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Ski Masks with Mascara
By Milt Abel | December 16, 2010
| December 16, 2010Ski Masks with Mascara
December 14th I spent the night in the Hotel Playa Mazatlan. For those of you who don’t speak the language; ‘playa’ is Spanish for ‘beach’, ‘Mazatlan’ is Spanish for ‘hot and humid tourist trap’, and ‘hotel’ is Spanish for ‘you’ll probably find work here cleaning rooms.’ Even in gringo-heavy Oregon, I found hotel cleaning ladies to be invariably Latina, and their cleaning carts on manually controlled hydraulics, so they can raise and lower them to show off and attract the landscapers.
I’ve stayed at this hotel before, and it’s nice enough; a nice pool, spacious rooms, free wi-fi, but fitted sheets are literally foreign to this hotel, and just a little tossing and turning in bed will get you as wrapped and tangled as an eight year-old’s fishing reel. At one time during the night my leg fell asleep and I thought I would never recover it; unable to feel it or see it, I couldn’t immediately find it. Had it not been attached I might have left it in the room like the half-dozen portable alarms clocks I’ve forgotten over my years of travel.
I was tossing and turning in bed because a late afternoon nap (because of a two for one beer deal at lunch) and it made it hard for me to drop off immediately later in the night . I surfed through Mexican television for well over an hour, spending most of my time stopping at well-known series and studying how skillfully the over-dubbing synched. Spanish and English seem to lend themselves to synching, while Japanese misses so broadly you’d think they didn’t care. Perhaps they don’t. Watch ‘The Closer’ in Spanish and you can almost hear the southern drawl in a second language, watch it in Japanese and Kyra Sedgewick looks like the guilty one.
Night time soap operas are still big in Mexico. We moved on from ‘Dallas’ and ‘Dynasty’ but our friends to the south cling to melodramas featuring broad-shouldered and square-jawed men embracing, slapping, or pointing a gun at buxom and heavily mascaraed women. By the type of content, you’d think it was still the early 1980’s in the United States, by the language you’d think it was California’s not-too-distant future.
Game shows, like their comedies, are so broad and culturally foreign I never slow down with the remote’s channel changer -until I see something is so visually bizarre I have to try and figure it out, guess at the story-line, and wonder if a struggling Hollywood producer is considering bringing it to the States and what changes would be needed to do so.
I stopped and barked out a laugh when I saw a quiz show that had competing groups standing and answering from their podium microphones; one group looked like it could be co-workers or adult members of a family, their competing group was Mexican wrestlers wearing business suits and masks. The kind of masks that you only see in Mexican wrestling; full head covering with highlighted colors around the holes for eyes and mouth, one had racing stripes. Three of them, almost bursting out of their suits, stood earnestly answering questions about… I don’t know, geography. It could have been a Saturday Night Live skit, but everyone was playing it for real, and they’d drop their shoulders or hang their covered heads when they got an answer wrong. Disappointment is not what your expect to see from a wrestler; anger, pain,vengeance, yes, but not crestfallen -at least not without being kicked first.
I don’t understand the popularity of the masks in Mexican wrestling. I watched ‘pro’ wrestling as an early teen in San Jose, CA and only bad guys wore a mask. In Mexico, I understand, even the good guys wear a mask. My guess is, that way the struggling up-and-comers can keep their anonymity and day jobs, and once a wrestler character gains traction, you’ve got to stick with it. It does make me fear a loan representative at a bank in Mexico, might not only deny your application but hit you with a chair as well.
Funny thing on the masks is the colored highlights around the eye holes and mouth; just like mascara and lipstick. Soap operas of the ring. All the elements are there, except for the sex, and it’s just as melodramatic. Can you imagine the suspense, when moments before a headlining bout, we’re told that one of the wrestlers is the illegitimate son of the other, abandoned at an orphanage that was a front for an international spring ring headed by none other than the negligent father? During the match you might notice a family resemblance, especially in the color around the eye holes.
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