The name “cowboy” conjures up many different images from movies, songs and TV. These imagined cowboys range from white-hat-wearing heroes to gun-shooting hooligans(流氓).But, cowboys are actually real people from US history.
When the US Civil War ended, many soldiers had no place to call home. So, they began to drift to the country's rural West. Ranchers(农场主) hired these men to take care of the cattle and work around the ranch. When the ranch owner wanted to sell the cattle, the cowboys would round up the herd from the open prairie(牧场) and drive the cattle miles to the market.
With the invention of barbed wire(铁丝网),the cowboy era(1865-1890) began to come to an end. But people in the East had always been curious about their lifestyle. Many country/western songs during this time tried to capture the true cowboy spirit. Newspapers published cowboy tales in serial form and adventure novels followed. The bigger the fiction, the better the sales. These novels often portrayed cowboys as cruel and violent men. Cowboys carried the bad reputation for many years afterwards.
When movies began to be popular in the 1920s,the cowboy image changed again. Now, a cowboy became the great white knight(骑士) that loved his horse more than the beautiful ladies he rescued. As the cowboy of the “Old West” spent more time with his horse than the ladies, this era's image was not entirely false.
Then, in the 50s,Hollywood began producing so-called “spaghetti westerns(意大利西部片)”.They earned the nickname because Italian companies financed the films and TV shows. This started the decade's “Cowboy Craze”.While this didn't last long, it made modern country/western music, fashion and dance extremely popular.
In recent years, with the help of musicians, radio stations and bars, cowboy nostalgia(怀旧情绪) has returned. Even though his image is still changing—somewhere between ballad singing country boy and barroom fighter—there's one thing for sure, you can't keep the cowboy down.
小题1:The purpose of this story is to _______.
A．introduce cowboy movies and novels
B．introduce various productions associated with cowboys
C．show the cowboy's everlasting charm
D．inform us about the cowboy's spirit小题2: Before they became cowboys, they _______.
A．served in the army
B．worked as bar-room fighters
C．owned ranches
D．were adventurous explorers小题3:During “the cowboy era” mentioned in the story, _______.
A．the cowboy often came to the rescue of ladies in newspaper tales
B．the distant Wild West appealed to people in the East
C．cowboys were shown as cruel and violent men on the silver screen
D．country music started the cowboy craze which swept the whole country小题4:By saying “you can't keep the cowboy down”,the writer means that _______.
A．cowboys are real people in history
B．cowboys still fascinate people
C．you can't make cowboys unhappy
D．you can't grasp the cowboy spirit
