Hollywood Doesn't Understand Bikers

I've written before about the lies Hollywood quietly slips into American culture (here and here). Not the obvious ones. I don't care about spaceships making noise in space or superheroes flying around in capes. I'm talking about the little lies. The ones that get repeated so often that people stop questioning them. Doctors who apparently can't make it through a workday without sleeping with patients. Lawyers whose offices double as dating services. Whiskey poured over wounds before somebody stitches themselves up with fishing line. Or the idea that you need a license to own a firearm in America. They're little things, but they're objectively false, and millions of people absorb them without ever bothering to ask if they're true.

Hollywood has become incredibly good at manufacturing reality. Sometimes it's harmless. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes those stories slowly change the way people think about medicine, law, freedom, or even each other. That ought to concern people a hell of a lot more than it seems to.

Another one occurred to me while I was riding north last weekend: Hollywood has spent decades convincing America that cowboys and bikers are natural enemies.

That's complete bullshit.

Hollywood doesn't understand bikers. Hell, I'm not convinced Hollywood has ever actually spent any meaningful time around them. Every biker on the screen is an outlaw, a drunk, a violent psychopath, or some tattoo-covered idiot looking for the next fight. They're portrayed as intolerant, antisocial, and one bad day away from murdering somebody over a parking spot.

That isn't the biker community I know.

The biker community I've found is probably the most accepting group of people I've ever known. They don't care where you came from. They don't care what you do for a living. They don't care who you love. They care whether you're genuine. Need help on the side of the road? Somebody will stop. Need to raise money for a veteran? Bikes will show up. Need volunteers for a charity ride? You'll have more people than you know what to do with.

Do outlaw clubs exist?

Of course they do.

Outlaw accountants exist too. That doesn't mean every CPA is laundering money for the cartel.

The overwhelming majority of bikers are just ordinary people who happen to love motorcycles. Engineers. Mechanics. Nurses. Teachers. Welders. Veterans. Retirees. Moms. Dads. People who work all week so they can disappear into the mountains on Saturday morning and remember what freedom feels like.

Then there's the cowboy thing.

Where the hell did that even come from?

If anything, cowboys and bikers have more in common than almost any other two groups in America. Both value freedom. Both admire competence. Both believe that if something breaks, you figure out how to fix it instead of waiting for somebody else to solve your problems. Both appreciate hard work. Both tend to have a healthy distrust of people who think government is the answer to every question. And perhaps most importantly, both generally subscribe to the same philosophy: you leave me the hell alone, and I'll leave you the hell alone.

That sounds an awful lot like the America I grew up believing in.

Hell, spend enough time around motorcycle rallies and you'll notice something else. Bikers love country music. Sure, there's plenty of rock blasting from fairings and saddlebags, but country music is everywhere too. Turns out people who enjoy long stretches of open road also tend to enjoy songs about long stretches of open road.

Funny how that works.

Then there are the action scenes.

You know the ones.

Some cowboy strolls into a parking lot, shoves over one motorcycle, and suddenly twenty nine-hundred-pound touring bikes collapse like dominoes while a bunch of bikers stand there scratching their heads trying to figure out what happened.

Come on.

First, motorcycles don't fall over that easily. Go try knocking over a nine-hundred-pound Road Glide sometime. I'll wait. Second, every time one bike hits another, energy is lost. That's how physics works. You're not going to knock over twenty motorcycles with one little shove unless Hollywood has quietly repealed Newton's laws of motion. And third... who honestly believes a group of bikers is just going to stand there while somebody starts kicking over motorcycles?

Really? That's the story we're going with?

Hollywood loves creating conflict where none exists because conflict sells tickets. Reality is usually far less dramatic. Most cowboys I've met have been good people. Most bikers I've met have been good people. Hell, most Americans I've met have been good people. They work hard. They take care of their families. They help their neighbors. They ask for very little besides the opportunity to live their lives in peace.

Maybe that's why I've always felt at home around bikers.

It's never really been about motorcycles.

It's about freedom.

It's about competence.

It's about self-reliance.

It's about being left the hell alone to build the life you want to build.

Seems to me cowboys figured that out a long time ago too.

Hollywood can keep trying to convince America we're supposed to hate each other.

The rest of us have roads to ride.