A Real Montana Cowboy Gives “Yellowstone” An Honest Review
Trinity Vandenacre, is this guy's actual name. I did not make that up.
In the video that you can watch below, he explains what the TV show Yellowstone gets right, and gets wrong about ranchers and ranch life out West.
Let me jump in here right away and point out that Most of Yellowstone is located in Wyoming. People in Wyoming think it's odd that the show takes place in Montana. But we can pick that debate up another time.
So what about the show is accurate and what is Hollywood nonsense?
First, what the TV show gets wrong? He calls them "Negative Impacts." Those are things that Hollywood miss portrays that will give people a wrong impression.
When the cattle on the show are found to have a disease the herd is supposed to be killed off. That would cost the ranch a lot of money. So they have them illegally shipped away.
But in reality, herds do not get "depopulated" like this, or shipped around.
The cows would be tested and cared for on the spot.
Trinity just doesn't want people to get the wrong impression about how this works. He explains the process rather well in the video, below.
The pipeline issue was misrepresented on the show. Pipelines are safe and ranchers like them. Ranchers even get paid to have them under their land. Pipelines are not dug under reservoirs.
Cowboys are portrayed as super drunk, super abusive party people. Typically, most are not like that. They are honest, church-going, hard-working people.
What he does like about the show is the positive ways ranchers are portrayed that most people don't know about.
Ranchers actually just want to be left alone to do the work they do and live their lives. But they are being attacked by people who have never been out there to see what a rancher actually does.
This is a show that, at times, shows how things actually work out West and why.
Most folks have no idea where the food comes from or the care ranchers take of their cattle and the land they live on. He thinks that Yellowstone actually positively portrays this.
He likes that the show actually deals properly with the wolf and bear issues. People who live outside of the area have no idea what ranchers deal with. He doesn't want wolfs and bears to go away, but they need to be managed.
The show actually deals with a rancher who does not want his property overrun by development. It kills the ranching business.
I've given you the basics on what's talked about in this video. I think it's worth watching.