watched my very first rodeo here in Texas. actually, this is my first sports spectacle on American soil...which is apt because ranching in part of the America’s manifest destiny and expansion. i found it interesting because ranching is in Australia, Canada, Argentina, Philippines. I am sure ranching has espoused a different sort of recreation in these countries. I remember in some ranches in Bukidnon, a province in Mindanao, they have stallion fighting, in which they have a mare in heat enter the arena and let two stallions slug it out.
it is quite American that it begins with the flanking of colors from”Old Glory” and a ritualized gratitude to the men and women of uniforms as well as rousing call to cultural arms from the host (ringmaster?) that we are in the best country on earth and cap that with a prayer.
There is a parade of the town banners with their police on horseback. this is an interesting bracketing of cultural identity with force entities and agricultural might and dexterity. the Americans deftly mixed spectacle and literal handling of resources of “domesticated” animals.
Is it rodeo season because it is spring? a loosening of atrophied joints brought by winter in order to be nimble and nifty for that time for planting and for harvest in the coming weeks? i recall great sporting spectacles in agrarian societies in the Philippines AFTER the harvest. I know some post-harvest ritual is to display the abundance of food on the streets during the fiesta.
I was actually riveted by the rodeo. I never thought I’d enjoy it this much, perhaps because this is a new thing for me. And such an American spectacle with riders carrying banners of their corporate sponsors in between events showing a great balance of capitalism and spectacle with sports. I imagine the football games are way more insane than this.
And of course there was the rodeo clown as an in-between act between the different participants. It was a slew of really dated jokes (ie. he had a joke about kids these days wearing their pants low and baggy. Wait that is my generation, kids these days wear skinny jeans that offer the prospect of slowed blood circulation.) and of course the tired wife jokes and then there is the usual regional jokes (ie. Rodeo clown knew there were Californians in the audience because he saw a Prius at the parking lot). I cast my glance at the crowd and these are the Lubbock people I have yet to meet because I am mostly within the confines of the campus then my home.
Though the stadium is not packed, there was still a huge crowd of fans which highlight the centrality of agricultural production in Lubbock. I am trying to remember if the Filipino farmer or ranchers would have this massive display of jollification.
The contrast is palpable because of the stark difference in terms of sociopolitical lenses. i was told many Lubbock farmers are wealthy and have government subsidies. Many Filipino farmers are still subject to a system developed centuries ago that meant subjugation to landowners.
That alone creates strata of differences in mobility. the rodeo is an intricate affair of wealth and might. the farmers’”sports” in the Philippines is not as extensive (ie. Carabao racing), because space is an issue. we do not have much flat lands in the Philippines like Texas.
I cannot imagine roping calves back home because that might “hurt” the animal hence a possible destruction of an important resource for the Filipino farmer. if anything, a rodeo is a show of economic force of a culture so wealthy it has changed beasts of burden to entertainment.
But of course, these are just thoughts running in my mind as i sat there mesmerized by the gladiator-like swagger of the cowboys and for a moment basking in the glow of this culture that has made subjugation of willful animals as a form of cultural identity.
Ride ‘em, Cowboy!