But Ford was capable of moving beyond thenostalgia of folk songs. In Three Godfathers(1948), Ford relies upon composer Richard Hage-man, who collaborated with the director on sevenpictures, to create a more traditional Hollywoodscore which Ford sometimes dismissed as exces-sive. In Wagon Master, on the other hand, Fordtapped into contemporary popular culture byintroducing the vocal talents of The Sons of thePioneers. This singing group also played a sig-nificant role in Ford’s cavalry trilogy: Fort Apache(1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and RioGrande (1950). Kalinak argues that the cavalrytrilogy emphasizes such classic Ford themes as thehistorical assimilation of the Irish, manifest des-tiny, and the feminization of masculine valuesthrough such musical numbers as ‘‘Gerry Owns,’’She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,’’ and ‘‘The Girl I LeftBehind Me.’’

Kalinak, however, insists that Ford found themusical score by Max Steiner for The Searchers(1946) to be bombastic. On the other hand, shefinds the title song ‘‘The Searchers,’’ written byStan Jones and performed by The Sons of the Pi-oneers, to reflect the ambiguity of race relations ina film which many critics acknowledge as Ford’smasterpiece. The complex themes of the film areapparent, argues Kalinak, in the use of minstrelsongs such as ‘‘The Yellow Rose of Texas.’’ Kali-nak writes, ‘‘Minstrelsy helped to establish a con-nection in the popular imagination betweenwhiteness and the American nation and allowedfor the release of tension required in sustainingthat definition’’ (175). Themes of racial conflictwere also the subject of the captivity narrativesSergeant Rutledge (1960) and Two Rode Together(1961). In these films, Ford largely abandoned hischaracteristic folk and period music. Kalinak in-sists, however, that the use of the Spanish guitar inTwo Rode Together as well as the ballad ‘‘CaptainBuffalo’’ from Sergeant Rutledge challenged racistcultural myths and traditions.

Kalinak concludes her volume with discussionof Ford’s last Western, Cheyenne Autumn (1964),

in which the director attempted to address themythic West from a Native American perspective.Indigenous musical themes are pursued by thefilm’s composer Alex North, yet folk songs suchas ‘‘Buffalo Gals’’ continue to play a role in thislast Ford Western. How the West Was Sung is awelcome addition to scholarship on Ford and theWestern film, suggesting that attention to the mu-sical score will enhance our understanding of howthe ‘‘American character, identity, and destiny’’are contested and defined in the Western.

—Ron BrileySandia Preparatory School—Albuquerque,

New Mexico

Kids Rule!: Nickelodeon andConsumer Citizenship

Sarah Banet-Weiser. Durham: Duke UniversityPress, 2007.

Geraldine Laybourne, former president ofkids’ cable channel Nickelodeon and oft-quotedpersonage in the pages of Sarah Banet-Weiser’snew book, said of the early days of the network,‘‘Nickelodeon decided to do what nobody elsewas doing—raise a banner for kids and give thema place on television that they could call their own. . . In January 1985, we relaunched as a networkdedicated to empowering kids, a place where kidscould take a break and get a break’’ (qtd. in Banet-Weiser 82). Kids Rule!: Nickelodeon and Con-sumer Citizenship attempts to tell the story of thechannel from the moment of its relaunch in 1985to its place as a global media power and seminalcultural brand in the early years of the twenty-first century. In so doing, Banet-Weiser considersthe impact consumer citizenship has had on theway we as a society conceptualize rights, power,

229Book Reviews

civic duty and engagement—and, most specifical-ly, childhood and the position of children as cit-izens and consumers.

Banet-Weiser’s argument is that Nickelodeon,through a carefully constructed brand and delib-erately honed marketing strategy, transformed it-self from a ‘‘green vegetable’’ network offeringpedagogy-based programming to young children,into a space, a ‘‘nation,’’ devoted to the empow-erment of kids. Through this process, the networkclaimed a mantle for itself as the purveyor ofagency for the traditionally disenfranchised youthpopulation, while also building a global mediaempire. By buying into the Nick brand, kids claimparticipatory citizenship in a public sphere de-fined by consumer culture, rather than liberalcivic-mindedness and action. Nickelodeon is thuspost-Habermasian, in addition to being postfem-inist, postrace, postmodern; the civic self is de-termined by the marketplace, and cultural andnational identity is about purchasing power. Insuch a realm, kids have just as much power, if notmore, than anyone.

Nickelodeon, therefore, serves as a case throughwhich to examine the ways consumer citizenshipoffers a new model for agency and empowerment,particularly for children, who are often excludedfrom civic life. In building this case, Banet-Weiserconducted interviews with industry insiders, in-cluding former employees of Nickelodeon; addi-tionally, she interviewed fifty children, ages eightto thirteen, all of varying ethnic backgrounds, allof the middle class. Finally, she watched severalrepresentative shows, including Clarissa ExplainsIt All, Dora the Explorer, and SpongeBob Square-Pants. Her study begins with the emergence ofNickelodeon in the early days of cable and itsvision as an outlet for creative, original, ‘‘empow-ering’’ programming that would be nonviolentand respectful towards kids, and would not relyon toy-driven cartoons, a phenomenon that char-acterized the nadir of children’s television in the1980s. She follows the channel beyond these earlyideals into the globalized corporate culture that

now dominates cable—and all media. It is worthnoting that the story of Nickelodeon is very muchthe story of corporate media in a globalizedworld, beginning with the ‘‘blue sky’’ days of the1970s, the deregulation of the 1980s, the gargan-tuan mergers of the 1990s, and the identity-as-brand culture of reinvention of the 2000s. The fi-nal three chapters of the book situate the channelin this last phenomenon, looking at the Nick Na-tion as a place where gender ambiguity is cele-brated, race is a marketing device, and camp iscool for kids and adults.

This Nick Nation would seem like a nationwhere all might be granted agency through theirbuying power. And Banet-Weiser is to be com-mended for not condemning this turn in twenty-first century public life but rather building acogent and persuasive argument about what itmeans. Yet her book fails to push this trend to itstroubling implications: one can only belong toNick Nation if one can pay a monthly cable bill.In her attention to gender, to race, to sexual ori-entation, Banet-Weiser is right to question wheth-er Nickelodeon specifically and consumer culturegenerally strips identity of its political efficacy.Unfortunately, she elides the most pressing ques-tion of class. Nickelodeon may claim to enfran-chise the traditionally disenfranchised; still, thereis a discomfortingly large segment of the popu-lation who will remain disenfranchised, continu-ing to exist outside the public square—the powerof SpongeBob SquarePants notwithstanding.

—Janine UtellWidener University

230 Journal of American Cultures � Volume 31, Number 2 � June 2008