Buckaroo Boy

`What happens when you don't look like your heroes?' Buckaroo Boy tackles this and other questions of identity in a highly entertaining autobiographical documentary about a Japanese American sansei boy's struggles to integrate his mainstream heroes with his cross-cultural heritage. It humorously and thoughtfully examines some of the traditional inequities of mass media representation while providing a provocative look at the relationship between TV Cowboys, American Indians, AND Asians.

The twenty-four minute video, produced over the course of three years, provides a look back at the TV cowboys and other icons of the 50's and 60's and their effect on a young Asian American boy who couldn't understand why he was perceived so differently from his Western heroes. The video calls into question the real cowboys of the Old West, whose itinerant and anti-social nature made them questionable role models. Buckaroo Boy combines archival film and TV footage, live video, family photos, home movies, computer graphics, animation, and an original sound score by composer Andrew Keresztes, to produce an original, personal perspective of how we all struggle to find our place in society.

Beyond the obvious applications in documentary and experimental production courses, Buckaroo Boy is appropriate for coursework in Race, Ethnic Studies, Sociology, Multi-Cultural/Cross-Cultural Issues, Mass Media/Pop Culture, Cultural Diversity and TV Genres.

Buckaroo Boy was the featured videowork in the `Shifting Perceptions', exhibition at the Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena.

ISBN 0-9779707-8-7, Los Angeles: Arrupe Productions, 2007. Distributed by Hope Media Productions.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• documentary
• experimental
• production
• Race
• Ethnic
• Studies
• Sociology
• Multi-Cultural
• Cross-Cultural
• Mass
• Media