Marlboro Cowboy
Beginning in the 1950s Marlboro ads featured cowboys riding through the wide-open terrain of the Wild West. The cowboy was instantly recognizable in denim, leather chaps, boots, spurs, and Stetson hat. Almost exclusively white, he is portrayed as handsome, weathered, and fit. Both a role model and sex symbol, the cowboy appeals to men and women alike. The ads highlighted the relationship between the idealized cowboy state and smoking suggesting that if one smokes this type of cigarette, he will make immediately be living this lifestyle. This promise of a connection through a cigarette is especially ironic because the lifestyle depicted has never existed except in myth.
Since the 1980s the artist Richard Prince was fascinated with Marlboro cowboy as a quintessential American image that was too good to be true, a myth that kept appearing in the mass-market advertising. Prince decided to break the connection of cigarettes and mythological connotations of the visual (right image). He removed the brand sign, reproducing the image and presenting it for what is it - a staged theatrical photograph.
