22 June 2012

Rodeo Bloopers


Rodeo Bloopers
United States - 1989
MNTEX Entertainment, 1989, VHS
Run Time - 30 minutes

Like it's close natural cousin, the Monster Truck Blooper, Rodeo Bloopers is an entirely contextual joke. Without a strong background in rodeo phenomenology, I had very little understanding of what exactly made any of the myriad faceplants and near-gorings 'bloopers' per-se. While far from being an expert, my not-negligible exposure to rodeo had always led me to believe that these sort of things were pretty routine. Ride angry three-thousand pound bull, fall off, escape death, repeat. While perhaps thrilling entertainment for the participants, to an outsider it seemed rather run-of-the-mill.

Still, it would be remiss of me to suggest that the Rodeo Blooper is a altogether mythological phenomenon. The act of naming has a certain existential function in all cultures, acting as a way of understanding and relating to the greater physical world outside of the individual. So to call something a 'Blooper," while you and I may not understand, evokes a certain taxonomy of experience and observation for those of the 'in' group. It marks those who belong, and perhaps more importantly, it marks those who simply never will.

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