This past Friday, as part of the Cooper Series on “Black Western Culture through Music, Film, and Art,” Swarthmore hosted the world premiere of Charles Perry’s documentary, a film ten years in the making. It was short despite its arduous production process — just over an hour long — with a bulk of the event being a panel discussion featuring, among others: historian and author Art Burton, Vassar College professor Mia Mask, and director Perry himself.
Given its brief runtime, “The Black Cowboy” wastes no time digging deep into the history of its subject matter. It poses a question that seems odd at first: what exactly is a cowboy, really? But as Burton points out in the documentary, much of what the public knows about cowboys is from Hollywood tropes. For example, they weren’t always outlaws — many explicitly worked for the law, and, of course, not all were white. As evidence of both, see deputy marshal Bass Reeves, whose story is dramatized in one of a few brief reenactments that are intercut throughout the film. These segments are interesting in and of themselves, but are introduced at seemingly random moments.
The documentary’s pacing often suffers from the same problem. For the most part, “The Black Cowboy” spends its time frantically jumping back and forth through space and time, between historical commentary and contemporary footage from all over the South. Only a few main threads seem to connect these two settings. Burton’s proposition, for one, is that the life of a Black cowboy in real life has always been far removed from their Hollywood presentation. For many, particularly those breaking free of the stigma surrounding African Americans, being a cowboy was about freedom and fun. This theme continues into the present day, where rodeos are the primary form of self-expression for the Black cowboy.
In the panel, Perry and the rest of the team emphasized that the production was totally indie; the documentary’s budget was entirely secured via grants. A certain level of forgiveness might therefore be warranted, but the fact remains the documentary’s execution is unfortunately very muddled. Inconsistencies and technical errors pervade the entire runtime: the general blurriness and repetition of footage serve as good examples, and the spelling errors in nearly every caption make one think the film could have seriously benefited from another edit or two. In addition, a significant helping of seemingly AI-generated art was featured, an artificiality which, when it appears, tends to clash with the film’s central thesis of authenticity.
Given the film’s low budget and small team, I’m inclined to give “The Black Cowboy” a little more grace than your average documentary — but in my eyes it deserves a little more polishing before a wider premiere. Still, its interesting points about both African-American and Southern society shine through. Once it’s released to the public, I think it’s worth a watch for anyone interested in Black or cowboy culture.
