Performance of Gender and Fetishization of Women in WWE Divas Matches – a Case Study Using the Mixed-Methods Framework

Amity Journal of Media & Communication Studies (ISSN 2231 – 1033) Copyright 2016 by ASCO 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1 Amity University Rajasthan Performance of Gender and Fetishization of Women in WWE Divas Matches – A Case Study using the Mixed-Methods Framework Hansa Malhotra The Quint, New Delhi Ruchi Jaggi Symbiosis International University, Pune Abstract This research study aims to combine quantitative and qualitative techniques contextualized in the interpretative paradigm to explore the methodological nuances in mass communication research. Using professional wrestling as the context, this research paper will endeavor to understand the underlying conscious and subconscious biases and stereotypes that one might harbour with respect to discourses of gender and sexuality. Keywords: sexuality, methodology, stereotype Background studies. He identifies these as problems of content, dispersal, While the discussion on methods is central to humanities ephemerality, access, discovery, ethics, production, the plurality of and social sciences, media studies has struggled and reconfigured audiences and generalizability. itself over the last century to accommodate a mix of methodologies The above discussion problematizes the importance of and also develop some exclusive ones. The potential of a method methodological conflicts in the domain of media research. As is dependent on the way in which it connects the researcher to the Merrin (2006) states, Media studies has a range of research question. However in the case of media studies, this favouredmethodologies which it uses. Images are subjected to relationship gets more and more complex as the media ecosystem semiotic analysis and texts are analysed using content analysis and is constantly evolving. The methodological framework of discourse analysis, whilst audiences are studied using both scholarly research in media studies has also developed in myriad qualitative and quantitative methods, from ethnographic ways in this ecosystem. The philosophical paradigms guiding observation, open questionnaires and interviews to more formal, media research have shifted positions accordingly. Quantitative structured questionnaires and interviews. content analysis studies and audience surveys based in the Introduction positivist paradigm have dominated mass communication research This research study aims to combine quantitative and for the longest time. This methodological direction stemmed from qualitative techniques contextualized in the interpretative paradigm the fact that most mass communication research drew its to explore the methodological nuances in mass communication disciplinary orientation from psychology and tried to investigate research. Using professional wrestling as the context, this research the effects of media. While content analysis studies aimed to paper will endeavor to understand the underlying conscious and interpret the media content, their place in the mass communication subconscious biases and stereotypes that one might harbour with research paradigm was to become the starting point to uncover respect to discourses of gender and sexuality. A lot has been causes that led to certain effects, which had to be measured, thus written about its “mythification” (Barthes, 1972) or how it adopting quantitative techniques. The interdisciplinary nature of perpetuates and reinforces certain dominant, conventional media studies however has always made it a contested terrain. The discourses. Historically and traditionally, Pro-wrestling has been influence of literature, history and sociology led to the academic understood as a dominant hyper-masculine sport, where investigation of media from a critical perspective. Hence critical heterosexual men display their physical strength, all the while also theory and literary analysis became the interpretative tools to displaying their masculinity. Over time, the sport transited from analyze media content. The content transformed to text and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) to World Wrestling notion of effects was replaced by the notion of meanings. The Entertainment (WWE) in the year 2002. The commercialization paradigm shift from positivism to interpretivism has been fraught became apparent, as did its ideology of entertainment. The with theoretical and methodological reconfiguration in mass construction of an entertainment-driven spectacle increased its communication research. Merrin (2006) argues that in the post- popularity, and business. In the recent times, what makes the broadcast era (the age of digital media), there are a plethora of discourse further interesting is the aspect of the performativity in challenges that confront the methodological rigour in media the matches, where the outcome of matches are pre-determined, 75 Amity Journal of Media & Communication Studies (ISSN 2231 – 1033) Copyright 2016 by ASCO 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1 Amity University Rajasthan scripted and booked. Hence performance operates at the literal stories that turn into wrestling matches between two men fighting level of performing on the ring, and at the level of performing for their love.” (pg.4) (Vladicka, 2010) analyzes qualitative gender, on and off the mat. interviews with ten Canadian female wrestlers to explore their Women entering a ring that has been male-dominated constructs experiences in media texts and contexts to examine how it impacts the discourse of gender in several complicated ways. Initially, the their performance, gender performance and the larger constructed rubric involved women being part of a fabricated and scripted story idea of ‘femininity’. where women became background, off the mat stories, always in Mazer, (1998) gives another dimension to the argument. relation to men, never in isolation. It was in 2001, that WWE According to her, the ritualized encounter between opponents in created a division called the WWE Divas, a section formed to wrestling is as scripted on the ring as it is in TV programming. include women wrestlers into the arena. Even then, apart from “Professional wrestling explicitly and implicitly makes visible wrestling on the ring with obvious feminine metaphors and cultural and countercultural ideas of masculinity and sexuality.” symbols, they were also expected to perform love affairs with men, Previous research work including that of (Duncan, 1990) point out to heighten their masculinity and heterosexuality (Castellon and to wrestling media texts marginalizing and trivializing the Nasir, 2012.) With WWE’s entertainment based agenda and men achievements of a woman athlete by downplaying her athletic being a majority of their audience viewership, female fights were abilities and propounding her sexuality. (Messner, 2002) also designed to suit the male gaze (Mulvey, 1975) and the man’s points out that “humorous sexualization” of female athletes fantasy of watching women crashing and burning on top of each appropriates them in a gender-appropriate ranking framework in other. This translated to popular culture constructions, including sports. video games and reality television shows, making it integral to The spectacularization of the female body as a concept analyze and examine how women “do” gender (Lafferty and was discussed by (Messner, 2003) where he talks about “wrestling McKay, 2004) on and off the ring, the idea deeply intertwined with porn” owing to how women wrestlers are portrayed akin to their the performance based format of the matches. representation of fetishized women in pornography. Talking about This research paper’s primary research question is to the interplay of sexual voyeurism in wrestling and trivialization of explore the fetishization of female athletes in WWE Divas matches women, he says, “If women athletes do not supply enough material with the tool of textual analysis.The body politic and its subsequent for sexual titillation, there is a supporting cast of non-athlete relations to fetishism and male gaze will be explored through a women who are available for humorous voyeurism.” (pg.43.) qualitative content analysis (semiotic and discourse analysis) in the (Stratton, 2001) in his book takes the argument forward and by paper. employing a Freudian lens, asserts that cannibalism is ultimately “a Review of Literature male fantasy of men acquiring power by consuming the phallus. In Past research has theorized that the arena of professional the spectacularised cultural order, the fetishized female body wrestling in the larger framework of sports has been considered a substitutes for the impossible dream of consuming the primal unique contradiction for females. While on the one hand its phallus.” (pg.167) considered liberating, on the other hand it goes on to propagate and (Richardson, 2008) examines and develops upon the eventually validate hegemonic heterosexual gendered norms. ‘possible eroticism of the hyper-muscular female body.’ A lot of Employing Connell's concepts of ‘labor, power, cathexis, academic research on the female athletic body and bodybuilding and representation,’ (Lafferty and McKay, 2004) discuss the has either exalted it as feminist rebellion and resistance or paradoxical and contradictory “gender regime” that simultaneously disapproved it as a strange model of erotic pleasure and spectacle, enables and disables female boxers and “how women ‘do’ gender.” a sexual fetish of ‘muscle worship.’ While mainstream They argue that while “on one hand, the sport encourages bodybuilding representations attempt to create a sense of erotic individual women to display physical aggression

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