriptions of the landscape being empty and alien. This is depicted throughout the movie several times when the two friends are crossing the country with a scenery showing a treeless, vast, and dry land. Believing that this was intentional by the producers of the movie, an illustration was created in order to demonstrate the huge differences between German and West American landscapes since this is rather unfamiliar for most Europeans.

Considering the expectations that immigrants bring along when coming to the U.S., the Shimerdas, for instance, have to cope with unexpected issues. Thinking they had enough money to start all over again they travel to Nebraska but by buying their own dugout which can barely be compared to a home, they are being deceived. That is when they first realize that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. The first scene in Nebraska hints at further disappointments and frustrations in the rest of the novel.

Similar things happen to Tom and Veit immediately after their arrival at the airport as they pass security and have to undergo investigations due to their nationality because the police officers suppose they were Nazis. As a result, Tom’s and Veit’s expectancies of freedom and crossing boarders without restrictions are led down, which is the common thread of the movie.

Another theme in My Antonia is the language barrier towards the English-speaking community that Antonia and her family have in the beginning of the story. Consequently, this barrier leads to a separation and prejudices between the fluently English-speaking inhabitants and the immigrants with a different mother tongue whereas in the film the Germans’ lack of the English language entails many incidents that get them into trouble with the police. This goes along with cultural differences, too. For instants, Tom raps the American flag around his naked body in the presence of the police not knowing that he commits a crime in doing so.

Further parallels can be drawn when comparing the diversions that are offered both in the book and in the film. As for the novel, the younger folk attend dances regularly to associate with people and enjoy themselves. The equivalent about a hundred years later are home parties, dance and strip clubs as implied in the movie. Tom and Veit looked forward to these kinds of social events just like Antonia and her friends.

In conclusion, it is evident that even though almost a hundred years have passed between the publishing of the book and the film the basic ideas remain unchanged. While Willa Cather had experienced the American West herself, Friendship was produced by Germans which had no effects on its authenticity of the representation of the West that is due to the usage of the same discourses and notions the Germans applied in their production.

All in all, Friendship functions as a good example to show how American images have spread beyond its borders and found their way into the minds of many foreigners.

Manitou’s Shoe: Winnetou Meets Bavaria

Manitou`s Shoe Vol.1 - Click here for funny video clips

By Maxi Morosow & Oskar Sommerlade

For our group project, we selected the German movie Manitou’s Shoe, which was released in 2001 and directed by Michael “Bully” Herbig. The genres of the movie are primarily comedy and Western.

When we thought about finding a popular artifact from German or European culture that reflects some notion of the “American West”, the Karl May productions about Winnetou and the “Wild West” came to our minds immediately. But after a while we realized that we hadn’t really been much in contact with those books and movies while we were children or teenagers. It had been more our parents and grandparents who had told us about it. There was one movie, however, that was released when we were children and that we could not forget: Manitou’s Shoe.

In 2001, the movie had been a huge success and was one of our favorite discussion topics with our friends at school. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that we could still remember most of the plot and many of its funny scenes. It seems as Herbig didn’t omit any possible jokes for his kind of Western movie: Indians who dig up a folding chair instead of a hatchet, a gay Indian twin brother, a Greek friend who owns a tavern and many other things.

The plot orients itself towards the Karl May productions of the 1960’s. It is often said that the movie is a direct German parody of Western movies. The plot of Manitou’s Shoe also takes place in the Wild West in the 19th century. Back in the day the cowboy Ranger saved the life of the Indian boy Abahachi. Afterwards they became inseparable friends and blood brothers. One day Abahachi decides to buy a new saloon and borrows money from the Shoshone Indians. However, Abahachi gets very unlucky: Not only does the real estate agent, a man from Wyoming called Santa Maria, betray him, he also kills “False Rabbit”, the son of the Indian chief. Due to this, Abahachi gets into trouble with the whole tribe of the Shoshone. In order to clear his debt, he wants to find a treasure that is hidden at a place called “Manitou’s Shoe”. Therefore, he quickly looks for his former girlfriend Uschi, his gay twin brother Winnetouch and his Greek friend Dimitri. Each of them owns a quarter of the treasure map that will lead them to this place. However, Santa Maria also learns about the treasure and awaits Abahachi, Ranger and their friends at “Manitou’s Shoe”.

There are multiple reasons why this movie can be considered a tongue-in-cheek depiction of notions (and sometimes also stereotypes) concerning the American West. Of course it is, as stated above, very loosely based on Karl May’s works, which makes it an interesting case of how certain images and conceptions are „filtered“ through various media. That is to say, Manitou’s Shoe isn’t as much an interpretation of the American West as rather an interpretation of the American West as seen by Karl May, but also with the addition of satirical humor.

One can see in many cases that the movie not only picks up on some common clichés credited largely to May, but also reverses them for comical purposes. For instance, the character of Ranger highly resembles that of May’s Old Shatterhand in the sense that both of them are hardened, leather-wearing gunslingers with telling names. Ranger, however, at one point emphatically confesses being tired of all the usual aspects of life in the Wild West such as “being bound to some stake every other day”. Like his blood brother Abahachi, he also speaks in a broad Bavarian dialect, which mocks the overall seriousness of these supposedly “Western” characters.

Amidst all of this whimsicalness, it is still often possible to find some traces of the more pragmatic ideals that the American West embodies. Even Winnetouch, who would stick out like a sore thumb in every “serious” Western movie with his pink clothes and openly gay behavior, is still able to build up a successful business by running a beauty salon out in the open prairie. What this shows is that the fields of the West can be conquered even by the most uncommon individuals. The aforementioned Dimitri, on the other hand, may seem like just some other “fish out of the water” type of character at first glance, but also illustrates the issue of immigration and cultural diversity that was prevalent in the American West as well.

More than ten years after the release of this movie, one can still sense the profound impact that it had on the perception of the American West in German popular culture. Before Manitou’s Shoe, people couldn’t speak of this subject without mentioning Karl May. Today it might seem that Herbig’s movie has taken that place.

Works Cited
Der Schuh des Manitu. Dir. Michael Herbig. Perf. Michael Herbig, Christian Tramitz, Rick Kavanian, Sky Du Mont, Marie Bäumer. Constantin Film, 2001. Film.

What's going on here?

Hello and welcome to the ongoing class blog for the course "The Modern American West" at the Universität Potsdam. The goal of this blog is to present the work of my students, who will spend Winter Semester 2012 studying the literature and culture of the modern American West with me. In order to enrich and expand our class discussions, I have assigned my students to look to the popular culture of Germany (or Europe more broadly) for representations of the American West and to present them here. I have asked them to "curate" these artifacts of popular culture: alongside the item itself -- be it song, film, advertisement, etc. -- they are to explain the ideas of the American West they see reflected in the artifact and then to discuss how these ideas relate to the larger themes of our course.

I look forward to what is to come in the ensuing weeks and months. One of the great pleasures of teaching for me has always been how much I can also learn from my students, and I have high hopes that this project will offer me new glimpses into the notions of the American West which still circulate around the world.

Enjoy!