Artwork courtesy of Emerging Pictures

Cowboy del Amor

I knew it was only a matter of time

before someone found the real Dale Gribble and brought him to life on the big screen. OK, so maybe Ivan Thompson, the self-proclaimed “Cowboy Cupid,” isn’t really Dale Gribble; but, you have to admit the two Texans are pretty damn similar. They walk alike, they talk alike, at times they even sound alike…no, wait…that’s Patty Duke. But seriously, in Michèle Ohayon’s latest documentary, Cowboy del Amor, she follows Dale’s doppelganger, the eccentric match-maker Ivan Thompson, on his quest to help American men find Mexican brides.

Thompson, whose attitude towards women remains stuck somewhere in the

Jurassic period, has been married 3 times – two of them were even to the same Mexican woman, Chayo. Keeping in the typical mind set of most male oinkers, he divorced Chayo the first time because he thought her desire to learn English made her too “Americanized.” After their second divorce left him $30,000 in debt, he moved to Mexico hoping to live only on his Social Security because the internet dating services are cutting into his business profits. Now, Cowboy Cupid is once again trying to find himself a Mexican mate. Good luck with that one.

Strangely enough, despite the fact that his business is declining due to internet dating services, he is still popular enough to receive hate mail from the “women libbers” who complain about him bringing illegal aliens into the United States. Naturally, Thompson takes great pride in answering all of his hate mail; and, even tells one complainer to get off her fat ass and find a husband. What confused me about his response is how right after he assumed she was single, he turns right around and says that if she is married, he’ll send her husband pictures of Mexican women so he can choose a new wife. I guess his lack of logic skills are why this self-proclaimed expert of the “woman business” can only relate to women by comparing them to horses and other farm animals. Huh…maybe that’s another reason why internet dating is succeeding and Ivan is failing.

Yet, as out of date as his chauvinistic attitudes may be, the few clients Thompson does manage to rope in are willing to pay him $3000 a pop to find them a wife. In the film, Ohayon opted to focus on only three of his clients because she shot this ballad of Cowboy Cupid in a cinema verité style. Believe it or not, we’re seeing it as it happened. The first of the three is Rick, a 48 year-old truck driver who divorced his wife of nine years because he thinks the change of life gave her a chemical imbalance. Why does he think he’ll have better luck south of the border? Who knows? But, Thompson is determined to find him the Mexican wife of his dreams; so, the duo trek across the Rio Grande into Juarez, Mexico where Thompson helps Rick place a personal ad in the paper.

Like most American men, Rick is looking for a woman who’ is 20-38, thin (under 130 lbs.), does not have more than one kid, marriage-minded, and has no vices. Uh…why is it again that he thinks American women are hard to please? His personal ad also makes me question who and/or what influenced his preconceived idea of perfection. (I wonder if the American media had anything to do with it?) Surprisingly enough, Rick does find his ideal Mexican woman in Francis, who is separated – not divorced – from her current Mexican husband because she says he doesn’t love her anymore. Without question, she is a hopeless romantic; and, it doesn’t take long for her to decide to leave her estranged husband in Mexico, cross the border, and marry Rick.

Another of Thompson’s clients is James, a 59 year-old used car dealer who has already been married 3 times. By utilizing his “expertise in the woman business,” Thompson tries to fix him up with Veronica, a 33 year-old dermatologist who believes that Mexican men “don’t like it when women try to improve themselves.” Honey, I got news for ya – some American men don’t like it either. Just take a look at the one trying to set you up with James. Needless to say, the two don’t exactly hit it off; and, sadly, you never feel like you get an accurate picture of their story because James doesn’t have the juevos to utter one word on camera.

Lee, a 74 year-old retired veteran, is Thompson’s last client shown in the film. Instead of placing a personal ad in the local paper, Ivan introduces his client to a Mexican woman he already knows, Irmalinda. In a way, Lee and Irmalinda are one of Thompson’s success stories – but, only depending upon how you look at it. The couple does get married; however, on the way to their wedding ceremony, Lee makes an amusing yet unsettling declaration about his and Irmalinda’s language barrier problem. He emphatically tells everyone that he won’t learn Spanish and Irmalinda won’t learn English – just so they will never be able to fight with each other. Does this mean that Lee is only going to be able to tell if Irmalinda is angry with him after she whips out the machete in the middle of the night when he is asleep?

Like Veronica, Irmalinda is also sold on the idea of finding an American husband because she thinks American men “give more attention and treat women as equals;” whereas, “Mexican men use women for their own personal benefit.” At times, it’s almost hard for me to determine which gender is more disillusioned about the opposite sex – the men or the women. You know, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced the disillusionment factor on both ends is what actually makes these cross-border connections work. Although, in the long run, I still have to question if two negatives will still make a positive.

When I first saw the film, I really wanted to hate Cowboy Cupid and his cavemanesque attitudes; but, oddly enough, I didn’t. Ivan really is Dale Gribble: he’s uncouth, he’s manipulative, and he wouldn’t know tact if it walked up and bit him square in the ass. Yet, in spite of his faults, both Ivan and Dale are likeable guys. Ohayon is able to bring out Ivan's redeemable qualities, but only after digging through all of his back-woods jargon and back-assed perspectives he has about women, of course.

Ironically, by the end of the film, it is Cowboy Cupid himself who hits the nail on the head about these disillusioned American men in search of a quick fix in the form of a Mexican bride: “If you are looking for something cheap that comes with a guarantee, then I recommend buying an appliance from Wal-Mart and leavin’ them women alone.”

Not even Dale can argue with that logic.