2019 HMNS Seminar: “How Mr. Ed Killed Horse Racing”, by A/Prof J Silverman
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- There is a scene in Mr. Ed where Wilbur, the talking horse Mr. Ed’s “owner,” are watching horse races together. Mr. Ed is the 1960s American television comedy about a horse, Mr. Ed, who only talks to the homeowner, Wilbur. Wilbur has entered Ed into a horse race, and they watch a race on television together. Suddenly, Ed sees a jockey whip one of the horses, and reaches for the phone to call the SPCA, which Wilbur quickly quashes.
In 1962, this might have seemed a good joke, but in 2019, more people would be taking Ed’s side over Wilbur’s. We now think of animals as sentient beings, capable of thought, and more important, feeling. And that’s bad news for horse racing, which relies on our ability to separate the fates of people and horses. This talk will focus not only the television-aided social and cultural forces that have arrayed against horse racing, particularly its treatment of horses, but also the residual effects of television’s venture into sports broadcasting, which also led to challenges for the sport of horse racing.
Dr Jonathan Silverman is an associate professor of English and co-director of the American Studies program at University of Massachusetts Lowell.
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