Branding Texas: Performing Culture in the Lone Star State (review)

{ 267 } Book Reviews Honor and Violence in Golden Age Spain significantly broadens our under­ standing of its subject by exploring aspects of “honor” as a social construct with mutable application and behavior. Although a social history, Taylor’s work is immediately applicable for early modern theatre historians and practitioners attempting to analyze, research, teach, or stage the plays of Spain’s Golden Age. More importantly Honor and Violence in Golden Age Spain opens new lines of inquiry for early modern scholars of multiple disciplines. Hugh K. Long — Tufts University \ \ Branding Texas: Performing Culture in the Lone Star State. By Leigh Clemons. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008. xi + 173 pp. $40.00 cloth. I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. John Steinbeck In Branding Texas: Performing Culture in the Lone Star State, Leigh Clemons uses her native state of Texas to investigate how nations and regions develop a sense of identity through performance. She explores the emergence of a dominant narrative of “Texanness” over more than 170 years through performative pedagogy reinforcing a selective paradigm. Clemons examines issues ranging from the acceptance of pseudo-­ historical events in the inclusion of “official” history to the types of Texans featured as “authentic” in plays and television. This process includes the“branding”of a specific Texas cultural image as a commodity for statewide, national, and international consumption. This brand—­ as embodied in the “prototypical” Texan—she calls the “Lone Star.” The Lone Star is almost exclusively white, male, and on the wealthy side, and is exemplified by the most famous example at the time of printing, George W. Bush. Clemons makes clear in her first chapter why the case of Texas is relevant to a wider audience. Texas holds a unique place in Ameri­ can regional identity and, through politics and economics, has a strong impact on America and the rest of the world. More to the point, the Texan example is emblematic of how any cultural identity is formed and reinforced through performative (and frequently exclusive) means. Her second chapter addresses the manipulation of cultural geography and history. Examining historical markers, battle sites, mu- { 268 } Book Reviews seums, and outdoor “historical” dramas, Clemons shows how each is used as an element of a selective pedagogical performance. The aspects of history included (and not included) strengthen one primary image of “Texan” to the exclusion of others. Chapter 3 looks at films such as John Wayne’s The Alamo, school pageants from the Texas centennial in 1936, the centennial exposition, battle reenactments , festivals, and historical dramas. In each case, the Texas Revolution is repeatedly reinforced as the central event in Texas history and the continued measure of what is and is not “Texan.” This interpretation promotes a racial binary distinguishing“Texan”(white) from“Other”(Hispanic). Chapter 4 investigates the portrayal of small-­ town Texans as archetypes of the Lone Star brand. Clemons delves into King of the Hill, currently the most recognizable television example , asserting that it too supports the traditional “whitewashed” Texanness of the Lone Star brand. Clemons also examines Preston Jones’s A Texas Trilogy and the plays of Horton Foote. In Jones and Foote she finds a more honest view of Texans: one attempting to show people as they are. Finally, she skewers the Tuna Trilogy as reinforcing and promoting the worst aspects of presumed Texanness as well as excluding women and Texans of color. For example, men portray all of the female characters, and so the feminine presence exists only as a mocking absence. Nonwhite Texans are missing entirely. The fifth chapter looks at the marketing of the Lone Star brand as a contemporary political tool. The brand sold to the Ameri­ can public says that Texans are independent, traditional, and plain speaking and that they believe strongly in justice. The Lone Star is somehow more“Ameri­ can”than the rest of America. George W. Bush used this political brand repeatedly with success. Of course, this branding ignores the rich and varied tradition of Texas politics, which includes not only George W. Bush but also Barbara Jordan; however, the purpose of...