In Mainstream Culture
The largest state-of-the-art rodeos are professional, commercial athletic contests held in climate-controlled stadiums, with broadcasting by ESPN and other television networks.
Outside of the rodeo world itself, there is disagreement about exactly what rodeo "is." Professional competitors, for example, view rodeo as a sport and call themselves professional athletes while also using the title of cowboy. Fans view rodeo as a spectator sport with animals, having aspects of pageantry and theater unlike other professional sport. Non-westerners view the spectacle as a quaint but exciting remnant of the Wild West while animal activists view rodeo as a cruel Roman circus spectacle, or an Americanized bullfight.
Anthropologists studying the sport of rodeo and the culture surrounding it have commented that it is "a blend of both performance and contest", and that rodeo is far more expressive in blending both these aspects than attempting to stand alone on one or the other. Rodeo's performance level permits pageantry and ritual which serve to "revitalize the spirit of the Old West" while its contest level poses a man-animal opposition that articulates the transformation of nature and "dramatizes and perpetuates the conflict between the wild and the tame." "On its deepest level, rodeo is essentially a ritual addressing itself to the dilemma of man's place in nature."
Rodeo is a popular topic in country-western music, such as the 1991 Garth Brooks hit single "Rodeo", and has also been featured in numerous movies, television programs and in literature. Rodeo is a ballet score written by Aaron Copland in 1942, and choreographer Agnes de Mille's ballet, Rodeo was commissioned by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1942 with the Copeland score. The late country singer Chris Ledoux competed in bareback riding and wrote many of his songs based on his experiences.
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