Frozen In Time

My mom really likes this show; she works at Monmouth Park, where they have horse races.

I didn't really like it.

I think, for better or for worse, part of it has to do with my opinion of the sport...there was a time when British aristocrats used to play tennis (and golf) and watch horse races. So they all had this crusty layer, of British aristocratic Victorian-ness. But tennis has grown up; I like tennis. The sport is very modern and international, and it has a certain charm of itself, too.

Golf I don't really know much about, but it obviously has certain requirements that tennis doesn't have. Like horse racing. And, from my own limited knowledge, horse racing still seems to have a lot of that baggage from the past, and sometimes it seems to represent the worst that the past has to offer. There does seem to be this layer of British aristocrats hidden away somewhere, stubbornly, smugly, ensconced where they don't really belong, and sneering at everyone 'below' them. Alot of the rest of it, its more American side, seems to me to be a sort of sleazy rendition of 20s culture, and the jockey uniforms, especially seem to give off that vibe...those uniforms, frozen in time.

But for all it's variety, all of it seems to represent a very dark side of sports, from my point of view. Which is why the sort of gangsterism which the show portrays as existing seems very real to me. And, although Tony Soprano doesn't seem very noble to me, some of these guys seem to be a half-step down from that rather low vantage point of his.

And, although the show itself can't be blamed for much of this, I honestly didn't much care for the characters who I think I was 'supposed' to like. Escalante, for example, isn't *quite* thuggish, but he's very brusque, sometimes mean, and never exactly outstandingly kind.

It's funny though, because his character represents one of the ironies of the sport (and the show), it's flooded with Mexicans, and yet, it is, despite that, a little subculture frozen in time, with lots of old men and gangsters, rigidity and, perhaps, paternalism.

And, just, coldness: you can like horses that win, but not people. (There's actually a line from Angela's Ashes that goes, You can like God and babies and horses that win, but anything else is a softness in the head.)

It's frozen in time. And when I looked into that ice, I didn't want to smile. I wanted it to thaw.

(7/10)