Racial Stereotypes at Wrestlemania: a Political Economic Approach Zachary M

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2014 Racial Stereotypes at Wrestlemania: A Political Economic Approach Zachary M. Bartlett

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COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION

RACIAL STEREOTYPES AT WRESTLEMANIA: A POLITICAL ECONOMIC APPROACH

ZACHARY M. BARTLETT

AThesis submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science

Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2014 Zach Bartlett defended this thesis on April 18, 2014. The members of the supervisory committee were:

Jennifer Proffitt Professor Directing Thesis

Davis Houck Committee Member

Felecia Jordan Jackson Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Composing this thesis was an enjoyable yet exhausting ride, and would not have been possible without much assistance from many people. First off, I’d like to thank Dr. Jennifer

Proffitt, for guiding me throughout the process. I was perpetually underprepared and overambitious and your willingness to guide me regardless is sincerely appreciated. I’d also like to thank my committee members Dr. Davis Houck and Dr. Felecia Jordan for their guidance, patience, and encouragement. I‘d like to thank the entire FSU College of Communication for allowing me to stick around as long as they have, and for letting me write over 25,00 words on professional wrestling. To Mark Zeigler and Dr. Misha Laurents, thank you for your support in and out of academe, and your friendship, I appreciate all you’ve done for me. To Marlon

Johnson, Jeff Allen, James Ford and Danny Alton, thanks for watching and talking wrestling with me. To Carden, and many of my dear friends, thank you for not taking grievance with my six month disappearance. Thanks to my brother and sister. Murph, I cant express how happy I am that I didn’t botch that piledriver attempt 20 years ago too badly, and Jacklynn, thanks for putting up with us. Thanks to my Mom, for her indefatigable belief in her eldest son, despite his moments of exhaustion inspired self-doubt. To my Dad, thank you for your calming presence and wise words, without them I probably would have quit long ago. I’d also like to thank Lily

Dover. Though I haven’t seen you since 1991, and I see no reason why you’d ever know this document exists, or even if that’s how to spell your name, without your accidental stumble upon professional wrestling while channel surfing when you were baby sitting, I may not have become the fan I am today. Finally, I’d like to thank professional wrestlers for the years of entertainment they’ve provided me. You’re doing good work out there. Be safe.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... vi INTRODUCTION ...... 1 LITERATURE REVIEW AND METHODOLOGY ...... 12 Race and Sport(s Entertainment) ...... 12

Previous Studies on Professional Wrestling ...... 22

Wrestling with Political Economy as a Method ...... 24

Consciousness Industry ...... 26

Culture Industry ...... 28

Political Economy and Cultural Studies ...... 30

Political Economy and Race ...... 32

Race, Media Effects and Political Economy ...... 35

Methodology ...... 37

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ...... 40 The Culture Industry of Professional Wrestling ...... 40

Ideology and WWE ...... 50

Commodified Exotica ...... 51

The Mexicanization of Tito Santana, the exotic other: Rey Mysterio, and the

aaaaaaaa lying, cheating, stealing Guerreros ...... 52

The tale of Tito Santana ...... 53

Guerrero and the glass ceiling ...... 55

The commodification of Rey Mysterio ...... 57

The wrestling minstrel at WrestleMania: from JYD to the Funkasaurus ...... 59

Charles Wright: the man of many stereotypes ...... 62

Booker T’s injustice ...... 63

Virgil and “redemption” ...... 66

You must know karate : Asian and Pacific Island ignorance ...... 67

The de-evolution of Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat ...... 68

Threats to the Hegemony ...... 70

Alberto Del Rio: 2 time WWE Champion (kind of) ...... 70

Angry Black men ...... 71

Yokozuna ...... 73

Uncivilized savages ...... 74

American Ethnocentrism ...... 75

The Rock’s Success ...... 78

The Women of WrestleMania and Hegemonic Hypermasculinity ...... 80

Conclusion ...... 85

Limitations ...... 89

Further Research ...... 90

Final Thoughts ...... 90

REFERENCES ...... 92 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 104

ABSTRACT

Ever since professional wrestling made the transition from sport to spectacle, stereotypes have played a role in the show, traditionally as a narrative device that divides the wrestling world into heels (villains) and faces (heroes). In the past, as a regional product, wrestling promotions would appeal to the demographic of the region, placing their morals and ideology onto the hero.

As wrestling has gone mainstream, that hasn’t changed, but the audience has. No longer relying solely on regional ticket sales, but rather large, national mass media contracts and advertisers, professional wrestling now attempts to appeal to the white, masculine, neoliberal hegemony and in doing so perpetuates its ideology through stereotypes. Now, nearly every group outside of the majority culture is depicted by lazy archetypal portrayals meant to reinforce hegemonic ideology. This thesis, using the work of many political economic scholars, attempts to identify and describe portrayals of race in the WWE from a political economic perspective, focusing on the ideology dispersed by the messages within WWE content and the structural factors that encourage the portrayals. In attempt to do so, trade journals and popular press were examined, and WrestleManias 1-30 were analyzed using textual analysis to examine portrayals of race.

INTRODUCTION

Professional wrestling has come a long way since its days on the fair and carnival circuit in the late 19th century (Maguire, 2005). This “bastard art form” of “trash culture” is now a billion dollar industry and a worldwide phenomenon (Beekman, 2005, p.1; Shoemaker, 2013, p.9). According to its annual report to its shareholders, the WWE (World Wrestling

Entertainment) brought in $103.7 million in live event net revenue, $83.6 million in pay-per- view programming, and $139.5 million in television rights fees- just in 2012 (WWE, 2012). And as substantial as those numbers are, they’re still only part of the more than $484 million in revenue the WWE earned from its variety of venues last year alone. It broadcast more than 8,000 hours of original programming in more than 150 countries and 30 different languages, and it is available in more than 600 million homes worldwide (Marketwatch, 2014; WWE, 2014). In the

United States, the WWE reaches an average of nearly 15 million viewers a week, 52 weeks a year (WWE, 2014). Its website, WWE.com, attracted an average of 12.4 million unique viewers a month in 2012 and collected $19.7 million in advertising revenue for the site, in part thanks to the appeal of the 27.8 million monthly video streams (WWE, 2014). The company possesses an immense social media presence as well; as of 2012, the WWE and its performers have more than

90 million Facebook friends and 40 million Twitter followers (WWE, 2012). WWE Magazine even reaches 4.6 million U.S. readers a month. The WWE’s television reach alone makes the

“worldwide leader in sports entertainment” a very powerful company, as external messages have a significant influence on cognitive processing, and “television is the source of the most broadly- shared images and messages in history (p.43)” (Gerbner et. al, 2002). With all the reach and potential influential prowess the WWE possess, it is distressing that it tends to promote the ideology of the white, masculine, neoliberal hegemony, especially in regard to race.

Since the company’s origins back in 1952, when Vincent J. McMahon started what was originally called Capitol Wrestling, the promotion--professional wrestling jargon for business in the territorial era, when many large markets each supported their own local federation--has always handled race in a very questionable manner (Pratten, 2003; Shoemaker, 2013, p. 40). This thesis critically examines the political economy of media and race and the representations of race in WWE programming, specifically in WWE’s modern era, post-WrestleMania, which is when professional wrestling emerged as a force in national popular culture in 1985,while also looking at the potential ramifications of the WWE’s actions. The primary focus is on post-WrestleMania because that’s when the paradigm of professional wrestling evolved, moving from territorial programming to national entertainment, resembling somewhat what is seen today. Though many factors, including WWE owner Vincent K. McMahon’s luring of other promotions’ main drawing stars, can be attributed to the birth of WrestleMania and modern professional wrestling, the unlikely pairing of pop music star Cindy Lauper and longtime professional wrestling manager Captain Lou Albano deserves much of the credit (Shoemaker, 2013). Albano’s appearance in Lauper’s 1983 “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” video and Lauper’s subsequent appearances on WWE programming led to an event on the young upstart cable network MTV called, “The Brawl to End it All.” The main event was the apex of a Lauper- Albano feud with female wrestlers Wendi Richter and The Fabulous Moolah grappling in proxy (Shoemaker,

2013). This event, with its celebrity appeal and capture of the current zeitgeist, brought professional wrestling into the mainstream of popular culture and created increased financial opportunity for McMahon’s company (Shoemaker, 2013).

On March 31, 1985, McMahon’s masterpiece, WrestleMania, debuted nationwide on closed circuit TV. Celebrities like Liberace and Muhammad Ali-- who was a huge pro-wrestling

2 fan and adopted his outspoken interview persona after wrestling legend Gorgeous George--made appearances at the show, further solidifying its stature in popular culture and starting a trend that continues to this day (Powell, 2008; Shoemaker, 2013). The main event featured “Rowdy”

Roddy Piper and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorf taking on hegemonic super soldier Hulk Hogan and 1980s icon Mr. T; both even hosted Saturday Night Live the evening before the show

(Michaels, 1985; Shoemaker, 2013). After all was said and done, more than one million people watched WrestleMania 1, and the WWE had firmly entrenched itself as part of American popular culture, marking the true end of the territorial era and serving as the genesis of the worldwide product seen today.

Mediated messages, deliberately or not, serve as a heuristic, as “symbolic modeling greatly expands the range of verification experiences that cannot otherwise be obtained by personal action” (Bandura, 2001, p. 269; Domke, Shah, & Wackman, 1998, p.54). Television messages, even those coming from behemoths in tights, communicate information about the culture in which we live; after all, as Mazer (1998) notes, “professional wrestling is recognized and ultimately serves as a metaphor for social structures and meanings” (p.7), and Barthes (1972) in his seminal essay on professional wrestling states that “what is portrayed by wrestling is therefore an deal understanding of things” (p.25). The more time people spend consuming media messages, the more likely they are to believe that what they’re consuming realistically reflects the outside world, and with 8,000 hours of television programming a year and an average audience of 15 million a week in the United States, that is a significant amount of time for a significant number of people, meaning a large number of people are consuming the messages inherent in WWE content, a number only expected to grow as the WWE launched its own live-

3 streaming and on-demand network in February 2014 (Gerbner, 1998; Maestro & Robinson,

2000, p. 386; WWE, 2014).

In electing to examine the representations of minorities, and to a much lesser extent gender and masculinity, in the WWE and professional wrestling in general from a political economic perspective, this thesis analyzes sports-entertainment from the two main dimensions that constitute the political economy of communication as described by McChesney. He states that the political economy of communication addresses the nature of the relationship between media and communication systems, examining how they reinforce, challenge, or influence existing class and social relations, and looks at how structural factors such as advertising influence behavior and content (Calabrese & Sparks, 2003; McChesney, 2004). In describing these two dimensions, McChesney is referencing the consciousness and culture industries as described by Enzenberger and Horkheimer and Adorno respectively. Jhally (1989) notes:

The “consciousness industry” approach stresses that the media are principally ideological

institutions, while the “industrialization of culture” approach stresses the expansion of the

commodity form that has little to do with ideology. This contrast is not oppositional but

should be seen as complimentary. (p.74)

In the political economy of communication perspective, the consciousness and culture industries are not mutually exclusive; they must be studied together (Jhally, 1989, p. 73). It is not enough to just examine the media’s content and relationship with the audience; the structural factors that influence the production must also be taken into consideration. To solely focus on content and effects accepts the current structure as a fixed given (McChesney, 1996). Also, because political economy tends to incorporate historical analysis, “for it is essential to document changes as well

4 as continuity,” this thesis focuses on race portrayals in wrestling throughout history as opposed to just modern day (Jhally, 1989, p.31).

World Wrestling Entertainment’s portrayals of minorities throughout the company’s history are worth reviewing due to the company’s enormous media presence, the sizable impact professional wrestling has on American popular culture, and the heuristic effects of mass media on society. What Giroux (2001) said about film could be applicable to all entertainment media:

“it offers up subject positions, mobilizes desires, influences us unconsciously, and helps to construct the landscape of American Culture” (p.585). Although its understandable that some may view the intentionally hyperbolized product of professional wrestling as too blatantly over- the-top to possibly be perceived as real, to quote Barthes (1972), “this grandiloquence is nothing but the popular and age-old image of the perfect intelligibility of reality (p.25)”. Popular culture is not frivolity to be tossed aside. Morley (1998) is correct in stating that “to imagine that popular culture is not already politics; it seems to me, politically disastrous” (p.487). Erni (2001) supports this argument, adding, “popular culture provides a robust opportunity for rethinking media power in the existing historical and social structure” (p.195). The messages emanating throughout popular culture, such as racial stereotypes often witnessed in wrestling, serve as constructs that help shape people’s perception of the world around them, and often these messages of neoliberal, white, masculine hegemony and consumption intentionally represent the ideology of the ruling class (Bandura, 2001; Gramsci, 1971; Marx & Engels, 2001). At the time

Marx and Engels (2001) declared that the ruling material force of society is simultaneously its ruling intellectual force, I doubt they thought that one day the ruling intellectual force would elect to disperse its material in the form of 300 lb. men in spandex engaged in staged athletics;

5 however, with the WWE’s media power, it could potentially be argued that is very much the case.

Up to this point the terms ideology, ruling class, and white, neoliberal, hegemony have been used without definition. Gramsci (1971) states that ideologies, “organize human masses, and create the terrain on which men move, acquire consciousness of their position, struggle, etc.”

(p.46). Ideology is a way of thinking and perceiving. According to Domhoff (1999), the ideology process consists of forming, disseminating, and enforcing attitudes and assumptions. Because ideologies typically are associated with the ruling class, Domhoff (1999) states that the ideological process exists in order to “permit the continued existence of policies and politicians favorable to the wealth, income, status, and privileges of members of the ruling class” (p.268).

Domhoff (1999) goes on to define the ruling class as one that “has a disproportionate amount of wealth and income, generally fares better than other social group… controls major economic institutions… and dominates the government process in the country” (p.267). The ruling class ideology is perpetuated—primarily through mass media--in order to maintain the current hierarchy.

Hegemony is political predominance of one class over another, exercised economically, administratively, culturally, morally, ethically, and intellectually (Hall, 1996). It is the control exercised by the dominant group that owns and operates the means of production (Gramsci,

1971). In controlling production, hegemonic forces such as media corporations possess immense influence over the ideology of the era; by having power of what is distributed, they dictate ways of thinking. In their ability to control what is created and to what extent it’s dispersed, in terms of ideology, hegemonic forces attempt to legitimize the status quo as means to stay in power.

Harvey (2006) defines neoliberalism as a “political economic practice that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade” (p.2). Everything, culture included, is commoditized in the free market.

However, under neoliberal hegemony, the freedom of the market is an illusion; inequality owns the day. It is an ideology perpetuated to ensure the domination of the ruling class.

Based on the definitions above, when white, masculine, neoliberal or capitalist hegemony is used throughout this thesis, it is referring to the perpetuation of privatization of free markets and the privileging of whiteness and masculinity by the dominant group that operates the means of production.

Performance scholar Sharon Mazer (1998) states that “professional wrestling is integral to and representative of American culture on multiple levels,” with “colorful characters both archetypal and topical” (p.2). However, one of professional wrestling’s many problems is that the characters of color are not simply portrayed as archetypal, but damagingly stereotypical, eliminating the opportunity for individual expression (Mastro & Kopacz, 2006). Mazer (1998) acknowledges that, “stereotypes from homeboy to jailbreaker, from illegal immigrant to macho lover” are perpetually present, and if minority wrestlers aren’t seen as foreign threats, like the

Iron Sheik or Black nationalist group The Nation of Domination, then they are commodified exotica who aren’t to be taken seriously, like The Prime Time Playas or Broadus Clay “The

Funkasaurus” (p.10). White wrestlers play comedy acts and ominous villains as well sometimes and have also had an ample amount of atrocious gimmicks, but rarely if ever are they so harshly stereotyped, because in wrestling white is the prominent ideology, and Black is “the other.” In the WWE, there are limitless shades of white, a true polysemic, postmodern representation of the

Caucasian experience, but minority performers seem to appear to be relegated to ignorant, myopic, essentialist narratives. Morton and O’Brien (1985) claim “every professional wrestler assumes some character role, and his success is measurable in large part by how effectively he plays that role” (p.105). This is typically true--professional wrestlers are booked on how their character is received--but when roles are limited by lazy writers and bookers, who subscribe to the notions such as “Black wrestlers don’t need gimmicks because being Black is their gimmick,” then there is a very real glass ceiling; a glass ceiling built of stereotypes that Gitlin believes strengthen the ideological hold of the ruling class, by insinuating “naturalness” (Gitlin,

1979, p. 254; Pratten, 2003, p. 36; Shoemaker, 2013, p. 138).

Unlike sports, or news, which can often be, but rarely are, portrayed objectively, professional wrestling, “as a show rather than an athletic competition,” requires contextualization for the intended comprehension (Morton & O’Brien, 1985, p.105). Frames, enormously vital in professional wrestling, are meta-communicative and transformative in their ability to delimit messages, imply how they should be interpreted, and change understanding (Bateson, 1972 p.187-88; Bell, 2008, p. 36; Goffman, 1974, p.10). In professional wrestling, the characters are framed as symbolic representations: the match is framed, the story arch is framed, even the entire production is framed like a funambulist between sport and spectacle (Maguire, 2005; Morton &

O’Brien, 1985). The impacts of framing remain after the initial messages have passed. When personal experience is absent to suggest otherwise, symbolic modeling typically forms attitudes and perceptions, or symbolic modeling by way of framed, mediated messages (Bandura, 2001, p.

269; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007, p. 11). Domke, Shah and Wackman (1998) suggest

“contextual clues- such as media framing of issues- may activate relevant cognitive structures to guide information processing and the construction of attitudes” (p.53). This thesis examines

WWE’s framing of minority wrestlers and analyzes how it may support the white male, neoliberal hegemony currently in place through the commodification of culture and perpetuation of ruling class ideology. This thesis argues that, in its depictions of minority professional wrestlers, WWE content promotes the association of tired stereotypical tropes intended to maintain the current class structure.

George Gerbner’s cultivation theory suggests that our cultural environment is a byproduct of marketing. Gerbner (1998) states:

Television neither simply “’creates” nor “reflects” images, opinions, and beliefs. Rather,

it is an integral aspect of a dynamic process. Institutional needs and objectives influence

the creation and distribution of mass-produced messages which create, fit into, exploit,

and sustain the needs, values, and ideologies of mass publics. (p. 180)

This idea goes hand in hand with Smythe’s idea of audience commodification, how audience commodity affects the content that is produced, and how this content then reflects ruling class ideology. According to Smythe (1981), the commercial mass media exist to influence economic and political tasks, and audience power is what makes it all possible (p. 256). Audiences are bought and sold to advertisers, and the audiences’ reward for their work in this process is the content that’s been tailored to them (Meehan, 2002, p. 210). WWE wants to attract a specific type of audience because, in a media system controlled by capitalist logic, not all audiences are valued equally (Gandy, 2000). WWE desires the most marketable audience, an audience it can sell and sell to, and it creates its programming accordingly. But who exactly is its real audience?

Seventy-eight percent of the WWE audience is 21 or older, and 35% are female. Its flagship show, the home of the WWE Champion, Monday Night Raw, seems to pull a diverse audience, as it’s the third most watched cable program among Hispanic viewers and the second

9 among Black viewers. If the WWE manufactures its content in order to sell its audience, and its audience is comprised of a generally culturally diverse population, then why has there been only one Black WWE Champion, and why does it continue to rely on contrived and controversial stereotypes in depicting non-white “superstars”? Does audience commodity and segmentation play a role, and if so, to what extent? While the study of audience commodity is invaluable,

Murdock (1978) cautions, “that audience commodity is limited to advertising dependent media, and dismissing program content entirely is too drastic” (p.29). This is especially true for the

WWE, considering that it exists outside of the traditional mass media world as well. WWE performs 320 live shows a year, and its largest monthly events are on advertisement free pay-per- view, with 2013’s WrestleMania 29 alone pulling in $72 million (WWE, 2013).

To answer the questions posed throughout this introduction, this thesis incorporates an analysis of both academic and popular culture works, from performance and communication scholars, sports writers, trade journals, critical and cultural theorists, and the WWE, as well as the author’s 25 years of professional wrestling fandom. Chapter two examines race, sport and the media, and how professional wrestling has been studied previously. Though professional wrestling is not a sport, the WWE presents itself as “sports entertainment” and often handles presentations of race in a similar matter. It also looks at political economy as a method and further explains the consciousness and culture industry approaches. Race portrayals in media effects studies will be discussed, as will race and cultural studies, race and political economy, and critical race theory, as well as how they all relate to professional wrestling. To quote Hardy

(2010), “to understand any specific media form,” including professional wrestling, “requires addressing how it is produced and distributed in a given society and how it is situated in relation to the dominant social structure” (p.1). A methodology for the study is also included. A third

10 chapter discusses how the profit motive affects WWE programming and focuses on the production and structural factors that create the perpetuation of certain ideologies. Audience demographics of the WWE are reviewed to debate the misconception of who exactly “the WWE

Universe” is comprised of and how this relates to the audience commodity. The history of race portrayals in professional wrestling and how it relates to who gets pushed up the card (receives air time in more prominent story lines), and who gets buried (saddled with a losing gimmick) is discussed as well. The background and purpose of the WWE Championship and being champ in a scripted sport are discussed, and the role of the fan, which is vastly different than it is in other entertainment formats, is briefly analyzed, particularly the fan’s role in determining the success of a performer. It also explores the ideologies of professional wrestling by examining the history of the ideological process in the squared-circle, and concludes with a discussion on the implications of the results of the political economic and textual analyses, and looks at what may lie ahead for the WWE, its minority performers, and its audience.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND METHODOLOGY

Race and Sport(s Entertainment)

Competitive sport and professional wrestling certainly share similarities, and yet are also drastically different. Jenkins (1997) writes that sports entertainment differs because it adopts the narrative and thematic structures implicit within traditional sports, but adds elements of theatrical melodrama to increase emotional impact. While this practice is accurate, the most passionate sports fans would argue that no additional drama is needed for emotional impact-- as evidence by the extremes of joy and sorrow often displayed following sports contest, like the 2011 Stanley

Cup riots in Vancouver, BC. Regardless of the potential emotional change created by the addition of theatrical elements, these elements are the primary difference between sport and sports entertainment: in professional wrestling, the outcome is scripted; this is assumed untrue in sport unless discussing the 1919 World Series.1 Unfortunately, one area in which sport and sports entertainment are simpatico is in the manner they handle race. While two–time triple crown winner Miguel Cabrera isn’t forced to drive out to the batting circle in hydraulic boosted cars with fuzzy dice like members of the proud wrestling family the Guerreros were, sports are not that much better, sometimes lacking just as much subtlety.

Sports play a significant role in society in dealing with how race is understood. Grainger,

Newman and Andrews (2006) state that, “mass mediated sport is a site where ideologies of race

(and racism) are both constructed and negotiated and thus acts as an important signifier for wider questions about identity within racially demarcated societies” (p.447). The racialized structures presented in sport contribute to the way we perceive and experience our own identity and the

1 The Cincinnati Reds defeated the Chicago White Sox 5 games to 3. Afterwards, eight members of the White Sox were charged with conspiring to throw the Series and were banned from organized baseball for life (mlb.com). 12 identity of others, and these preconceptions subconsciously place people in social hierarches

(Deardroff, 2000; Hylton, 2009). Hylton (2009) states that, “the media are key actors in constructing our ideas about what it means to be a racialized, gendered and classed body in society, and this dialogue is worked, reworked and transformed in the public domain of sport” (p.

83). Since the ruling class controls the means of production, this can be problematic, as sports, and sports entertainment, can often neglect honest depictions in favor of stereotypical representations and essentialist simplifications that support the hegemonic ideology by emphasizing a “natural” way to see the world.

One of the ways in which athletes of color are represented throughout sports media is in their historical underrepresentation (Rada, 2005). Grainger et al. (2006) mention a study by

Davis and Harris (1998) that analyzed the National Broadcast Corporation’s broadcast of the

1992 Olympics and found that there was not a single feature on Asian Americans or Native

Americans, and that packages on European-American men were more detailed and in-depth than those of African Americans. Additionally, Lumpkin and Williams (1991) found that media coverage of African-American male athletes was not near proportional to their participation.

Francis (1990) reached a similar conclusion in his study on the analysis of Division one- basketball players in Sports Illustrated between 1954 and 1986. The WWE faces similar problems with the current roster as only 1/3 of the roster is comprised of non-white superstars, and the number of those characters that receive airtime is even fewer.

Media coverage devoted to minorities has increased significantly in recent years, even to the degree that it could now be argued that “African- American athletes are now hypervisable in the contemporary sport media” (Grainger et al., 2006, p. 449). This change, however, was not brought about by the media’s generous decision to feature athletes proportional to their

13 participation, but rather it likely reflects the increased number of non-white athletes participating in professional and collegiate sports (Grainger et al, 2006). While underrepresentation has historically been a problem for minority athletes, the issue now is not necessarily the amount of coverage, but the content of the coverage provided.

In his 2008 book, ‘Race’ and Sport: Critical Race Theory, Kevin Hylton lays out four categories that were used in a content analysis of Sports Illustrated (SI) and Observer Sport

Monthly (OSM) that helped identify racist views and hegemonic representations: racialization and mediated racial identities; the myth of difference and mimetic accuracy; whitecentricism; and the myth of assimilation and enlightened racism. In these four categories, there is significant overlap, but they are still obvious to recognize in their practice, and they’re practiced quite often.

Racialization and mediated racial identities occur regularly in sports media. In this, race is characterized as a collective identity. Hylton (2008) content analysis of SI and OSM he found that “reporters chose to associate or disassociate athletes in a way that reinforced their insider or outsider status” (p.96). For example, if white British athletes were being discussed, their

Britishness was emphasized, whereas if a Black British athlete was mentioned, his/her

Britishness was typically neglected in favor of mentioning their country of origin, as in

“Jamaican born striker.” While it can be seen as recognition of a country’s diversity, or acknowledging the complexity of the individual, with these actions, the media imply a naturalness to the athletes whose background heritage is not discussed and creates a distance between insider and the Other (Hylton, 2008). Another example of this action that the media perpetuate comes about when they’re comparing players within the same sport. More often than not, the media will ignore style in comparison and instead focus on racial comparisons; it’s how every white basketball shooter inevitably gets compared to Larry Bird or Steve Nash regardless

14 of his game. All white basketball players, play like white players. Making race a collective identity is insulting to the individual.

Perpetuating the myth of difference and mimetic accuracy deals with the creation of common sense essentialist myths, such as those largely supported by savants such as Jimmy the

Greek--who famously implied that Black athletes were better athletes thanks to slavery (Rada,

2005). Hylton (2008) argues that racial thinking in sport is created by four preposterous theoretical propositions: 1. That sports are based on theoretical principles of equality; 2. The results of sporting competitions are necessarily unequal; 3. This inequality has a racial bias; and

4. Since access and opportunity are ostensibly equal, the explanations of the unequal results must lie in racial physicality. That Black athletes are more athletic is not the only myth manufactured by mass media’s rhetoric; Hylton (2008) cites an interview Campbell (1995) held with former

National Football League player and sports personality Ahmed Rashad that provides a perfect illustration of the media’s application of myth making; Rashad states:

If you close your eyes and listen, you can tell whether a commentator is discussing a

White or Black Athlete when he [sic] says that somebody is a ‘natural’, so fluid and

graceful, you know he’s talking about a Back performer. When you hear that this other

guy’s a hard worker, or that he comes to play every day on the strength of guts and

intelligence, you know that the player in question is white. Just open your eyes. (p. 60)

Rada and Wulfemeyer (2005) found this to be true in their examination of NCAA Division 1-A college football and basketball games during 1998 and 1999. The results of their study showed that Black athletes were more likely to receive positive comments on their physical attributes than white athletes, and at the same time were far more likely to receive negative comments pertaining to on-field and off-field intellect and character, so much so that Rada and Wulfemeyer

(2005) conclude that, “statistically speaking, if a statement is negative, it is almost always directed at an African American (p.80).”

The media regularly depict Black players as more athletically gifted, and the white athlete as more cerebral and gritty. Giardina and Magnusen (2008) touch on this briefly in their article on NFL quarterback Michael Vick, stating that media evaluations of Vick focused exclusively on his physical gifts. This generalization not only suggests white intellectual superiority, but also devalues Black achievement (Hylton, 2008). Once more, this type of analysis implies that the

Black athlete needs guidance, typically that which comes from a white coach or authority

(Grainger et al, 2006). ESPN radio personality Collin Cowherd’s famous 2010 rant on Wizards point guard John Wall certainly falls into this category. After an exceptional game by the then second year Wall, the ESPN talk show host lambasted Wall, claiming he was an “A+ talent” but lacked strong judgment, blaming this on the absence of Wall’s deceased father (Steinberg, 2010).

Popular sports blog Deadspin described Cowherd’s rant as, “basically three minutes of a man trying very hard not to say the n-word” (Matthews, 2010, para 2).

Hylton (2008) identifies whitecentrism in recognizing whiteness that carries power and superiority, and in uncovering the invisible whiteness that the racialized other is marked against

(p. 89). Typically in America this includes Eurocentric whiteness; however, in global competition, the definition changes, and only healthy xenophobic American whiteness is viewed as natural or superior. Hylton (2008) notes one instance of whitecentrism arising in the winter

Olympics when Germany possessed a medal count exceeding that of the United States.

Respected American sporting publication Sports Illustrated responded as such: “it’s as though the Germans are some sort of perfect beings. Almost genetically superior in some aspects. But

I’m sure they won’t do anything with that knowledge” (Hylton, 2008, p.97). In response to the

16 natural order being upset, SI responded with a Nazi joke to suggest that American is the only acceptable identity.

When Hylton’s categories of whitecentrism, racialization, and the myth of difference are compounded, they often create media narratives such as good-minorities and bad-minorities, and the perpetuation of the stereotype of the Black male as a threat to society.

Jacobson (2005) writes that during the 1960s civil rights movement, Black baseball players, when evaluated by the white media, were cast into a dichotomy of good or bad based on their outspokenness. Players who disagreed with current hegemonic practices, such as Bob

Gibson, Dock Ellis, and Riche (Dick) Allen, were labeled as troublesome, while those who went about their business in a more taciturn fashion were applauded as well behaved (Jacobson, 2005).

Jacobson quotes hall of fame pitcher Bob Gibson’s description of fellow Black baseball player

Dick Allen, saying, “If Allen had been white, he would have been considered merely a free spirit. As a Black man who did as he pleased and guarded his privacy, he was instead regarded as a trouble-maker” (Gibson, 1994, p.224).

A similar example, though it deals with hypocrisy among the media involving multiple cultures instead of dichotomous portrayals within a singular race, comes to mind from Giardina and Newman (2011) in their article, “The Physical and The Possible,” which discussed athlete portrayals in the media regarding political statements. Rashaad Mendenhall, an African

American NFL running back, following the death of Osama Bin Laden in 2011, sent out a string of tweets regarding the event, writing, among other things: “What kind of person celebrates death?” as well as “I’m not convinced he was even behind the attacks. We have really seen no evidence to prove it other than the government telling us” (Giardina & Newman, 2011, p.394).

Immediately following the tweets, Mendenhall was labeled a 9/11 “truther” and abased in the

17 press. He was told to “just shut up and play” and depicted as “crazy” and “ignorant.” The same essay mentions white baseball player Luke Scott and comments he had made about President

Barrack Obama. Scott stated that, “Obama does not represent America,” and that “Obama’s birth certificate has yet to be validated” (Giardina and Newman, 2011, p. 396). Instead of being disregarded as crazy and told to just shut up and play, Scott was lauded by certain “fair and balanced” corners of the media landscape, and was labeled by ESPN reporter Amy K. Nelson as a “complex man.” Both athletes made “controversial” statements, but only the Black athlete was dismissed as ignorant. As Boyd (1997) puts it:

The media, a primary organ for the continued proliferation of racial hierarchies, are more

comfortable having Black athletes remain in their allotted space as quiet performers and

entertainers, speaking only when spoken to, and then only to affirm their circumscribed

place in the extant racial hierarchy, where white males continue to ‘own’ the services of

the players and white owned media outlets continue to reinscribe this world through their

media coverage. (p.133)

The good/bad minority dichotomy was discussed in a column on Deadspin called,

“Russell Wilson: The Curse of the Good Negro.” Deadspin condemns writers and media members who, in their coverage of the 2014 NFC Championship game between the Seattle

Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers, neglected to discuss Seahawks quarterback Russell

Wilson’s intriguing individual story, but rather “turned him into a rhetorical prop, treated him as the sum of white people’s approval” (Deadspin, 2014, para 3). That’s all the good/bad dichotomy boils down to. It eliminates the individual and instead creates dichotomous labels regarding the individual’s ability to meet hegemonic ideals.

The media also tend to focus on the negatives in regard to non-white athletes. Much like representations throughout the media in general, minorities are overrepresented by the sports media as criminals as well (Grainger et al, 2006; Hylton, 2008; Sloop, 1997). Regarding the findings in his SI content analysis, Hylton (2008) states, “from reading SI there would be no doubt that Black people are significantly more dangerous and criminal than white people”

(p.99). That one could make such a concise statement following an analysis of one of the more respected grounds of sports journalism is disturbing and sad. Even when white and non-white athletes face similar criticisms regarding illegalities, they are regularly framed quite differently.

Lewis and Proffitt (2012) found the several differences in the way the media covered white

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps and Black NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s individual incidents with marijuana and concluded that based on how the stories were represented, “it can be inferred that a young, white, boy-next-door athlete like Michael Phelps relates far better to those who frame the news than a young, Black athlete such as Vick” (p.18).

If you can’t deny racism existed, just claim it’s over. Stating America has become post- racial seems to be a favorite strategy among the mass media in their dealings of race. By portraying the success of non-white athletes, the sports media can create an image that race is a thing of the past and does not play a role in stopping other minorities from achieving similar success. Jhally and Lewis (1992) wrote a similar piece about the Cosby show having the same effect (Hylton, 2008). Juffers (2002) suggest that this post-racial rhetoric is a common narrative among Latinos in regard to the success of many Hispanic baseball players; for example, because

Alex Rodriguez is wealthier than King Solomon, that means there’s no possible obstacle excusing other Latinos from accomplishing their goals. This narrative is a double play for the white, patriarchal neoliberal, hegemony, as it allows them to--although dishonestly--claim the

19 end of racism, while promoting the American Dream. As Rose and Friedman (1997) put it,

“sports in America embodies all the illusions of opportunity and upward mobility that our nation holds dear” (p.9), and these illusions, and their implied universal equality, only hold back the proletariat even further. The success stories coming though sport also perpetuate the gang-sport dyad, in which sports are seen as one of the only viable ways to find success.

Tiger Woods was sold as perhaps the star of post-racial movement following his emergence on and subsequent dominance of the golf scene. Woods was (very) briefly political, with his “Hello World” ad, which depicted Woods as a Black man making a statement on race and professional sport; however, by his second ad, the only color Tiger reflected was green

(Andrews & Cole, 1997; Houck, 2006). His second ad, the “I am Tiger Woods campaign,” was, as Houck (2006) points out, his transition from paternally inspired accidental activist to “two dimensional automaton” in the vein of Michael Jordan (p. 482). Tiger was sold to be the U.S. post-historical, post–racial everyman, and his self-adapted label of “Cablinaisan (a combination of Caucasian, Black, Indian and Asian)” only attempted to solidify it further. Like Jordan, Vick

(pre-dog fighting conviction) or O.J. Simpson (pre-murder trial), Woods was marketed as proof that America had moved past racism. However, following his fall from grace, like OJ post- murder trial, and Vick post-dog-fighting conviction, Woods was portrayed more as an Other than at any other time since his mass media debut, and it was once again obvious that race was very much real. He was given back; he’d gone “bad.” As Andrews, King and Leonard (2010) put it:

“No longer America’s son, Tiger Woods still exposes and validates the ideological workings of race and power during an era in which branding, consumption and spectacle ease the denial of racism and reiterate the central preoccupations and anxieties of the white racial frame” (p.253).

Race is positively represented in the media typically only when it is commodified.

Within corporate capitalism, differences based on culture and social identity are acceptable so long as they assimilate to the mainstream- like “Republican’s buy sneakers too” Michael Jordan or pre-crash Tiger Woods--or remain on the periphery to be consumed as an “exotic experience”

(Grainger et al, 2006, p.460). Former NBA star Allen Iverson could sell basketball shoes, but he couldn’t be the spokesperson for Hanes or star in a movie with Bugs Bunny. Iverson, with his braids, tattoos, and rebellious demeanor was marketed as an “exotic experience,” far from universal consumption. His difference was commodified. He was arguably the most popular player in the NBA in the post-Jordan, pre-Lebron James era, and though adored by basketball fans, the mainstream media always kept him at arm’s length because he was different and didn’t meet ideals set forth by the ruling class.

Maguire (2006) points out that though it’s not near as blatant and prominent as it was during the 1980s, professional wrestling still makes use of racist themes. A group of Black wrestlers even sued Turner Sports because of the way they were portrayed in comparison to white wrestlers and the subsequent discrepancies in pay (Staff, 2002). Jenkins (1997) states that professional wrestling “engages in the worst sort of jingoistic nationalism. It evokes racial and ethnic stereotypes that demean groups even when they are intended to provide positive role models (p. 76). Unfortunately, sports do not always tend to do much better.

While the primary focus of this thesis is on race, in dealing with political economy and white, male, neoliberal hegemony, gender and sexuality must also be noted, as hegemonic masculinity reproduces hierarchies much in the same way racial hierarchies are constructed via perpetuated ideology (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Donaldson, 1993).

Previous Studies on Professional Wrestling

While professional wrestling hasn’t been studied as extensively as other popular culture topics, a fairly large body of academic work, from a myriad of perspectives and approaches, examine the sports entertainment spectacle. Many scholars (Maguire, 2005; Morton & O’Brien,

1985; Rickard, 1999) have discussed wrestling’s evolution historically, tracing its popularity from its origins to the current day product, while others have focused on why exactly professional wrestling is popular and where the fan’s satisfaction comes from (Kholer, 2004).

Many scholars contend that satisfaction derives from the emergence of moral order constructed in professional wrestling, as “good” typically conquers evil (Henricks, 1974), and that some see this guarantee of justice as a cathartic performance for audience members trapped in an unfair neoliberal system, enjoying the metanarrative of the triumphant underdog (Barthes, 1972; Levi,

1997; Maguire & Wozniak, 1987; May, 1999). Other studies have taken this idea a step further and contextualized wrestling and its narratives in relation to present day American society

(Feigenbaum, 2000).

Fandom in professional wrestling has also been examined to some degree (Dell, 1997;

Ford, 2007; Workman, 1977). Some studies have been conducted to examine how wrestling appeals to, and has been crafted to appear to, certain demographics, while other studies have been done to see how various fans receive and comprehend the product. The various types of fans in professional wrestling, from the naive spectator to the theorist, have also been previously examined.

Performance scholars have studied professional wrestling’s dramaturgical aspects and have examined it as myth, melodrama, folklore, ritual, and as a spectacle of excess (Ball, 1989;

Everard, 2002; Mazer; 1988; Mazer, 1999; Rickard, 1999). The messages within the

22 performance have been critiqued as well, from its violence to its homoeroticism (Mazer, 1988).

Character types and roles have been dissected (Campbell, 1996) and the function of stereotypes, both regional (Kyriakoudes & Coclanis, 1997) and racial (Hart, 2012; Maguire & Wozniak,

1987), have been covered to some degree, though not with the methodology I apply. Stereotypes have been used throughout wrestling’s history as a banal form of story telling that divides the world into those worth cheering for and the villainous, but when examined deeper, as my study intends, to see why certain characters are portrayed in a certain way, the reason behind the application of stereotypes is more than the ignorantly innocuous idea that they’re strictly a narrative device.

Media effects scholars and social psychologist have examined wrestling’s potential tie to both verbal and physical aggression (Tambroni et al, 2008), as well as the messages it emits about masculinity and its potential to increase body dissatisfaction in males (Souilere & Blair,

2004; Souilere, 2006). It’s even been studied as a potential pedagogical tool to help promote situational literacy (Alvermann, Huddleston, & Hagood, 2004).

Much of professional wrestling has already been covered; however, as in most things, there is always another perspective. Racial stereotypes have been studied in wrestling, and its appeal has been critiqued from a Marxist perspective; however, to cover the political economy of race in wrestling, as I have, has yet to be done, to my knowledge. The next chapter explains political economy as a method for this study and discusses the consciousness and culture industries, as defined by Jhally (1989), and how they apply towards WWE.

Wrestling with Political Economy as a Method

In this section, political economy is elaborated upon and critiqued as a method for studying race and culture, and quantitative media effects studies regarding race will be contextualized for the purpose of this thesis.

The political economic method of studying communication is concerned with wealth, power, and knowledge. It examines the production and distribution of information, from the context of the systemic structure to the content itself. “It examines how media ownership, media control, and the profit-making motive affect what we read, hear, and see” (Bettig & Hall, 2012, p.11). Those with wealth have the power to distribute knowledge, and the WWE, with its ever- expanding reach, especially with its new network launching in February of 2014, and immense finances certainly is powerful. Its position as a business entity that produces near a half billion dollars in revenue a year and can potentially distribute its product to more than 600 million homes worldwide makes this one time regional circus an organization worthy of significant review from a political economic perspective. Political economy, while concerned with culture and products, primarily focuses on the system behind it all. Mosco (1996) defines it as “the study of the social relations, particularly power relations, that mutually constitute the production, distribution and consumption of resources“ (p.25). Mosco (2005) lists four central characteristics of critical political economy:

1. Social change in history- Political economy continues the tradition of classic theorist,

uncovering the dynamics of capitalism - its cyclical nature, the growth of monopoly

capital, state apparatus etc.

2. Social totality: Political economy is a holistic approach, or, in concrete terms,

explores the relationship among commodities, institutions, social relations and

hegemony, and explores the determination among these elements, although some

elements are stressed more than others.

3. Moral philosophy: Critical political economy also follows the classical theorists’

emphasis on moral philosophy, including not only analysis of the economic system,

but discussion of the policy problems and moral issues which arise from it. For some

contemporary scholars, this is the distinguishing characteristic of political economy.

4. Praxis: Finally, political economists attempt to transcend the distinction between

research and policy, orienting their work towards actual social change and practice, or

as Marx pointed out: “philosophers have sought to understand the system, the point is

to change it.” (pp.26-27)

Political economy examines the structural forces behind the means of production, the content created and the potential effects of content on consumers. It analyzes it all together, in hopes of furthering understanding so that a change can be made for the better.

In modern capitalist societies, in which power and rewards are increasingly concentrated, and the minority class who owns the means of production rule over the majority of the population who can only sell their own labor, those in power obviously seek to remain in control

(Jhally, 1989, p. 67). Jhally (1989) writes that historically the ruling class attempts to maintain dominance through two ways: physical force or “through the consent of the dominated, by convincing the majority to identify and support the present system of rewards rather than opposing it, to in fact live their own domination as freedom” (Jhally, 1989, p. 67). The second option is often the weapon of choice in advanced, modern societies. It’s significantly more deceptive, as those left ignorant cannot or will not recognize the strategy being employed, and, in part because of its cunning nature, the method of dominated consent brings about less outrage

25 and resistance and is arguably more effective. Instead of demanding the masses remain in servitude at the end of a literal weapon, those in power convince the majority to keep the current power structures in place, simply accepting it as the objective, natural state of existence (Jhally,

1989). As Horkheimer and Adorno (2001) put it, “under the private culture monopoly it is a fact that tyranny leaves the body free and directs its attack at the soul” (p. 79).

In order to understand how this attack occurs, one must examine both the structural factors that allow and promote it, and the content produced that perpetuates the ideology- the consciousness industry.

Consciousness Industry

In studying the political economy of communications and how exactly the white, masculine, neoliberal hegemony manifests the consent of the dominated, Jhally (1989) mentions two ways in which it must be examined: the first analyzes the reproduction of social relations through the media, and the second at looks at the economic factors behind it (p.70). The media’s reproduction of social relations is important to political economy because it is through mediated messages that those in power attempt to disseminate their ideology in order to maintain the status quo, so that, “the need which might resist central control has already been suppressed by the control of the individual consciousness” (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1944, p. 72). As Jhally (1989) puts it, “groups that benefit from the existing distribution of power and rewards work for stability, while groups denied access to power and resources work for change” (p.67). The most efficient way for those in power to maintain “stability” lies in disseminating their ideology through the most expansive channel, and in capitalist societies, the mass media, with their near limitless and irresistible presence, play that role. A strong example of this is the rise of

26 neoliberalism as a hegemonic mode of discourse. Through constant media messaging, neoliberalism, with its emphasis on free markets and deregulation, has become incorporated into the “common-sense way” many people view the world (Harvey, 2005). The WWE meets the qualifications as one that would prefer the status quo to most any potential alternative, so it recognizes its best interests depend on maintaining the current political, economic, and communicative systems. Hardy (2010) states, “to understand any specific media form,” including professional wrestling, “requires addressing how it is produced and distributed in a given society and how it is situated in relation to the dominant social structure” (p.1).

This perpetuation of dominant ideologies with the intent to maintain the status quo is what Jhally designates the consciousness industry approach. Jhally defines the consciousness industry as, “literally an industry, which attempts to produce a form of consciousness in the audience that benefits the class that controls the media and industry in general” (Jhally, 1989, p.

68). The consciousness industry approach is based on the work of Hans Enzenberger who actually coined the phrase to describe the entire media system. In his mind, the function of the media was to create the appropriate consciousness among the masses, to ensure “what is essentially an exploitative system of societal relations” (Jhally, 1989, p. 68).

In regard to the consciousness industry, this thesis explores how the WWE, through its programming, specifically its representations of its minority performers, promotes the ideology of the ruling class. It examines how the white, masculine, hegemonic agenda represents itself through the performers themselves and the storylines they are scripted into.

As stated earlier, it is not enough to just study the content, because to do so accepts, without question, the current structural factors as absolute. In order to study political communication thoroughly, the culture industry must also be examined.

Culture Industry

In neoliberal capitalism, the free market is the driving force, the be-all and end-all, and as

Harvey (2005) states, “where markets do not exist, they must be created” (p.2). It is through the neoliberal, capitalist, hegemony that culture has been commodified. According to Jhally (1989),

“the cultural industries produce ideology, not primarily because they are controlled by corporations, but because that is necessarily the result when culture is treated as commodity. It is not conspiracy that is the cause but the logic of industrial production applied to cultural products” (p. 72). In making a commodity of culture, it is intended to be sold to the most people possible. Ostensibly, in order to appeal to the largest number, the dominant culture, in the dissemination of ideology, discards non-dominant cultures and often marginalizes them because they are not the intended market.

While Enzenberger and the consciousness industry approach stress the perpetuation of hegemonic ideology through media messages, the culture industry approach focuses on the economics behind the ideological media content. Smythe (1981) “claims that the principle product of the media is not ideology but audiences” (p.69). In the neoliberal, capitalist hegemony, under the guise of a free market, corporations not only need to concern themselves with the production of a commodity, but also ensure that it is being sold (Jhally, 1989, p. 69).

Jhally (1989) succinctly explains the difference between Smythe and Enzenberger, in that

Smythe “stresses the absolutely fundamental necessity of the consumption of commodities for the survival of the system” (p. 70). Audiences are sold to advertisers, the driving force behind the media and a representative of “the voice of the wealthy and the culture it dominates”

(McChesney, 2004, p.167). According to Williams (2000), the art of capitalist society is advertising, and capitalism could not function without it. To Smythe (1992), the audience is a

28 commodity, and the viewing of commercials is the work that is performed by audiences in exchange for entertainment. In 2006, U.S. businesses spent $285 billion on advertising, nearly

$1000 for every person in the nation, $285 billion (Bettig & Hall, 2012). The reason: audiences

(Jhally, 1989). That statistic alone should answer any questions to the importance of advertising in the media industry. As a product of our capitalistic society, dollars are all that matter, especially to those who are in power and want to remain there. At this point, the networks exist for advertisers, while the audience members are solely viewed as consumers (Meehan, 2004). In regard to professional wrestling, Deeter-Schmelz and Sojka (2004) contend that WWE is no different, and isn’t so much an entertainment venue as it is culture or product consumption.

It is not enough to simply attract viewers, but they must also be the right type of viewer.

They need to fit the desired demographic of the advertiser. Most television shows, magazines, movies and newspapers, cater to the affluent, because that’s who can afford to purchase the products their advertisers are selling; as Bagdikian (2004) states, “A magazine doesn’t waste words on window shoppers” (p.232). Meehan (2002) defines the perceived commodity audience as “white men aged 18 to 34” and states that television is “ largely in the business of men- counting them, characterizing them, selling them, and programming for them” (p.218). With its focus on appealing to young, affluent white males, television discriminates against anyone outside of the white, masculine hegemony (Meehan, 2002). This thesis examines why the WWE

“doesn’t waste time” on minority viewers, choosing only to serve up stereotypes that promote the white, neoliberal hegemony.

Thanks to new media and corporate savvy, the audience commodity extends itself beyond simply viewing commercials. Now consumers are unpaid publicity and distribution channels through social networking sites like Facebook, and unpaid ad creators and focus group members,

29 through fan-sites, message boards, and YouTube. Audiences have moved beyond serving as the commodity created to assisting in the spread and growth of the consciousness industry

(McAllister, 2010). The WWE with its incredibly popular social media and YouTube presence, and millions of dollars in merchandise sales, certainly takes advantage of the audience’s willingness to work in spreading ideology.

When cultural becomes industrialized, it loses its value and becomes a commodity like any other. It no longer serves as art, but instead becomes pure entertainment and amusement, a manufactured need, simply the prolongation of work (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2001, p. 81; Jhally,

1989). Its only purpose is to keep the audience satiated between advertisements. When culture is commoditized, “pleasure always means not to think about anything, to forget suffering even where it is shown. Basically it is helplessness” (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1944, p. 86). While this appears to be a pessimistic way to view the world, to consume commoditized culture is to acquiesce the current societal structure, and doing so is a statement of “helplessness.”

Up to this point, political economy has been discussed as a method for studying communication; the next section discusses political economy within cultural studies.

Political Economy and Cultural Studies

While typically a textual analysis of popular culture aimed at critiquing race portrayals would fall under the umbrella of cultural studies, political economy plays an important role--as discussed above--in the study of culture, and actually can help promote a further understanding of the concepts under review than culture studies alone could provide. As Jhally (1989) states,

“while culture cannot be reduced to mere economic factors, it cannot be understood either without understanding the economic context that surrounds and shapes it” (p. 67). Adding a

30 political economic perspective to cultural studies help links cultural representations of identity to material economic constraints and other mechanism of control (Erni, 2001 p.198). McChesney

(1996) states that, “in addition to paying attention to social movements, cultural studies needs to develop a more systematic critique of capitalism and the market,” and even goes as far to imply that cultural studies without a political economic perspective has consented to the dominant ideology through consent, stating, “reading much of cultural studies, one is struck by the sense that writers find the market and capitalism invincible” (p.40).

Palmeri (1997) perhaps oversimplifies the field in stating that, “cultural studies is focused on the relations between social relations and meetings-or more exactly on the way social divisions are made meaningful” (p. 42); however, using that definition, the need for an association with political economy is quite obvious, considering political economy’s emphasis on class divisions, how they’re constructed, and power structures. Palmeri (1997) argues that cultural studies tends to fall into narrowly focused views relating to media, identity, text and audience reception, and recommends implementing an analysis of the institutional and structural context of culture (p.42).

One of the main critiques some political economists have in regard to with cultural studies is they think it neglects Mosco’s fourth concept, the Marxian maxim that “philosophers have sought to understand the system, the point is to change it” (p.27). Palmeri (1997) writes that, “scholarship is written with the explicit purpose of being put to use by movement organizers and activist” (p.39); and McChesney (2002) argues that cultural studies needs to “reassert its radical political project” (p.43). They make a good point. Scholarship for the sake of scholarship falls short in comparison to critical scholarship aimed at institutional reform, especially in relation to the mass media, which Dates and Mascaro (2005) say, “has helped to

31 legitimate inequalities in class race gender and generational relations for commercial purposes”

(p.3).

Political Economy and Race

Though political economic studies mostly concern themselves with class instead of race, the two are often linked, and political economy can also work hand in hand with critical race theory in examining inequalities based on race. Stuart Hall (2005) once said in regard to class and race that, “race is the modality in which class is lived. It is also the medium in which class relations are experienced “(p. 337). In support of that argument, San Juan Jr. (2005) said that,

“racism indeed cannot be understood outside or separate from the social division of labor in the capitalist mode of production and its concomitant reproduction of unequal relations” (p.335).

The social class inequality in neoliberal capitalism views “race as a reliable means of cheapening labor,” and brings about immense income gaps, unemployment, the elimination of government assisted programs, and the elimination of challenges to the ruling class, all of which have racial ramifications (Allahar, 2011, p. 55; San Juan Jr., 2005). Political economic critiques of race examine “the institutional racism and racially based inequality in the capitalist division of labor—primarily between the seller of labor-power as prime commodity and the employer who maximizes surplus value (unpaid labor) from the workers” (San Juan Jr., 2005, p. 343).

Audience commodity fosters audience segmentation, which is “a complex process through which the great variety that sets us apart as individuals is cast off, or ignored in order to emphasize the similarities that help to shape and define us as members of groups” (Gandy, 2000, p.2). Audience segmentation occurs because not all audience power is viewed as equal to broadcasters and advertisers; “the relative size, wealth, and political power of the population

32 within a defined segment” creates a distinction (Gandy, 2000, p. 11). Smythe (1981) states that audience power, “the concrete product which is used to accomplish the economic and political task which are the reason for the existence of the mass media” (p.256), like labor power, involves work, and as Allahar ( 2011) claims, race in neoliberal capitalism is used to cheapen labor. The “free-time” labor of the audience commodity of non-white viewers is just as devalued as their actual labor in white, male, neoliberal hegemony (Allahar, 2011; Gandy, 2000; Smythe,

1981).

In discussing Antonio Gramsci’s work on ideology, Hall (1986) said that the victims of racism are subjugated “to the very racist ideologies which imprison and define them” (p. 27).

Racist ideologies, like any ideology perpetuated to the benefit of the ruling class, seek to mold popular opinion and become established and cemented as ‘common sense,’ which then only solidifies the white, masculine, neoliberal hegemony (Hall, 1986).

Just as Meehan (2002) points out that “patriarchy and capitalism have been historically intertwined in the United States from the nation’s founding” (p.210), San Juan Jr. suggest that the white hegemony is no exception and that studies of race and class are much more alike than different:

White supremacy evolved as a theory/practice designed to legitimize the rule of dominant

groups in fluctuating class coalitions, modified and readjusted according to the complex

process of reconfiguring hegemony. Thus, it is the totality of capitalist production

relations—not an essentializing ingredient such as economic position alone—that

explains why the ideological synthesis of white supremacy functioned as a key element in

the bourgeoisie’s strategic construction of hegemony through the calculated syncopation

or calibration of the relations among the state, the institutions of civil society, and the

practices of everyday life. (p.343)

Race is used to strengthen the ruling class, as the white, masculine hegemony perpetuates racist ideologies to distract and weaken the plebeians. In writing on Caribbean diaspora in Canada,

Allahar (2014) finds that further dividing society by race exacerbates the class division between the working class and the elites and bolsters the grip of the white, masculine, neoliberal hegemony. He states that, “when members of the oppressed classes buy into the idea that ‘race’ is real, when they organize themselves along lines of ‘race’ consciousness, class awareness is muted and the working-class as a whole is weakened via in-fighting along racial lines” (Allahar,

2011, p.84). In weakening the working class, and diverting their attention with race, the dominant hegemony is reinforced.

Applying political economic theory beyond class to the realm of race will significantly help provide a more detailed understanding of the institutions and power structures within neoliberal capitalism that continue to perpetuate racist propaganda. San Juan Jr. (2005) writes,

“without understanding the continued domination of labor by capital globally, we cannot effectively counteract the racism that underwrites the relation of domination and subordination among nationalities, ethnic communities, and gender groups” (p. 351). Dates and Mascaro

(2005) agree, suggesting that by moving beyond cultural depictions and representations, implementing political economic theory to race “hopes to improve all lives” (p.6). San Juan, Jr.

(2005) even goes as far to suggest that race and the current neoliberal hegemony are so intertwined that socialist revolution is “the requisite precondition for ending racism” (p.35).

While doubtful it will take a socialist uprising for the WWE to put the heavyweight championship belt around the waist of an African American, or to stop forcing Hispanic wrestlers to ride lawn mowers or low-rider bicycles to the ring, Hall certainly has a point when it

34 comes to political economy, race, and societal change. Radical change is necessary, and to do nothing only bolsters the grip of the ruling class. Studying and understanding the problem is the first step.

Race, Media Effects and Political Economy

Though this thesis is concerned with the political economy of the WWE, and not media effects specifically, media effects research demonstrates the effective perpetuation of ideology.

Agenda setting plays a part in the WWE’s intended preservation of the status quo through its race portrayals. “Agenda setting refers to the idea that there is a strong correlation between the emphasis that mass media place on certain issues and the importance attributed to these issues by the mass audience,” and though the WWE doesn’t explicitly emphasize race in its character representations-- though sometimes it definitely does--the fact that the stereotypical portrayals of minority wrestlers are constant and consistent emphasizes the point (Scheufele & Tewksbury,

2007, p.11). The repetition can cause repetition to occur over time; as Domke, Shah and

Wackman (1998) argue, “constructs are strengthened each time they are activated in tandem” (p.

53). Racial representations in the media “help mold public opinion, hold it in place, and set the agenda for public discourse on the race issue in the media specifically and society at large”

(Dates & Mascaro, 2005, p.4). World Wrestling Entertainment makes race an issue because of the way it features its non-white talent, and it makes race an issue to continue a distinction between white and “other” to support the current hegemonic ideology.

Priming is an extension of agenda setting, and “refers to the process by which recently activated information about a group is used in making subsequent judgments” (Dixon &

Maddox, 2005, p. 1556; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007, p.11). By incessantly relying on offensively stereotypical characterizations of its minority performers, the WWE primes its audience to associate minorities with these stereotypes (Verhaeghenn, Aikman, & Gulick, 2010, p. 503). Studies have argued this point, stating that “regular viewing of professional wrestling is associated with perpetuating racial stereotypes,” validating social cognitive theory’s notion that warped media versions of reality can cultivate shared misconceptions (Bandura, 2001, p. 269;

Bernthal & Medway, 2005, p. 228). Priming presents itself in nearly all media. In their essay on

African American in film, Dates and Mascaro (2005) argue that, “racial images in the mass media are endowed with color-coded positive and negative moral features, and when these symbols become familiar and accepted, they fuel misperceptions and facilitate misunderstandings among racial or cultural groups” (p.4). While these racist depictions and the attitudes they prime have negative effects on society, they positively impact the dominant hegemony, maintaining power structures and reassuring the associations they desire. In negatively depicting minorities, the media, directed by the hand of the ruling class, create divisions in the working class, and these divisions only make the ruling class stronger.

Portrayals of race through the media have been seen to have negative and damaging effects that echo throughout society. Agenda setting, priming, and framing have been studied thoroughly, and this thesis doesn’t not intend to apply these theories; however, it will seek to explain the culture and consciousness industries that influence the agenda setting, priming and framing of minorities in the WWE that perpetuate the white, masculine, neoliberal hegemony.

Methodology

In this study, I examined popular press, trade journals, and performed a textual analysis of more than 100 hours of WWE footage for evidence, or the lack thereof, of the WWE perpetuating the ideology of the dominant hegemony in the portrayals of its non-white performers. As stated earlier, while I discuss professional wrestling’s history in regard to political economy and race throughout to contextualize and provide proper background for some of the intricacies of the business of “sports entertainment,” I primarily focus on the WWE in the current era, since the first WrestleMania in 1985. I’ve seen every WrestleMania before, some numerous times. As a child I’d rent the earlier ones from the local video store ad nauseam, typically at the chagrin of my reluctant parents, and watch the larger than life wrestlers with absolute reverence. Throughout my adolescent years, my friends and I would go to sports-bars and watch it, again at the chagrin of my reluctant parents. Every year I’ve lived on my own, I’ve either thrown WrestleMania viewing parties or gone to the event. The thing that each of my

WrestleMania viewings until now have in common, besides my parents’ continued befuddlement at why their 30-year-old graduate student son still is obsessed with “rasslin,” is that I’ve consumed each one through the lens of the fan, at first a mark--a fan “not clued in to the sham of the enterprise”--then as a smark--a smart mark, a fan with knowledge of the backstage dealings-- but always as a fan (Shoemaker, 2013, p. 15). In this study, I re-watched every WrestleMania, 1-

30, but this time with a critical eye, aimed at analyzing the representations of race from the political economic paradigm.

In my re-viewing of every WrestleMania to date, I document where matches featuring minorities are included on the card, paying attention to how often they are scripted to perform in the main event and actually headline “WWE’s annual crown jewel” (WWE, 2013, p. 4).

WrestleMania is the Super Bowl of professional wrestling and is year in and year out the most profitable show for the WWE; WrestleMania 28, held in Miami, FL, in April, 2012, accounted for $30.1 million of WWE’s $83.6 million in pay-per-view revenue that year. A wrestler’s place on the card, especially the WrestleMania card, is a clear display of his/her perceived worth, as well as the worth of the audience he/she draws (WWE, 2013, p.4). I examine non-white wrestlers’ place on the card and attempt to compare pay-per-view buy rates for each

WrestleMania to see, in the rare instances WWE does feature and promote minority wrestlers, if there’s any actual association.

Play-by-play and color commentators play an enormous role in sport. They contextualize the action, placing events in historical perspective and reminding spectators of statistics in order to assist the viewer in making sense of the televised product (Rose & Friedman, 1997). The same is true in sports entertainment (Pratten, 2003). Commentators often have WWE owner Vince

McMahon in their ear reminding them of talking points and emphasizing certain aspects of the storylines they want relayed to the audience. The commentators do more than simply discuss what’s occurring in the ring; as a matter of fact, as time has progressed, less and less dialogue actually has anything to do with the moves and action in the ring, and instead it stresses the characterization of the performers, including who is right and who is wrong, and reinforces the stereotypes the company presumably believes its audience finds acceptable--like, Jessy “The

Body” Ventura referring to Black wrestler “Birdman” Koko B. Ware as “buckwheat,” and calling fan favorite Tito Santana’s finisher, the flying forearm smash, “The Flying Burrito”

(Shoemaker, 2013). In reviewing all 30 WrestleManias, I note the racializations of performers made by the commentators and examine the context of these representations: to whom are they referring and why, how does the audience responds, and how it relate to political economy.

This thesis also analyzes the audience in attendance at WrestleMania 1-30. I attempt to recognize the demographics of those in attendance and those who purchased it via pay-per-view to see whom exactly the WWE is selling its representations to. How the audience reacts to the race representations is also noted, as occasionally, how the WWE depicts a character and how he/she is actually received is entirely different, and sometimes racialized characteristics are cheered despite perhaps blatant racism. I analyze how audience reception of racialized portrayals affect, or doesn’t affect, the WWE product.

Finally, I note each minority character and how he/she is represented. Are they fan favorites or not, and why? What’s his/her gimmick, what are his/her mannerisms, and how does portraying him/her as such perpetuate or legitimize hegemonic values?

In examining non-white characters, their place on the card, how the color commentators discuss them, how the fans react to their portrayal, and the fans themselves, I hypothesize that the WWE perpetuates archaic stereotypes to promote the hegemonic ideology, because it doesn’t find it profitable to promote minorities, but actually finds it more lucrative, and appealing to its audience, to rely on negative racialized portrayals and implied essentialist narratives, despite their potentially destructive impact on society.

First, I will use financial reports, trade journals and popular press to asses the structural factors and the culture industry of the WWE, then I will further discuss the content, using

WrestleManias 1-30, and perpetuation of ideology as demonstrated in WWE’s handling of race, and in far less detail, gender and sexuality.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The Culture Industry of Professional Wrestling

Before delving into the structural factors that produce and distribute WWE’s intended ideological message, first a brief history of selling professional wrestling must be understood.

Skipping the evolution from sport to spectacle, from an emphasis shift from play to display, professional wrestling, in the entertainment based format it’s recognized as today, has always been concerned with selling a performer to the audience. In the absence of competition based on authentic athletic skill, or the allure of honest unpredictability often found in sports, professional wrestling, as melodramatic sports entertainment, relies on the performer’s ability to captivate and arouse an audience to promote the product. Much of a professional wrestler’s draw historically has been based on how effectively he or she can connect with the audience, and oftentimes this is done so by stressing common characteristics and formulating an in-group, out-group diametric.

Early on, and even still today, professional wrestling commodifies race, and in order to promote its champion, the face of its product, promotions appeal to the dominant culture in place by stressing similarities between the champ and the audience. Ostensibly, fans enjoy cheering for someone with whom they can feign empathy. Occasionally, it does not even matter if the performer is lousy at the actual art of performing, what matters is that he/she can move the product and sell tickets to the available audience. Winning in a scripted sport is not based on ability, but appeal, and who will pay how much to see a performer, and his way of life, win or lose. One such example was Danno O’Mahoney, a champion in Boston in the 1930s. As the New

York Times (1952) put it, “ his ignorance of the sport was monumental enough to have filled the

Irish Sea. But Danno meant packed houses in Boston where the sport was going big and so the

Trust elected him champion”. Despite the fact that Danno O’Mahoney, in the words of legendary

40 wrestling commentator Jim Ross, couldn’t tell a wristlock from a wristwatch, he reigned as a popular champion for a year until a wrester with legitimate grappling capabilities, who was tired of a sham ruling as champ, decided to win the belt from Danno by taking advantage of the era’s ambiguity towards wrestling realism and actually beat the Irishman into submission (Shoemaker

& Rosenberg, 2014). While Danno O’Mahoney is not the only example of a “stiff” becoming champion over significantly more deserving competitors, he does represent one of the earlier instances of style over substance and appealing to the audience by questionable means.

The WWE’s history in how it books and portrays its talent is no different in terms of appealing to regional ethnicities in the early territorial days. When Vince McMahon Sr.’s Capital

City Wrestling promotion decided to break away from the National Wrestling Alliance – a sort of oligopolistic entity that united many of the territorial promotions- and became the World Wide

Wrestling Federation (WWWF), the predecessor of the WWF and WWE, he named “Nature

Boy” Buddy Rodgers, former, or current depending on what side of the split you were on, NWA champion the first WWWF champion in April,1963 (Beekman, 2006). However, it could be argued that the real first person to hold what is now recognized as the WWE Championship- “the richest, most historic title in the WWE”- was Italian immigrant Bruno Sammartino (WWE,

2014). Based out of New York, the WWF wanted to appeal to the massive Italian communities and Bruno was their guy. He wasn’t exactly Danno O’Mahoney, but Sammartino wasn’t initially the wonderful wrestling tactician the WWE’s revisionist history would want people to believe.

As Beekman (2006) points out, “Sammartino possessed only marginal wrestling skills, but his body-builder physique and charisma made him the new standard-bearer for the WWWF”

(p.105). Muscles and charisma wasn’t what enabled “The Living Legend” Bruno Sammartino to reign as champion from May, 1963 to January, 1971. What ensured Sammartino’s title run, the

41 longest in WWE history, was his status as an icon to the working class Italians that packed the venues where he performed (Renken, 2012). Sammartino was represented as a hero for the everyman; the everyman being the audience it appeared the WWWF wanted to appeal to.

Sammartino would eventually lose the belt to Oreal Perras, a Canadian wrestler posing as a “foreign menace” under the moniker “The Russian Bear” Ivan Koloff. Koloff, however, was only a transitional champion who possessed the belt for a month, only enough time to be viewed as a legitimate threat, before losing to Puerto Rican, Pedro Morales. Much in the same vein as

Sammartino, Morales was beloved by the WWWF’s fan base, due to the large Hispanic population in New York. Morales would serve as champion, selling out venues, for two years, until McMahon wanted to put the title back around Sammartino, who had more appeal outside of

New York (Renken, 2012). Always the businessman, McMahon realized it would be foolish to have Sammartino “go-over” Morales, taking away from one of his top performers to support another, so he had Stan Stasiak controversially defeat Morales and serve as champ for nine days before losing to Sammartino, who’d go on to hold the belt for another four years.

At the same time Sammartino and Morales controlled New York, “The American

Dream” Dusty Rhodes was king of the South. The self described “son of a Texas plumber” who

“began his own working career at the age of eight digging ditches,” Dusty played the role of

Southern good ol’ boy to perfection, preaching the American values of hard work, God and country to immense popularity, demonstrating May’s (1999) point that “professional wrestling preaches a profoundly conservative message (p.82)” intended to appeal to cultural traditionalist.

(Kyriakoudes & Coclanis, 1997, p. 16).

Throughout the history of professional wrestling, the promoters and performers attempt to sell their production to the desired segment of the audience, and in doing so promote the

42 ideology, morals and beliefs of that group, while casting those outside of the desired in-group as others, who are portrayed through stereotypes that serve to create understanding for the intellectually lazy (Gandy, 2000; Hart, 2012; Maguire & Wozniak 1987). After all, as May

(1999) points out, what is really at stake in professional wrestling performance bouts “are definitions of whose values should inform American political life” (p.82). In the territorial era, when wrestling was still localized in regional communities, promotions still relied on stereotypes but more viewpoints and cultures were appealed to throughout wrestling because there were more options, culture was not as connected. Now, the WWE, with its powerful, borderline monopolistic hold over the professional wrestling scene, especially in the United States, only one ideology is perpetuated and, as will be demonstrated, that’s the one the WWE believes to be the desirable audience, that of the white male.

If professional wrestling serves as a metaphor for society, as Mazer (1998) claims, and attempts to create a “perfect intelligibility of reality” as Barthes (1972) suggest, then WWE’s constructionist role in advancing hegemonic narratives and ideology comes at the expense of an accurate perception of reality. As Rojeck (2003) notes true meaning, in its nature, is polysemic, and the existence and dissemination of ideology attempts to negate polysemy, and hence an accurate worldview.

Pedro Morales lost what became the WWE championship in December 1973. It wasn’t until February 2004, when Eddie Guerrero won the title, a Hispanic performer would serve as the face of the company again. However, in a twist, during this time, 2002-2004, the WWE championship had become secondary in the WWE to the World Heavy Weight Championship2,

2 During this time the WWE “split” into two brands Raw and Smackdown; each had its own champion. When the split happened the WWE Champion was on the Smackdown Roster, so the World Heavyweight Championship was brought back to serve as the Raw title. Since Raw is the 43 so Pedro Morales remains the only Hispanic performer to have been the face of the WWE, and to this day a Hispanic performer has never headlined WrestleMania. Political economy suggest this is the case because the audience power of Hispanics is not as desirable as that of the white male, and WWE’s broadcast and advertising partners may be averse to promoting a Hispanic performer, at the potential expense of losing the valued white audience (Gandy, 2000; Smythe,

1981).

In pre-national, pre-WrestleMania, pre-Hulkamania era, the WWE, as a regional product, would appeal to ethnic groups because they were the majority of the audience. It was strictly a financial and economic decision used to stay in control; it’s highly doubtful that Vince

McMahon Sr. respected the Latino community significantly, while his son finds them of no regard. Had New York possessed a larger Russian population as opposed to Italian, then faux

Russian Ivan Koloff may have been champion for 11 years instead of Sammartino, or if the

North East had been overflowing with members of the Stasiak Family instead of Puerto Ricans,

Pedro Morales would have been a nine day transitional champion after Stan Stasiak’s two year title run. Although the territorial days of professional wrestling are far over, the business model remains static: sell to the desired audience often, promoting their worldview, at the expense of the rest ( May, 1999; Rojeck, 2003). That idea is problematic in and of itself to an organization at any level, but especially when a company is as powerful as the WWE is. The WWE’s television programming reaches nearly 15 million viewers in the U.S. each week, that’s 15 million viewers who are repeatedly receiving messages that support the hegemonic ideology and

flagship show of the WWE, the Raw title was always viewed as the most important. After 2 years, the WWE brought the WWE Championship to Raw, one assumes because the company wanted to promote the title with its name as the most prestigious. 44 render non-dominant cultures as secondary and to be understood through oft-insulting stereotypes (WWE, 2013).

As it has grown from local New York product to national juggernaut, the WWE has supported the ideology of the ruling class in order to support the ruling class itself. The WWE relies on TV revenue from networks, who rely on advertisers, advertisers who want consumers with expendable income to purchase whatever service or idea they may be schilling. In 2013, nearly 75% of WWE’s net revenue came from live and televised entertainment, and that percentage is only expected to grow. Despite launching its own broadband network in February of 2014 that offers up replays of its live cable show Monday Night Raw, as well as its taped cable show Smackdown, original programming, thousands of hours of on-demand content from its vast video archives, and its pay-per-view events, much to the disapproval of satellite and cable companies, the WWE recently increased their domestic television rights fees with NBCUniversal by over 50% (Berkman, 2014; McGrath, 2014; Solomon, 2014). The WWE made $139.5 million in TV licensing fees in 2013 and cashed in on the market desire for live programming in the age of the DVR, by increasing that number by $90 million with its current deal (McGrath, 2014).

Michelle Wilson, WWE’s chief revenue and marketing officer, recently stated that “ we (the

WWE) are clearly entertainment-based, but if you think about the characteristics of our brand, it’s live action, and that’s sports. We want to be compensated for a live audience, since live content is getting a very significant premium in the marketplace” (Graser, 2013, para 6).

Although openly admitting that the WWE is not sports, the live action, live audience aspect of its product makes Monday Night Raw near DVR-proof and an advertiser’s dream. In lieu of live sports, live sports entertainment is the next best thing; however, it’s apparently a far second. The WWE wanted professional sports money, but came up short in its recent deal. In

2013, NASCAR received a 10- year deal with Fox and NBC worth $820 million a year, significantly more than WWE’s projected $200 million (Grasser, 2013). Despite the fact that between Raw, Smackdown and Superstars, the WWE offers 156 episodes a year that average a

2.2 rating, compared to Nascar’s 154 races at an average 1.38 rating, and Nascar viewers are also

“92% white and over 50,” while the WWE offers a much broader audience in terms of diversity and age, with 44% under 34, WWE’s larger, more diverse audience appears to be less valued

(Grasser, 2013). Despite the ideological messages in some of it programming, WWE still maintains a sizeable audience of women and minorities, audience segments not necessarily desirable to the white, male, neoliberal hegemony, something that may have perhaps cost the company in its recent TV contract negotiations (Gandy, 2000; Meehan, 2002; WWE 2013).

WWE stock had risen 163% in anticipation of its new TV deal, which WWE owner and promoter Vince McMahon had expected to actually be two-to-three times larger than the one it received, but plummeted back to reality following the actual announcement, costing McMahon

$750 million in two months (Alexander; 2014; Macke, 2014).

Given the fallout of its recent TV deal, despite actually being a $90 million a year increase, WWE will likely only further pander to the white, male, neoliberal hegemony, in attempt to recoup any losses. Despite initially intending to run free of advertisements, WWE’s recent stock losses may force the company to sell advertising on the WWE Network, further solidifying WWE allegiance to the neoliberal hegemony and its reliance on advertising and audience commodity (Graser, 2014; Williams, 2000).

Advertising has long affected WWE programming. In the early 2000s, WWE adjusted its programming of Monday Night Raw in order to receive a TV-PG rating, as opposed to the TV-

14 rating it had been operating under in the “Attitude Era” in the mid to late 1990s. It toned

46 down the extreme violence, language and hyper-sexuality for a variety of reasons; some suggest it was Linda McMahon’s failed senate run, while the WWE insists it changed to appeal to a younger crowd, to get the next generation of wrestling fans attracted to an appropriate product.

However, in 2013, only 24% of WWE’s audience was under the age of 17 (Lichter, 2013), so that’s probably not the answer. Instead, the shift was more than likely made to entice more traditional blue-chip advertisers, and if that’s the case, then it worked. Since taming its flagship show, the WWE has attracted high profile advertisers to sponsor its pay-per-views and tie-in with its wrestlers. General Motors, Ford, Disney, DreamWorks, Paramount, K-Mart, Kraft

Foods, Post Foods, MilkPEP, Nestle’, General Mills, 2K sports, Subway, Taco Bell, Colgate,

Frito-Lay, Schick and Mattel all are or have been associated with WWE since the shift in programming (Grasser, 2013; Goldberg, 2003; Vasquez, 2010; WWE, 2013). Whether the shift in programming has attracted the desired audience members remains to be seen; however, the increased number and quality of advertisers makes it appear so. While Monday Night Raw is far from elitist hobnobery, and the aforementioned advertisers are generally broad in their intended appeal, with its pattern of minority portrayals, a Black wrestler won’t end up on a box of cereal anytime soon, and the WWE’s advertising partners seem okay with that.

Advertisers aren’t alone in their aspiration to appeal to the right kind of audience; the

WWE itself needs a desired demographic to come see the traveling live show and to purchase merchandise at the venue, online, and in the marketplace. Someone needs to make up the $19.4 million net revenue in venue merchandise and the $111.5 million in live event net revenue the

WWE made in 2013 (WWE, 2014). Supporting the hegemonic ideology of the white male supposedly assists the WWE in its goal of attracting consumers with expendable income, as according to 2012 census data, in 2009 median income for Caucasian families was $62,545,

Black families was $38,409, and Hispanics was $39,730 (Census, 2012). Families that identified as Asian and Pacific Islander actually had the highest median income at $75,027; however, all white families outnumbered Asian and Pacific Islander families 64,145,000 to 3,592,000, so it appears the WWE continues to stereotype them regardless of their potential spending power

(Census, 2012). With an average domestic ticket price at an all time high of $48.63, and fans attending live events in the fourth quarter of 2013 averaging $10.29 on merchandise alone, not everyone can afford to see WWE live (WWE, 2014; WWE, 2013). A couple, or a father and son, or mother and daughter, would cost $117.94 for a pair of the average tickets and each persons contribution to the $10.29 merchandise average, heaven forbid they want a soda and popcorn. In pricing its product out of reach of those without considerable expendable income, WWE suggests that only the moderately affluent should come to the show, and with race, as Hall

(2005) said, a “modality” of class, this process keeps many non-dominant cultures from participating in the actual show and relegates them to the periphery.

In my viewing of WrestleMania’s 1-30, unless WWE was purposefully showing a celebrity who happened to be a minority, most video of the crowd showed that the audience at these events was predominantly white. I realize this is far from scientific, but live show demographic data seemed impossible to come by and observation was the next best option. I’ve attended three WrestleMania’s in person, 24, 27, and 30, and while there are a number of non- white fans in attendance, they are certainly in the minority.

As part of the company’s desire to continue to build its sports entertainment empire, the

WWE plays the game by the rules of the neoliberal hegemony. In the WWE, as much as technique, skill and practice goes into the actual performance, the product is sadly, as Smythe

(1981) would say, a free lunch for WWE fans who are sold off to work for advertisers in their

“leisure time.” While this is not the sole reason for the traveling circus that is the WWE’s existence, with an improved TV deal and a need to recover stock losses, it will increasingly become the emphasis. The WWE itself sells to audiences as well, with the point of the show being that one continually pays to see it when it comes to town, and to order the pay-per-views, purchase the merchandise, subscribe to the network, buy its video games, books, DVDs and to pass sports entertainment addiction along to the next generation. The spectacle itself has been studied, as mentioned previously, as a performance that brings about relief, a catharsis from the injustice of a society subscribed to neoliberal ideology, well, in the most fitting of twist, on par with Hulk Hogan joining the NwO3, catharsis has been commodified (Barthes, 1972; Levi,

1997).

The WWE’s dependence on the mass media, and the mass media’s reliance on advertising obsessed neoliberal ideology, means that the WWE will continue to appeal to the audience segment it, and its advertisers, find most desirable, and often that’s people with the expendable income to purchase the products sold by the WWE and its sponsors (Gandy, 2000).

The problem with this is that it ignores people who fall outside of that demographic: people who may not be able to spend $117.94 to attend a house show, but still consume the messages disseminated by WWE. These messages often insinuate a “common sense “ way of thinking that leaves those the message may not be specifically intended for underserved and uncompensated for their audience power (Gandy, 2000; Smythe, 1981).

3 The nWo was a rebellious stable of heels in WCW, a Southern promotion owned by Ted Turner. The story line involving the faction was that they were a gang that was going to take down WCW from the inside. Though they grew to be incredibly popular, they were initially despised and seen as invaders. Hulk Hogan shocked the wrestling world in 1996 when he turned on his tag-team partner “Macho Man” and joined the nWo. For the first time in his career, since exploding on the national scene, Hulk Hogan ditched the “train, say your prayers, and eat your vitamins” mantra, abandoning Hulkamania and Americana. In short, FANS EXPLODED. 49

Ideology and WWE

In this section, every WrestleMania will be examined from 1985- 2014, and the ideologies perpetuated through the portrayals of race, and to a far lesser extent gender and sexuality will be discussed. As much as the history of race, gender and sexuality in wrestling requires thorough examination, that would be an entirely different study, if not a series of books, so to discuss how WWE reinscribes the dominant ideology of the white, masculine, neoliberal hegemony through stereotypes, this chapter will focus on the portrayal of certain wrestlers at

Wrestlemania, and examine the stereotypical categories that those that fall outside ideology of the white, male, hetero-normative, neoliberal hegemony are often cast into. Narratives and commentary will be examined, as well as the WWE’s persistent adherence to American ethnocentrism, and The Rock’s Success will be highlighted, since, as the only Black WWE champion, he stands out as an outlier. In all, through elucidated examples, this chapter intends to shed a light on how the WWE is responsible for the perpetuation of ruling class ideals at the expense of non-dominant cultures, as a means of maintaining the socio-political status quo.

Typically, in professional wrestling, performers who don’t fit the ideals of the desired demographic are placed into one of two categories: they are either a threat to the white, male hegemony, and are seen as villainous, or they are commodified exotica allowed to succeed to and become popular to a certain extent, but never achieve top-star, main event, WWE Championship status.

Before going further the definition of success in professional wrestling must be clarified.

Winning all the time isn’t important or practical in a predetermined sport, but at the same time, winning is of utmost importance on a few levels: to the story, to the individual performer, and to hegemonic ideology. When a wrestler wins a match, May (1999) states that it builds “respect for

50 the norms and values of his fans, while simultaneously showering disrespect not only upon the loser, but on the unconventional lifestyle norms he represents” (p.82), and Souillere (2006) claims that, “winning and achievement are part of being a man,” and “holding a major title indicates proven masculinity (p.7)”. But if David beats Goliath all the time, it makes for a terribly boring story, so as Barthes (1972) declared, “evil is the natural climate of wrestling,” and villains win often, but not ultimately (p.23). Narratively, wrestling is a spectacle of “suffering, defeat and justice,” and the fan favorite must be pushed to his limits before conquering “evil”

(Barthes, 1972, p.19). Winning is of importance to the talent as well, because if he/she ultimately wins, or possibly hold a title belt, then he/she typically receives more air-time, compensation, merchandise, and potential endorsements. Characters portrayed as threats to hegemonic values, or characters that are exotic entertainment with limited ceilings, don’t ultimately win; it isn’t their norms or values that are ultimately seen as right (Hart, 2013; May,

1999). Instead, white, male, neoliberal hegemony conquers and its worldview is perceived and reflected as natural in wrestling- which Barthes (1972) stated reflects reality- so, “when audiences assimilate media messages,” like pro-wrestling, “as straight reflections of reality, they are operating in the code of the dominant hegemonic order” (Rojek, 2003, p. 54).

Commodified Exotica

Not all minorities or performers that do not ideally reflect hegemonic ideals can be designated as nefarious villains; first, fans wouldn’t accept it, and secondly, part of what makes ideological domination through consent so effective is its subtly (Jhally,1989). So, the other option is to market these performers as novelty acts, so their success is naturally limited, or by

51 allowing them to succeed, but not quite on the level of performers who reflect hegemonic ideals and attract desired audience segment (Hart, 2013; Gandy, 2000).

In this chapter, performers at WrestleMania that were cast and commodified as exotic others are examined. Hispanic performers Tito Santana, Rey Mysterio Jr, and Eddie Guererro, and the myriad of Black performers cast into what Hart (2012) calls the “minstrel” role will serve as exemplar, as will Asian/ Pacific Island performer Ricky the Dragon Steamboat.

The Mexicanization of Tito Santana, the exotic other: Rey Mysterio, and the lying, cheating, stealing Guerreros. As Levi brings to attention in her 1997 essay, professional wrestling made its way from the United States to Mexico in the early 1930s and was quickly adopted by large portions of the Mexican population (Levi, 1997, p. 62). The WWE recognizes the value of the Hispanic viewers and realizes that it composes over 20% of its domestic audience (WWE, 2009), so it makes attempts to appeal to them. However, its desire to entice

Hispanic viewers doesn’t appear to be as an important priority as reinforcing the ideology of the white American male, which makes up the majority of its desired audience (Gandy, 2000). While the WWE plays to the Hispanic audience at times, in what appears to be an insulting generalization, it seems the WWE fears that if it portrays Hispanics as equal that it will lose some of its desired white audience, and hence advertisers (Gandy, 2000; Smythe, 1981).

Hispanic wrestlers have always had a place in the WWE, but as mentioned before, not since

Pedro Morales was king of New York in 1973 has the WWE featured a Hispanic wrestler as the face of its company.

In its 30 year history, a wrestler of Hispanic origin has never headlined a WrestleMania, and will likely not until the WWE changes the way in which it sells its Hispanic performers. The

52 unnecessary reliance on caricatures and insulting stereotypes that serve as ideology intended to reproduce hegemony ensure that WWE’s Hispanic wrestlers will continue to be viewed as an other (Rojek, 2003).

The tale of Tito Santana. Tito Santana is the ring name for Merced Solis, a Texas born wrestler who played an important role for the WWE for over a decade. Santana, billed from

Tocula, Mexico, despite his actual origin, was the main draw for the WWE’s Hispanic audience following Pedro Morales and had great success in the role, winning both the intercontinental and tag-team titles twice. However, despite his in ring capabilities and his popularity with fans from all demographics, his success was always limited. Because he couldn’t support the ruling ideology with as much powerful emphasis as Hulk Hogan, due to his ethnicity, Santana would be forever relegated to the middle of the card, limiting the impact of his values and questioning his masculinity (May, 1999; Souillere, 2006).

Tito Santana wrestled the very first match at the first WrestleMania in Madison Square

Garden, where Pedro Morales once ruled, in 1985. Aside from his pigmentation, nothing about his character emphasized racial difference. He wore red trunks with black boots. After walking to the ring while receiving a strong “pop4” from the audience, he made rather short work of a jobber5 named “The Masked Executioner,” and left to applause. It was Santana’s only

WrestleMania victory, as he would lose seven consecutive matches at the WWE’’s preeminent showcase in the following years. Barthes (1972) states that the function of the wrestler is not to

4 Professional wrestling slang for crowd response

5 Professional wrestling term for someone who “does the job” and is there to get pinned, get paid, and go home. 53 win; it is to go exactly through the motions which are expected of him” (p.16), and Santana, the

WWE’s top Hispanic star at the time, showed audiences that Hispanics are expected to lose.

As a generic good guy, whose role was to provide Hispanic audiences someone to cheer for, Tito received racist remarks from antagonist commentators throughout his career. Jesse the

Body Ventura called Tito “Chico” throughout nearly all of his WrestleMania matches, and when

Santana raced down to the ring to assist friend Koko B. Ware, who was on the end of a two-on- one attack, during WrestleMania 3, Ventura lambasted Santana’s involvement, saying he got involved because of his “Latin temper” (WM3, 1987). At WrestleMania 7, in Los Angeles,

Ventura said he was surprised Santana even came to the arena, since “it’s only 150 miles from the border.”

By WrestleMania 8, Tito Santana had been re-packaged, an industry term for receiving a gimmick overhaul. Instead of playing the role of friendly foreigner who received racial stereotype remarks from villainous commentator, Tito Santana took the next step and just became a racial stereotype. Where Tito Santana, the man, albeit a fabricated one, once stood, there was El Matador- a caricature of the Hispanic bull fighter, complete with full costume and shouts of “ole.’” If commentary alone hadn’t emphasized fully that Santana was an out-group character, his repackaging surely did; though the comments didn’t stop, in his match, Bobby the

Brain Heenan called Reba McIntyre, who performed the national anthem, Arriba McIntyre and claimed she must have been related to the man formerly known as Tito.

Santana was a quality professional wrestler who was not allowed to be a competitor, only an entertainer, because the audience segement he attracted didn’t align with hegemonic ideals

(Gandy, 2000). Santana’s success was limited by his race, and he was stuck with a laughable bullfighter gimmick that reinforced the ideology, and hence perceived reality, that minorities are

54 characters to entertain the dominant culture, not represent it (Barthes,1972; Hart, 2012; May,

1999; Mazer, 1998).

Guerrero and the glass ceiling. After Santana left the WWE following WrestleMania 9,

WWE didn’t truly push another Hispanic star until Eddie Guerrero in 2000 at WrestleMania 16.6

Guerrero came from a wrestling family and was immensely talented, possessing in-ring capabilities that wowed “smart fans,” and the charisma to charm or infuriate, depending on the goal, nearly all audiences (Shoemaker, 2013, p. 350). However, even he couldn’t escape the limitations brought on by stereotyping and the WWE’s desire to reinforce white hegemonic values. Eddie Guerrero was typecast as a hot-tempered, lying, cheating, stealing, Latin lothario, reinforcing the cholo stereotype that Latinos are “lazy, sneaky, greasy and underhanded” (Hart,

2012, p.109). Perhaps the lyrics to his theme song say it best:

Viva La Raza… I Lie. I Cheat. I Steal. I Lie . I Cheat. I Steal Mamacita, I got the passion that sat for long Dos muijeres fall in love with the lacking charm One woman isn’t enough amigo Siempre recojiendo mas mujeres por que soy un Latino Hey, I’m tougher than tough, calling your bluff cause I Lie. I Cheat I Steal. I Lie. I Cheat. I Steal. I don’t care if you don’t like me. Everybody wants to fight me Can you feel it? Hey oyelo claro , I ain't the one you want to meet No ay nada mas caliente I’m too hot for you Latino heat. I can’t be weak . Coming from the streets of the ghetto

6 Puerto Rican star Savio Vega had wrestled in the WWE from 1995-1998, and despite being a historical footnote for giving both national megastars Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock their first single’s match losses, Vega never even carried a minor title, let alone served as the face of the WWE. 55

At the end of the week I get to keep your dinero You’re fast asleep, when I sneak in your casa Your life sucks cuz your bankrupt and I’m laughing You can’t trust me ese, ‘cuz I’m Latin’

“You can’t trust me because I’m Latin.” The song actually says that. Under the guise of wrestling gimmick or not, that’s jaw-droppingly racist, and does nothing but bolster hegemonic cultural beliefs of the lowest order and could dangerously affect viewers perceptions of what’s normal (Barthes, 1972; Mazer, 1998). By suggesting Guerrero and all Hispanics are distrustful and “from the streets of the ghetto” who will sneak into one’s house and take their money, the

WWE perpetuates this idea as “common sense”, a dangerous tactic that further divides the plebeians, as suggested by Allahar (2014), and strengthens the dominant hegemony (Hall, 1986).

Despite being cast as essentially an oversexed, lying thief who couldn’t control his emotions or be trusted, Guerrero thrived in the WWE. The majority of fans didn’t care that he would often attack opponents before the match, or use illegal objects to bludgeon opponents, like he did at WrestleMania 17 to win the European Championship over Test, or that he’d often spend matches winking at or gyrating towards women, or, in one particularly lewd instance, on top of their head as he did to female wrestler Chyna during his WrestleMania 16 match; Eddie, based on crowd response, was a hit. His popularity even allowed him to walk in and out of

WrestleMania 20 WWE Champion. Though the WWE championship was the secondary title in the WWE during the time he held the belt, the fact that a Latin performer was WWE champion was not insignificant; however, it is important to point out that this was as far as he was allowed to succeed within the WWE script.

The narrative carried throughout his WrestleMania 20 match with real life Olympic gold medalist, “Your American Hero” Kurt Angle, demonstrates the WWE’s ability to both promote a

56 wrestler, yet at the same time reinforce racial stereotypes. Guerrero came to the ring in a low rider, hydraulic, Cadillac, complete with fuzzy dice, while antagonist announcer Michael Cole, who in this case may speak for some of WWE’s desired audience, stated that Eddie Guerrero was a “former drug addict” and the “last person we need to represent us as WWE Champion.” A video package was shown of Kurt Angle claiming that Guerrero was the type of person who gets arrested and questioning the audience whether they’d feel comfortable if their children acted like

Eddie Guerrero.

In the end, Eddie won the title by unlacing his boot toslyly escape Kurt Angle’s ankle lock and pinning a befuddled Angle. Cole, the heel announcer, lost his mind, claiming that Eddie has cheated his way to victory, while Taz, the face announcer, saw it as the culmination of a career of hard work and maybe even a redemption story. Regardless, Eddie was champion. And while some members of WWE’s desired demographic might not have liked the way Eddie

Guerrero operated, they didn’t need to. This portion of the program wasn’t for them. They had the main event.

Eddie Guerrero serves as a reminder that the WWE and the white, masculine, neoliberal hegemony will allow a minority to succeed, so long as they’re profitable, but if they don’t fall in line with acceptable dominant culture ‘norms,” then their success will be limited (Grainger et al,

2006). WWE cashed in on Guerrero as a rule breaking Latino, allowing him to wear the secondary title, but it wouldn’t let him serve as face of the company.

The commodification of Rey Mysterio. Rey Mysterio is one of the WWE’s most popular competitors and has been for the better part of a decade. He’s beloved by children who compare his masked Lucha Libre act to that of comic book superheroes, and he’s the biggest

57 draw for the WWE in Latino communities (Levi, 1997). Older “smarks” even like Rey, as they appreciate his whole body of work, from his performances in Mexico, Japan, and other promotions. Rey Mysterio is unmistakably Mexican. It’s not like he can “pass” or assimilate to another race. Even if he ditched his lucha libre style and changed his theme music, he still would speak with a heavy accent. Mexican is literally tattooed across his abdomen. Because of this,

Mysterio faces the same limitations that restricted Eddie Guerrero. He doesn’t bring in the desired audience power, and he can’t be pushed too far, or he might scare off some of the right, white audience (Gandy, 2000; Smythe, 1981).

If Rey Mysterio was white, it’s arguable that he would have been the promotion’s main champion multiple times over. He is a man of the people, a perennial underdog, standing at five and a half feet in a sport of giants, whose Catholic faith is on display before every match as he crosses his chest, and he’s always doing the morally right thing. In his entire career, he’s always been a “face” or good guy. He’s like a Hispanic, pre-NwO mini- Hulk Hogan. The problem, it appears, in the eyes of the WWE, with Rey and the reason he’s never been able to be the face of the company is his Hispanic heritage. The WWE promotes Rey to the Latino community, but not to its desired audience, because in professional wrestling, as Hart (2012) states, the Latino community is “viewed by the dominant white demographic as just that, a small, colorful, exotic community of non-white individuals” (p.111). They are seen as others and promoted as such.

Rey Mysterio won the World Heavyweight Championship when it was back to serving as the secondary title in the organization at WrestleMania 22, in a match two back from the top of the card. It was meant to be seen as the pinnacle achievement of Rey’s career. It was, but it didn’t have to be.

Mysterio actually did win the WWE Title and was the company’s top champion for an hour. When then champion CM Punk walked out of the company following a Sunday pay-per- view, a tournament was held on Monday Night Raw to determine the new Champion. Mysterio won. But always a champion of the right, Mysterio offered a match to the man who lost the title the night before, John Cena. Cena won, and Mysterio’s title reign was over.

Like Guerrero, or Allen Iverson, as mentioned in the section on sports and race, Rey

Mysterio was allowed to succeed as an “exotic other” (Grainger et al, 2006). WWE capitalized on his popularity by featuring him often and allowing him to hold the secondary title; however, he could have done much more. His success is flawed by its limitations, which suggest non- dominant cultures, even at their best are still non-dominant and should remember as such, reinforcing the idea of dominated consent (Hall, 1996; Jhally, 1989). Neoliberal hegemony will gladly commodify non-dominant cultures, so long as they’re profitable; they just won’t adopt them.

The wrestling minstrel at WrestleMania: from JYD to The Funkasaurus. Hart

(2012) claims that Black wrestlers are typically categorized into two categories: Minstrels, who embody “a stereotypical, presumably white perception of black culture, and (do) so in a way that is generally safe, gratifying and useful to white audiences, and Angry Black Men, which will be discussed later. The Junk Yard Dog was arguably the most popular Black wrestler of the 1980s.

Few performers outside of Hulk Hogan were as beloved as the JYD (Shoemaker, 2013).

However, looking back, there’s quite a bit about JYD’s gimmick and the treatment of JYD that is strongly unsettling. The JYD would enter the ring to a funk/rap song called, “Grab Them Cakes,” which is a sincerely catchy tune about dancing and grabbing someone’s rear. He always had a

59 dog collar and a chain around his neck, and spent a lot of time either dancing around or crawling on all fours. His actions were often referred to by the straight, or face, announcers as “shucking and jiving” without any animosity despite the connotation often associated with those terms.

JYD’s gimmick may have been racially insensitive, but the JYD himself was so endearing that his opponents were reviled with animosity. Regardless how the fans may have felt about him, his gimmick saddled him with limited upward mobility, because white, male, neoliberal hegemonic ideals don’t allow for a Black man serving as champion over white men to be perceived as reality; it’s threatening (Barthes, 1972; Mazer, 1997, May, 1999). While he may have been as loved as Hulk Hogan, Hogan didn’t have to bow at the feet of Harley Race at WrestleMania 3, because Hogan represented hegemonic ideals, and JYD was simply a minority entertainer.

JYD may have been the WrestleMania era’s first example of what Hart (2012) calls the minstrels of the WWE, but he was far from the last, encouraging a trend that continues prominently through today. Koko B Ware was a fun, high-energy performer who looked like a keyboard player for Morris Day and the Time; known as the birdman, he would dance and flap his way down to the ring. While not as blatant as the JYD’s gimmick, Koko B. Ware reinforced the idea of the Black wrestler as the entertainer, as opposed to the competitor many of the other wrestlers appeared to be. It didn’t help either that during his WrestleMania 3 match, Jesse

Ventura bombarded Koko B. Ware with racist remarks, saying that “The B. stands for

Buckwheat,” and “he’s got a brother named stymie” among others comments.

Men on a Mission, R-Truth, Kofi Kingston, Shelton Benjamin, MVP, and The

Funkasaurs Broadus Clay have all re-enacted the “harmless” black entertainer, not to be taken seriously stereotype at various WrestleManias. Mable and Mo, along with Oscar, who’d rap their theme on the way to the ring, comprised Men On A Mission- a hip hop group who were all about

60 making a positive change in the inner city. Their message was noble but received little airtime, and the group eventually turned heel before disbanding. They had one WrestleMania match. R-

Truth’s gimmick is similar to Men On a Mission in that he raps his own entrance music and dances both in and outside of the ring. Occasionally, his criminal past is mentioned, if he’s ever getting too popular or the WWE wants to turn him heel. Kofi Kingston doesn’t rap, but he doesn’t have a persona beyond really friendly Black guy who jumps high and occasionally dances. MVP played the role of narcissistic professional athlete and may have had the most breakout potential out of this group, but was given little opportunity to expand his character, as he was boxed into an understandable trope for WWE’s preferred demographic. Shelton

Benjamin played a similar role, as well as the caricature of Black man with an overwhelming mother- complete with bathrobe and hair curlers. As far as the Funkasaurus goes, the name says it all. He’s been involved in one WrestleMania, and he didn’t wrestle, just danced.

Between Koko B. Ware, Benjamin, Kingston, R-Truth, The Funkasaurs, MVP and Men on a Mission, they have a combined WrestleMania record of 2-19. Not that winning is everything in scripted sport, but as discussed earlier, it certainly means something, especially if its never happening. A win- loss record of that magnitude implies that the culture represented by the minstrel cannot be a dominant force and does not deserve the respect given to the victor’s ideals, both in the ring and reality (Barthes, 1972; May, 1999; Mazer, 1998). The minstrel is designed not to be taken seriously, so it isn’t. The minstrel, in the words of Jhally (1989, p.67),

“live their own domination as freedom;” they’ll never rise above mid-card entertainer status, and they appear to be happy about it, at least that’s what their dancing suggests.

Akeem the African Dream is another example of Hart’s (2012) minstrel character.

Managed by Slick, “The Jive soul Bro,” who was himself a pimp caricature and often called the

“Doctor of Style,” Akeem the African Dream fits Hart’s (2012) minstrel definition completely, except for one characteristic: Akeem the African Dream was white. Formerly the biker villain

“The One Man Gang,” Akeem the African Dream made the transformation from leather vest and chains to a dashiki and miserably attempted jive talk. It made no sense then, or now. And if the transformation that insultingly stereotyped Black culture wasn’t enough, Akeem was also vilified. In his WrestleMania 6 match against The Big Boss Man, a former Cobb County prison guard who literally had a confederate flag patch on the sleeve of his faux police uniform, Boss

Man cut a promo saying that he was “proud to be an American” and not some “African reject.”

Akeem serves as an example of the WWE actively mocking “Black culture.” Not only did WWE have Black performers enact insulting, generalized stereotypes, but also had a white performer making fun of it as well in some form of ill-informed satire. By doing so, WWE once again enforced that Black culture was not equal to white culture, but rather a commodity used for entertainment purposes: a message signaled as “common sense (Hart, 2012; May, 1999; Mazer,

1998).”

Charles Wright: the man of many stereotypes. Some people are too big for one stereotype, so they try out multiple ones until one fits. One such person is Charles Wright, better known as Papa Shango, Kama Mustafa, or the Godfather. Wright appeared at various

WrestleManias as each of these gimmicks throughout his career, and while he excelled in these roles, it’s somewhat shameful that they were all he was allowed to play in the first place. Wright was impressive in the ring. Not necessarily the most skilled, however, he was quite athletic, especially for someone who was 6’6” and 275lb. He could have been a success probably just

62 playing himself, but Charles Wright doesn’t serve the hegemony in the same way as a minority playing the role of “ethnic threat” or “exotic other” does.

Wright had his most successful stint in the WWE as minstrel, playing a stereotypical pimp known as “The Godfather.” It was his most profitable run, and the run that best served the white, neoliberal hegemony ideology. As the Godfather, he’d drop lines about “pimpin’ hoes nationwide”, and at WrestleMania 16 told the crowd, “I don’t want you to hide it, I want you to light it. I want you to take that fatty out.” While pimping and promoting drug use is frowned upon by the ruling hegemonic class, at least in public, to see a minority promote these ideas only strengthens their own ideological hold and the consciousness industry by implying they’re more civilized. By depicting a minority in an unflattering light, it “benefits the class that controls the media and industry in general” by creating rifts among the non-elites (Allahar, 2014; Jhally,

1989, p. 68).

Even if the Godfather and other minstrel characters were not intentional attempts at mocking minority culture, but rather an attempt to sell to minority audiences, as Gandy (2000) states, “the use of stereotypes in effort to sell ‘problematic’ audiences, may serve to reinforce negative, or extremely limited constructions of the populations from which the segments are derived” (p.7).

Booker T’s injustice. Booker T. was not a minstrel performer as defined by Hart (2012).

Though he would often breakdance in the middle of matches, Booker T. was simply a popular performer and talented wrestler who, like Eddie Guererro, was allowed to succeed, but only to a limited degree because of the culture he represented and the audience power he attracted

(Gandy,2000; May, 1999; Smythe, 1981) . Below is perhaps one of the most egregious examples

63 of white, male, neoliberal hegemonic values being put over in the ring as superior, since, in doing so, it rejected the most important part of professional wrestling’s narrative, the payoff.

Instead of witnessing the spectacle of “suffering, defeat, and justice” that Barthes (1972) states is essential to professional wrestling, in this instance, fans witnessed the hero suffer, and then suffer in defeat, with no justice to be found.

Leading into WrestleMania 19, white World Heavyweight Champion HHH cut the following promo on Booker T, a five time WCW champion who was receiving his first shot at the major title in the WWE at the time:

Booker, I think you’ re a little bit confused about your role in life, here. I think you’re a

little bit confused. You see, Booker, you’re gonna get to go to WrestleMania, but you see

the fact is Booker, somebody like you doesn’t get to be a world champion. You see,

people like you don’t deserve it. That’s reserved for people like me. You’re not here to be

a competitor. You’re here to be an entertainer. That’s what you do. You entertain people.

Hell you entertain me all the time. Go ahead, Book, why don’t you entertain. Go ahead,

do a little dance for me, Book. Go ahead give me one of those spinaroonies. C’mon

Book, dance. That’s what you do. You’re here to make people like me laugh.

(crowd chants “asshole”)

It was reminiscent of a promo Harley Race, a former wrestler who was managing WCW champion Vader at the time, cut on Ron Simmons when Simmons was set to challenge Vader for the WCW World Heavyweight championship. “I was a 7 times world champion and I had a boy like you carry my bags,” Race said to the former FSU All- American. Appropriately, Simmons thrashed Race and beat Vader to become first Black world champion in professional wrestling

64 history in August of 1982. As often is intended in professional wrestling, as Henricks (1974) points out, moral order was restored; the villainous racist loss.

The WWE version ends a little differently. Typically, if a fan favorite with a proven ability to draw dollars from crowds is berated and debased for month at the hands of a loathsome heel, there’s a payoff (Barthes, 1972). It’s why fans watch wrestling; it’s not like real life; eventually and inevitably the good guy wins. However, that wasn’t the case in this match.

The entire build up to the match was a man of elite privilege insulting a man from the streets who, despite trials and tribulations, eventually made it out to great success. The narrative hints that he’ll truly be redeemed if he can win the WWE title, and yet he falls short, because his winning would suggest superiority for Booker T.’s cultural belief and values, something the debunks hegemonic ideology, which cannot happen if the hegemony wants to remain in power

(Jhally, 1989; May, 1999; Mazer, 1998). The WWE rejected the most important part of professional wrestling’s structure, justice, to further put Booker T and “people like him” on the periphery and to support the ideology of the white, masculine, neoliberal hegemony, because doing otherwise may harm the hegemonic hold (Gandy, 2000).

Throughout the match, Jerry the King Lawler, the heel announcer, made all of Jesse

Ventura and Bobby Heenan’s racist remarks from a decade earlier seem pedestrian. King stated that he “didn’t want a street thug being world champion,” and made comments like, “you don’t want a champ that has Johnny Cochran on speed dial,” said Booker T’s family portrait was a “ courtroom sketch” and that “You know he’d amount to nothing when he was born on a pool table”; the final comment being so racist it’s incomprehensible.

Webley (1986) states, “wrestling is a spectacle of justice at work, of how evil committed is punished and avenged” (p.60). Booker T’s payoff for all the verbal abuse was a loss and never

65 being able to call himself WWE Champion. Triple H’s white privilege character had won, and so did actual white privilege.

Virgil and “redemption.” One of the most racially demeaning characters in the history of the WWE was Virgil, a character recognized as so significantly insulting that WWE creative named the character to make fun of WWE’s rival, Dusty Rhodes “The American Dream,” whose real name was Virgil. Virgil was “The Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase’s “bodyguard,” but only because the WWE probably realized even it couldn’t outright call him a slave. Virgil wore a sleeveless tuxedo and followed DiBiase around at all times, carrying his belongings, holding the ring ropes for him, interfering in matches upon his behalf and even taking beatings for him, which he did at the end of both Dibiase’s WrestleMania 4 and 5 matches. As Ted DiBiase said of

Virgil, “he’s gonna do what I pay him to do.” He was a pitiful character that reinforced the stereotype that non-dominant cultures were not equal to dominant cultures. If professional wrestling is a reflection of and commentary on society, as suggested by Barhes (1972),

May(1999) and Mazer (1998), then Virgil’s indentured servant character was extremely troubling. While the character’s presence provided years of employment for professional wrestler

Mike Jones, who played the role, the character seemed to only exist to remind audiences of societal structures favored by the white, male hegemony, reinforcing ruling class ideology

(Domhoff, 1999; Jhally, 1989).

By WrestleMania 7, Virgil had had enough and was set to receive justice by defeating the

Million Dollar Man, but even his story of redemption is insulting. The build up to the feud had in part to do with Virgil becoming educated enough to spell his own name, and his education led to him realize how he was being treated. Fed up and inspired by white man to the rescue “Rowdy

Roddy Piper,” he challenged and defeated the Million Dollar Man. However, he didn’t even get a clean victory, as DiBiase was counted out because he spent too much time beating up Piper with

Piper’s own crutch (he was suffering from a leg injury). After the match, irate that he had lost to his former “bodyguard,” DiBiase slapped Virgil in “The Million Dollar Dream,” his version of the sleeper hold, and left the ring upright. In the aftermath, Virgil gets up eventually, only to cheer on Piper who was struggling to get up without his crutch. The Crowd cheered for Piper,

Piper’s music hit and they walked to the back.

Virgil’s redemption story wasn’t even his own. He wouldn’t have attempted it without the help of a white man, and he didn’t even really get to exact revenge, as the Million Dollar

Man and white ideology left with the last laugh. Barthes (1972) said that wrestlers give the public what’s expected of them, and in Virgil’s case, the public expected Virgil to be secondary to a more important white character, and even in his own success story, he satisfied those expectations, reinforcing hegemonic ideology along the way (Barthes, 1972). As embarrassing as being Virgil was up to this point, this was just as insulting. It reinforced the ideology that the white male hegemony was greater than non-dominant cultures, and that only through acting alongside the dominant culture, could minorities hope to succeed. And as Virgil’s tale shows, even then, the success is relative.

You must know karate: Asian and Pacific Island ignorance. In regard to Asian stereotypes in the WWE, Shoemaker (2013) states, “it says a lot when you can say…at least the

Black wrestlers aren’t suffering this sort of indignity “ (p.142). Despite having offices in

Mumbai, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo, the WWE’s knowledge of Asian culture seems to come down to two things: they don’t speak English and they must know Kung Fu. As deplorable

67 as that sentence is to read, if one is to watch all 30 WrestleManias, it’s about the only conclusion.

Most Asian wrestlers or performers in WWE history are treated with palpable disrespect. In

WrestleMania 2, “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff faced off against the Magnificent Muraco, who was being managed by Mr. Fuji, a Japanese Manager who resembled the James Bond villain Odd

Job. Orndorff, the wrestler people are suppose to root for in this match, opened up the bout by slanting his eyes to mock Fuji.

Wrestlers weren’t the only talent to trivialize other cultures outside of the hegemony, as guest interviewer at WrestleMania 7 Regis Philbin demonstrated heavy racial intolerance during his interview segment with visiting wrestlers Genichiro Tenryu and Koji Kitao, who defeated

Demolition with Mr. Fuji later in the night. He began the “interview” with, “you speak any

Engliso?”; attempted to speak their language by yelling the name of foreign automobile brands,

“Toyota! Wait till you hear this, I’m on a roll now! Isuzu!”; and he closed the interview with

“Kathie Lee, at home. Regis here, WrestleMania. You Tenryu! You Kitao! Me Regis!” It was like a terrible elementary child’s impression of a culture he didn’t understand, and it was meant to entertain the wrestling fan base. It was another example of the WWE demeaning non- dominant cultures in attempt to make the desired audience segment look good (Gandy, 2000 ;

Smythe, 1981).

In general, WWE depicts Asian and Pacific Islanders as either foreign threats and savages, or caricatures and comedy acts. Perhaps the best example of the latter occurred with professional wrestler turned stereotype Ricky Steamboat.

The de-evolution of Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat. Ask just about any wrestling fan around or over the age of 30, and they’ll say that Ricky Steamboat was a phenomenal

68 professional wrestler. Though he wasn’t necessarily electric on the microphone, he didn’t need to be because he could tell a story in the ring with the best of them. His match with Macho Man

Randy Savage at WrestleMania 3 is argued in wrestling circles to possibly be the greatest match of all time (Simmons, 2004). However, with the need for colorful characters as it moved to national television, the WWE decided Steamboat’s actual in-ring skill wasn’t enough. Ricky

Steamboat was racialized much the same way Tito Santana was. At the inaugural WrestleMania,

Hawaiian born Ricky Steamboat was billed as such. He wore generic white trunks on white boots and defeated “Maniac” Matt Borne. Gorilla Monsoon, the face announcer at the time, said that

Steamboat was “a master of the martial arts” and claimed that he was throwing karate chops in the ring. By WrestleMania 2, he had adopted the nickname “The Dragon,” and by WrestleMania

3, he was wearing a headband and a gi, with a dragon on the back. As wrestler Chris Jericho said to Steamboat before their WrestleMania 25 matchup, Steamboat had “sold his soul” when he came to the WWE, “he became a glorified karate kid.” Steamboat’s mother was Japanese-

American, so Steamboat possessed Asian features, and that was all it took for WWE to turn a talented performer into the white, male hegemony’s essentialist interpretation of what being

Asian is.

Too different to be sold as a hero to the mainstream, especially in the era of Hulkamania,

Steamboat was Oriental-ized and made an exotic commodity, who could only reach limited potential; once again suggesting that minorities were less than the white audience and deserved to be degraded to secondary roles.

Threats to the Hegemony

As discussed earlier, villains are necessary in wrestling, since “evil is the natural climate,” and the required concluding act of justice does not exist without initial igniters of injustice (Barthes, 1972, p.23; Henricks, 1974; Webley, 1986). With professional wrestling dispersing an ideologically conservative message, aimed at mimicking and maintaining hegemonic societal structures, for its desired audience segment of cultural traditionalist, non- dominant cultured performers typically are left to play the heel, because at the end of the day, they lose (Barthes, 1972; Gandy, 2000; Jhally, 1989; Kyriakoudes & Coclanis, 1997; May, 1999;

Mazer, 1998). Minority characters and other performers whose ideals aren’t homogenous with hegemonic ideology are portrayed using stereotypes- “the bread which the culture industry offers man” (p.89), according to Horkheimer and Adorno (2001)- that depict them as threats to the correct way of life (May, 1999). In this section, the minority heels of WrestleMania are highlighted, from aristocratic immigrant Alberto Del Rio, to the tropes of the angry Black man, the uncivilized savage, and the foreign threat.

Alberto Del Rio: 2 time WWE Champion (kind of). The most recently successful

Hispanic WWE star is Alberto Del Rio, son of Mexican wrestling legend Dos Caras. He’s an exceptional heel, who is easily despicable. His villainy would be fine, as conflict is necessary to any worthwhile drama, if it was not always centered in some way around his differing ethnicity

(Barthes, 1972). As May (1999) points out, in professional wrestling, when a performer loses, he/she and his/her lifestyle norms are intentionally disrespected and “justice” is found in his/her defeat, so when a performer of non-dominant culture is defeated ultimately, as all heels

70 eventually are, his/her culture is disregarded and hegemonic ideology is reinforced (Barthes,

1972; Jhally,1989; Webley, 1986).

Del Rio, like many minority wrestlers, has found success in heel role. He’s been the

WWE’s main title holder twice, but each reign only lasted a month; a new Ivan Koloff, an occasional transitional champion between new heroes. However, while the individual performer may be heavily featured by the company and rewarded monetarily by filling his niche, Del Rio’s performance in hegemonic ideology enforcing narratives are detrimental to those outside of the ruling class, as the disseminated ideology only furthers hegemonic strangleholds on society

(Jhally, 1989).

Del Rio flaunts his success to the audience, while often ridiculing them at the same time.

His character stresses that not only is he different than you, but also better, which is why he’s the perfect villain for white hegemonic hero, Hulk Hogan 2.0, John Cena, who can come to the ring and make everything right by defeating the culturally different Del Rio. Del Rio’s title runs only served to legitimize him as a threat to the moral hero of hegemony; a necessity, for what is

“good” without the existence of “evil.”

Angry Black men. According to Hart (2012), the character of the Angry Black Man doesn’t necessarily rely on cultural stereotypes, but rather serves as an intimidating, menacing villain, who “stands as an obstacle to be overcome or to be reviled by the overwhelmingly white viewers at home” (p.83). The Angry Black Man character has a long history in the WWE, from

Bad News Brown to Mark Henry. It’s one of the easier gimmicks for the WWE to create because all that it really requires is lots of body mass and a dark complexion. Selling the character of the

Angry Black Man is an oftenused tactic by the WWE because it automatically limits the

71 character, as a heel isn’t going to be a long term champion, while at the same time reinforces the negative stereotype of the menacing black thug, which promotes the hegemonic ideology by enhancing negative cognitive associations. Ironically, the stereotype of the angry Black man was once extremely progressive, as it was often too risky in some areas of the country during the territorial era to have a Black man beat up a white man, so Black wrestlers were often relegated to face rolls (Shoemaker, 2013). However, as time went on, the gimmick became just that and served to enhance the dominant culture’s view that menacing others stand in the way of their success (May, 1999).

Arguably, the first appearance of the angry Black man in the WrestleMania era was Bad

News Brown, who eliminated perennial baby-face Brett Hart to win a 20-man Battle Royal at

WrestleMania 4, and was so despised as an angry Black man that he was somehow the villain in a feud against Roddy Piper, despite the fact the Piper had gone blackface at their WrestleMania 6 match. Ever since Brown, it’s been a role that’s been duplicated by characters such as Ezekiel

Jackson, Bobby Lashley, and Ahmed Johnson, but perhaps not with greater success than by The

Nation of Domination, and later Mark Henry.

Upon leaving WCW to come to WWE, Ron Simmons, the first Black performer to be named world champion in professional wrestling, was christened Farooq Asaad, later shortened to just Farooq. He teamed up with other Black Wrestlers D-lo Brown, Mark Henry, Kama

Mustafa, and The Rock, to form the Nation of Domination (NOD). The stable was intended to remind viewers of The Nation of Islam and The Black Panthers. In discussing the NOD, May

(1999) points out, “ although the message of Black power may have been concerned with personal identity and cultural heritage, traditionalist argued that its advocates posed a dangerous threat to American pluralism and civlilzed democratic society” (p.91), and the WWE stressed

72 this viewpoint. The NOD had a few matches on WrestleMania cards, but the wrestlers never came near the championship scene and mostly came out on the losing end at WWE’s largest event of the year, where narratives culminate and justice is typically served (Webley, 1986). In the squared circle, where society is reflected, the WWE’s portrayal of the NOD suggest that

WWE didn’t want to promote Black wrestlers, especially ones who emphasize their Blackness, in order to stress the hegemonic ideology that favors appealing to a whiter audience with more audience power (Barthes, 1972; Gandy, 2000; Mazer, 1998).

Yokozuna. Perhaps the most successful Asian wrestler was Japanese star Yokozuna, a multi-time WWE Champion, who actually won his first title by beating Hulk Hogan. Though he was a heel champion, he was more than the standard transitional belt holder, as many of his reigns lasted for multiple months. Of course, as is the case with all nefarious heels, his title reigns served only as a narrative tool to build anticipation to the hero’s eventual moral victory

(Barthes, 1972; Webley, 1986). Yokozuna was typecast as a sumo wrestler, which from physical observation made complete sense; he was enormous, over 600lbs by the time of his retirement.

But he wasn’t just a sumo wrestler; he was an evil Japanese Sumo wrestler, with extra emphasis on the Japanese. He was a foreign threat, here in the WWE to destroy American heroes.

Managed by a Japanese flag waving Mr. Fuji, who at this point ditched the stereotypical Odd Job attire for an Asian robe and sandals, and surrounded by “geishas,” Yokozuna made his

WrestleMania debut at WrestleMania 9, where he challenged Brett Hart for the WWE title. In a pre-match interview Hulk Hogan, who was technically uninvolved in the match but was always involved in storylines featuring the championship or Americana, called Yokozuna a “Jap”

73 without blinking an eye, and claimed that the title was “going to stay right here in the U S of A, brother,” despite the fact that Brett Hart was Canadian.

In the match, Yokozuna defeated Hart, when Mr. Fuji threw baths salts in Hart’s eyes, allowing him to get “banzai dropped”- a move in which Yokozuna drags his opponent to the corner, climbs to the second turnbuckle, and drops his enormous weight onto his opponent’s chest, sitting on them for the pin.

Immediately after the match, Hogan, protector of the American way, made his way down to the ring to challenge Yokozuna to a match. Yokozuna accepted, and Hogan won quickly because he’s a “real American” and in professional wrestling moral order is always restored at the denouement, and ideologies need repeating to keep the consciousness industry alive and well

(Barthes, 1972; Jhally, 1989; May, 1999; Webley, 1986).

Yokozuna would repeat his foreign menace act at WrestleManias 10 and 11, where Jim

Cornette was made his American mouthpiece despite the fact the Yokozuna and Mr. Fuji could both speak English. At WrestleMania 12, Yokozuna turned face; of course, he was no longer a main eventer since minority faces have limited ceilings. Ethnic evil knows no bounds, only a non-dominant culture’s positives can be limited.

It should also be noted that the most successful Asian performer in the history of the

WWE wasn’t even Asian. His real name was Rodney Anoa’i, and he was a Samoan-American from California.

Uncivilized savages. Rodney Anoa’i is not the only member of his family to be typecast as a foreign evil; his cousin Solofa Fatu Jr. was portrayed similarly in all three of his gimmicks.

Fatu debuted at WrestleMania 9 alongside his cousin Samula Anoa’i and accompanied by Afa of

“The Wild Samoans” as the Headshrinkers, a tag team of savages that insinuated cannibalism.

His twin brother Sam Fatu had been saddled with a near similar gimmick at WrestleMania 4 in a

Tag Team with Haku called The Islanders. Both teams didn’t speak, just grunted and made animalistic growls, and relied heavily on head-butts for offense, since it was implied that

Samoans had extremely thick skulls; the Head Shrinkers would even tag each other in the ring by head-butting one another. The were uncivilized and feral and terribly insulting. Solofa Fatu’s brother would even use the gimmick, performing at WrestleMania 23 and 24 under the name

“Umaga,” where he was billed as a “monster” and a “Samoan savage.”

After the Headshrinkers dissolved, Fatu was recast as a masked villain named The Sultan.

He was accompanied to the ring by the Iron Sheik and couldn’t speak because “his tongue had been cut out” (WWE, 1997); again, Fatu played the role of foreign threat. Fatu would end his career, much as his cousin Yokozuna had. He was repackaged a face character named Rikishi, sumo in Japanese, a mid card character who would win using the banzai drop as well, demonstrating WWE’s limited imagination in how to portray minority characters.

American Ethnocentrism

A premier example of the WWE perpetuating the ideology of the neoliberal, white hegemony is in its overwhelming ethnocentric messages of American exceptionalism. Anything that’s not American deserves punishment in the world of the WWE, and the only ideology that matters is that of the United States. And if a performer was already loved, the only thing that would make them even more popular was to embrace America’s obvious superiority, even if it didn’t make any sense, like when Davey Boy Smith of The British Bulldogs, after winnings the tag titles at WrestleMania 2, yelled, “If we became champions, we were gonna’ stay in the

United Stats of America, this is where we’re gonna’ stay!”; a strange statement coming from a man covered in Union Jacks, but to be popular in the WWE requires American allegiance and perpetuation of hegemonic ideology.

Hulk Hogan is the best example of the WWE perpetuating American ethnocentrism and the ideology of the neoliberal, white male hegemony. The Hulkster preached the ideals of hard work and encouraged his “Hulkamaniacs” to train, say their prayers, eat their vitamins and to be true to their country (May, 1999). He became synonymous with America; watching Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter set a Hulkamania shirt on fire, prior to their match at WrestleMania 7

(1991), was akin to watching someone torch an American flag. By turning on Hogan, you turned on America. Even Andre the Giant, who was loved around the world, became the most hated man in wrestling when he feuded with Hogan; he was transformed from beloved Giant to foreign menace without saying a word about the USA. Hulk Hogan was a “real American;” he said so, the announcers confirmed it, and it was certainly emphasized by his music.

When it comes crashing down and it hurts inside, You gotta take a stand, it don’t help to hide Well you hurt my friends, and you hurt my pride I got to be a man; I can’t let it slide.

I am a real American. Fight for the Rights of every man. I am a real American. Fight for what’s right, fight for your life!

I Feel Strong about right and wrong And I don’t take trouble for very long I got something deep inside of me. Courage is the thing that keeps is free

I am a real American.

Whenever a “foreign menace,” or someone trying to disrespect hegemonic values appeared in the WWE, Hogan would quickly dispose of them, emphasizing the superiority in his beliefs and values (Maguire & Wozniak 1987; May,1999) He won his first WWE Title defeating the Iron Sheik in 1984 and held onto it until 1988, the longest run in the nationalized era of

WrestleMania, and served as the face of the WWE until his initial departure in 1993. The “real

American” could not be stopped, and neither could the “real American” way of life- the only acceptable option.

When the WWE went national, it needed to appeal to a national audience, and in doing so relied on dominant cultural values. Hogan was sold to America as America and was wildly consumed. He was a “real” American, and to go against him implied his opponent was otherwise; it also meant inevitable defeat, because in wrestling right always eventually conquers wrong, and America is always right, at least Hulkamania’s WrestleMania record suggest so.

The WWE perpetuates the ideology of the neoliberal white hegemony through the characterization of its wrestling talent, especially in its portrayal of minorities. Non-dominant cultures are relegated to non-dominant roles, and in the historically black and white, right and wrong world of professional wrestling, they often end up on the wrong side. Minority characters are either foreign threats, not be taken seriously, or a commodified exotica allowed only to play, on its best day, for second best. Wrestling traditionally has utilized stereotypes to assist the audience in understanding who’s a face and who’s a heel, because as Barthes (1972) points out

“wrestling is an immediate pantomime” (p.19). This analysis demonstrates, in the WrestleMania

Era, that the WWE is sure to let its fans know what a real “face” looks like; it’s white.

The Rock’s Success

The history of Black performers in the WWE is an embarrassing one. While only three

Hispanic wrestlers have been the promotion’s top champion in the history of the WWE, only one

Black man can claim such an honor- the Rock, who’s of mixed race and tends to emphasize his multinationality. Wrestlers like Mark Henry and Booker T have become secondary champions, but only the Rock can claim being the face of the company and its ideological representative.

However, even a personality as captivating and magnetic as The Rock was typecast twice before his breakthrough to superstardom. It’s really quite amazing he made it there at all. As the only

Black WWE Champion, he truly is an outlier.

The Rock debuted in the WWF as the happy-go-lucky Rocky Miavia, a third generation wrestler, whose grandfather was “The High Chief” Peter Miavia, and whose father was Rocky

“Soul Man” Johnson. He was covered in tribal beads and a hideous, supposedly Samoan inspired shawl. He smiled a lot; he was Kofi Kingston with lighter skin, a minority not to be taken seriously, commodified exotica for the entertainment of the dominant class (Hart, 2012).

Realizing how he was being received and not wanting to give up on a wrestler of his pedigree, the WWE had The Rock switch his gimmick, and he joined the Black Nationalist faction, The

Nation of Domination. He received some success as a member, eventually supplanting Farooq

(Ron Simmons) as leader. However, in order to truly succeed, like Tiger Woods, or Michael

Jordan before him, The Rock found his most success as a post-racial entity.

When Ron Simmons became the first Black heavy weight champion of pro wrestling, it was celebrated. When the Rock became the first Black WWE champion, it wasn’t acknowledged, and if something isn’t mentioned on WWE television it’s because WWE doesn’t want it mentioned. At the risk of potentially isolating and losing its desired audience and its

78 audience power, WWE erased The Rock’s race when promoting him as the face of the company; something it had little problem accentuating when offering him up as a villain (Gandy, 2000). In doing so, one could argue that perhaps the WWE participated in colorism, a process of racial discrimination that privileges light-skinned people of color over those of darker complexion because of deeply ingrained white hegemonic ideological preference (Banks, 2000; Hunter,

2007; Harris, 2013). Hunter (2007) found that, “light-skinned people earn more money, complete more years of schooling, live in better neighborhoods, and marry higher-status people than darker-skinned people of the same race or ethnicity (p.237)”. The Rock’s mixed ethnicity and lighter hue allowed WWE to make his race invisible, something that is more difficult with performers of more distinctly discernible race because of societal perceptions of darker skinned minorities emphasized by hegemonic ideology, and he was provided more opportunities to excel in professional wrestling because of it (Harris, 2013; Hunter 2007). According to Banks (2000), colorism, “has a significant economic impact on dark skinned Blacks” (p.1709), and this appears true in WWE as well.

While The Rock’s undeniable star power seems like an inevitable certainty and foregone conclusion in retrospect, he was arguably given his chance to succeed in WWE and then

Hollywood, because of colorist actions a performer of darker complexion would likely have not received. The Rock’s lighter shade permitted WWE to mask his ethnicity and sell him as one without race, an apparent necessity in a medium that intends to reflect and promote the ideology of a society under white, male, neoliberal consciousness, and remain successful in the current hegemonic economic structure (Banks, 2000; Barthes, 1972; Gandy, 2000; Hill, 2000; Hunter,

2007; Jhally, 1989; May, 1999; Webley, 1986).

The Women of WrestleMania and Hegemonic Hypermasculinity

While the focus of my thesis examines the portrayal of race at WrestleMania from a political economic perspective, when discussing political economy, and professional wrestling for that matter, the role of women and hegemonic masculinity cannot be ignored. Women have been involved as spectators and performers since the 19th century, and in professional wrestling, as Mazer (1998) states, “masculinity is as contested as belts and titles (p.99)”. Both gender and sexuality, like race, are heavily affected by rule under white, male, heternormative, neoliberal hegemony, and since professional wrestling reflects society, as Barthes (1972) and others argue, these effects are present in WWE programming as well. Women are cast into the virgin/whore binary and are hypersexualized by apparent requirement, and heterosexual masculinity is emphasized as a norm without exception (Maguire, 2005; Mazer, 1998; Souillere, 2006). In this section, I’ll briefly discuss the history of women in professional wrestling, the roles they’ve played at WrestleMania, and how their portrayals in WWE reinforce hegemonic ideology, as well as discuss how masculinity is represented in the world of professional wrestling.

Women have been played a role, either as audience member or participant, in professional wrestling since the 19th century and were essential in both its initial growth as a form of televised entertainment and, as discussed in the introduction of this thesis, in the launching of the WrestleMania era (Beekman, 2006; Dell, 1997; Shoemaker, 2013). Dell (1997) states that “professional wrestling was one of the first truly successful program genres to emerge during commercial television’s formative years, and its popularity was by most accounts directly attributable to women fans” (p.4). Beekman (2006) notes that women comprised near 60% of the audience at wrestling shows in the 1950s, and they still comprise around 36% of the television audience today (WWE, 2014). Despite their influence in its success then and now, the role of

80 women hasn’t changed much in the evolution of sports entertainment due to WWE’s perpetuation of hegemonic masculine ideology; as Mazer (1990) wrote, “wrestling’s male gendering and sexual resonance are inescapable” (p.116), and wrestling is “constructed by and for men” (1998, p.127).

Women, like other groups outside of the hegemony, are severely limited in the characters they can play in sports entertainment, and every character serves the purpose of spreading hegemonic ideology. In WrestleMania’s early years, female performers were typically cast into the virgin/whore binary, perhaps best elucidated by Miss Elizabeth and Sherri Martel. Elizabeth wore elegant ball gowns that were often pink or white; she often played the damsel in distress and was held up as a “signifier of ideal beauty” (Shoemaker, 2013, p.194). Sherri wore black lace and was the anti-Elizabeth, “an oversexualized mascara-smeared freakshow” (Shoemaker,

2013, p.185). Elizabeth, the one fans were suppose to find more beautiful without hesitation was of course the face, while Sherri was the heel, a pattern that has remained steady in professional wrestling to this day: the more attractive woman is obviously the better woman, who’s eventually going to win (Cole & Giardina, 2013; May, 1999). However, as much as fans were suppose to adore Miss Elizabeth, they were suppose to always remember, as good as she was, she was only a woman, the Macho Man’s girlfriend more than an individual, defined by the man she was associated with. Even Elizabeth, typically only praised, was labeled as a distraction by announcers on numerous occasions, a warning that women can weaken a man, and that men can’t even trust a perfect woman.

At WrestleMania 11 (1995), WWE had Playboy Playmates Pamela Anderson and Jenny

McCarthy escort the participants in the WWE Championship match to the ring. They weren’t dressed excessively salaciously, but the presence of the two sex icons at the event signaled a shift

81 in WWE’s product. After WrestleMania 11, female sexuality in the WWE reached the point of near hyperbole. Every woman wore outfits that would put Sensational Sherri’s to shame, and even the few women with more traditionally masculine features possessed fake breasts that attempted to rival their muscles in size. It was around this time that, as Beekman (2006) points out, “ McMahon began to hire young women to serve as WW(E) ‘divas’,” and that “these women invariably became enmeshed in hypersexualized and demeaning storylines that often involved swimsuit competitions, clothes ripping, or in-ring groveling” (p.135-136). It was continuation of a long-standing professional wrestling and hegemonic masculinity tradition

(Maguire, 2005). In the 19th century, women’s matches were seen “primarily as lurid entertainment for male crowds;” in the 1930s, female wrestlers emerged as an “integral part” of professional wrestling, but were still viewed “as a comedic or sexualized interlude”; in the attitude era (mid 1990’s- early2000’s) WWE programming reveled in misogyny and sexuality, as female performers wrestled in “bikini”, “bra and panty”, and “chocolate pudding” matches ; and

WrestleMania 24’s (2008) Playboy BunnyMania Lumberjill Match suggest that the pattern isn’t going to change anytime soon (Beekman, 2006, p.130-134: Maguire, 2005). Mazer (1998) claims that, in professional wrestling, a women’s value is “always sexual” (p.127), and

“whatever a woman’s formal role in the wrestling event might be, as a spectator, manger, or wrestler, her function is always to affirm male heterosexual orthodoxy” (p.128).

Hegemonic masculinity is oppressive towards women and emphasizes their objectification, and this ideology will continue to be spread through popular culture media, so long as the culture industry and the structural factors behind it remain in place (Donaldson, 1993;

Frank, 1987; Gottlieb, 1984; Jhally, 1989). Just as Gandy (2000) discussed audience segmentation by race and how it affects audience commodity and power, Meehan (2002) argues

82 that audience markets are also engendered, claiming, “that societal divisions based on gender, plus prejudicial assumptions about gender, played a significant role in defining and differentiating the commodity audience” (p.216). Donaldson (1993) states, “one aspect of ruling class hegemonic masculinity is the belief that women don’t count in big matters, and that they can be dealt with by jocular patronage in little matters” (p.654). This philosophy is painfully evident in how the WWE handles its female performers and fans. As long as WWE and its advertisers don’t find women to be an audience with enough audience power worth investing in, despite the fact that they make up nearly 36% of their television audience, then they will continue to portray female characters in a way that bolsters the white, male hegemony, and supports the limitation and oppression of women (Donaldson, 1993; Frank 1987; Gandy, 2000;

Meehan, 2002; Smythe, 1981; Souillere, 2006; WWE, 2014).

Hegemonic masculinity is not solely aimed toward controlling women, but also limiting masculinity to the a singular ideal definition, “primarily reflective of white, heterosexual, middle-class men” (Souillere, 2006, p.2). According to Donaldson (1993), entertainment and sports, and in this case sports entertainment, “regulate and manage gender regimes” (p.646), often celebrating as heroes those who reflect hegemonic ideals of masculinity. Souillere (2006) states, “as both a pseudo-sport and part of mainstream entertainment popular culture, the messages concerning masculinity presented by televised professional wrestling may serve as important cultural indicators of what being a man is all about” (p.2). Jhally and Katz (2002) and

Souillere (2006) argue that professional wrestling glamorizes characteristics of masculinity idolized by the white male hegemony, like aggression, physical size, strength, violence,

83 dominance and emotional restraint, by having characters who posses such attributes to “go- over7” there opponents, stressing the superiority of their beliefs (May, 1999).

In hegemonic masculinity, women are the only potential sexual objects for men, and hostility towards homosexuality, which is heavily associated with effeminacy, is fundamental towards heterosexuality (Anthias, 2013; Donaldson, 1993; Frank, 1987). Because of this, professional wrestlers who perform as characters with less than idealized hypermasculinity are, like other non-dominant groups, cast into two groups, exotica or threat, and in this case the threats are always purposefully mild, because in wrestling, even though “what is revealed in even the most flamboyantly feminine male wrestler’s performance is his essential masculinity,” a real man cannot be threatened by something feminine (Mazer, 1998).

Wrestlers performing with feminine characteristics have a long history in professional wrestling, from Gorgeous George “The Human Orchid” and Ricky Starr, in the territorial days, to Adrian Adonis and Goldust in the WrestleMania era, and they’re always either heels, or mid- level faces with extremely limited ceilings. While fans may have laughed and cheered at Ricky

Starr, billed as a ballet dancer, in the 50s and 60s, as Mazer posits, “it is possible that at best their laughter is only transiently transgressive, perhaps celebrating a kind of carnivalesque outing, a trip to the homosexual freak show” (p.96). Goldust, the character played by Dustin Rhodes, the son of Dusty Rhodes, is a “transgendered, sexually ambiguous and rapacious cross dresser”

(Kyriakoudes & Coclanis, 1997, p.24). When he debuted he was vilified, but when fans recognized his ability to tell a story in the ring, his talent as an actual wrestler, and his pedigree, he became a fan favorite and the counter-hegemonic sexuality, while still present, was toned down, and he became a mid-card act with comedic tendencies (Kyriakoudes & Coclanis, 1997).

7 To win, in wrestling terminology, to be put over your opponent, often literally and metaphorically. 84

Gorgeous George, and others, like Adrian Adonis or Billy and Chuck – a “homosexual” tag team complete with hair stylist Rico- are billed as often loathed threats to hegemonic ideology bound to lose to the hypermasculine conquering hero; Mazer (1998) remarks of gorgeous George, that his “flaunting, taunting performances provoked loud, exuberant expressions of apparently homophobic antipathy in the audience” (p. 94).

In professional wrestling, “the real man is the one who proves his masculinity by winning and the not-so-real, not-so-manly man is the loser in an arena where masculinity is as contested as are belts and titles. What a wrestler risks in the wrestling performance is perhaps not so much injustice, but emasculation“ (Mazer, 1998, p.99). The better man wins, and the better man is the one that fits and promotes hegemonic ideals of hypermasculinity. WWE and its advertising partners don’t appear to find a need to appeal to a demographic with other opinions on gender and sexuality, and until they do, professional wrestling will continue to be the most vehemently heterosexual form of popular culture entertainment in its discourse that’s borderline homoerotic in its semiotics (Mazer, 1998).

It should be noted that the only professional wrestler to come out as gay, Darren Young, while commended by WWE and its staff publicly, has lost 65% of his matches with the company

(Darren Young, 2014).

Conclusion

After viewing WrestleMania’s 1-30, I found that the WWE enforces neoliberal, white male ideology through the way it portrays and sells its performers, and upon examining the structural factors that create the WWE’s desire to promote the hegemonic agenda, WWE’s reasoning became more translucent. Throughout professional wrestling’s entertaining history,

85 promotions have always appealed to its audience; it’s how it sells tickets and how it can continue to put on the performance. However, as the WWE has moved mainstream and morphed into the worldwide phenomenon it is today, its audience isn’t the people in the arena anymore, so much as its advertisers and networks with billion dollar TV deals to dish out. The face of the WWE, then, is not the face the fans necessarily want to see, but rather the face the ruling class, in the form of advertisers, investors, and television networks wants to see. John Cena is the face of the

WWE in the same way Hulk Hogan was before him for multiple reasons; he’s actually a much more talented wrestler than given credit for, he’s adored by young children and females, but most importantly he’s marketable to advertisers and their desired audience segment, and he’s a effective vehicle through which to reflect hegemonic ideals.

So long as the WWE adheres to hegemonic ideology, performers from non-dominant cultures will never be able to fairly compete for a position atop the company, and instead will be saddled with insultingly stereotypical gimmicks that doom them to villainy, further emphasizing negative perceptions, buffoonery, and, at best, a conciliation prize. This is incredibly problematic, as it only strengthens the hegemony’s hold on society, entrenching their ideals and excommunicating others, and sends adverse effects ramifying throughout society, solidifying schisms and making empathy more difficult to achieve. Knowing what we know about cultivation and social cognitive theory, no good can come of painting entire cultures in a negative light, or into shades that makes them seem less than the dominant culture, as doing so only strengthens hegemonic ideology and the structures that enable the hegemony to continue to maintain control over the means of production and distribution (Jhally, 1989).

Wrestling relied on exaggerated stereotypes throughout its history to promote simplistic understanding, a necessity for “an immediate pantomime” (Barthes, 1972, p.19). As Mazer

(!998) states, “Assumptions of a homogeneous lower working class identification between the wrestlers and audience had lead to a conventional reading of the wrestling event as the manifestation of a desire to see the world reduced into simple binaries of good and evil, just and unjust” ( p.104). While unnecessary in the territorial era, when shows were a traveling circus that only came around once a while and understanding had to be crafted in an ephemeral instance, in the current day and age, when WWE has multiple shows on broadcast television, there’s absolutely no need to rely on austere assumptions. The medium evolved, but the message didn’t.

Fans of wrestling today don’t have to wait to see who’s wrestling when the show comes to town because they already know the performers. They can watch them on TV throughout the week, they’re encouraged to interact with them on-line via social networking, and they can watch them on the WWE network anytime they want. The WWE calls its fans the “WWE Universe,” and that’s exactly what it is: an interactive universe in which fans know the characters that are performing. Relationships with performers can be built on more than, he/she looks like me, or

“hey look, an American flag. That person must sure be great.” Characters can be more than essentialist, one-dimensional characters crafted to form binary oppositions around the totally subjective concepts of good and evil. Thinking otherwise not only disrespects the performers and members of non-dominant cultures, but also insults the fans. WWE fans are not a bunch of slack- jawed mouth breathers, as the most ignorant of stereotypes would portray, or as WWE’s current narrative structure assumes. According to WWE’s corporate website, 58% of the WWE’s online audience has at least some college education (WWE, 2013). The WWE audience is intelligent enough to handle ambiguity, instead of being forced absolutist characters that debase nearly half of the audience.

WWE could actually be much worse in its offense of hegemonic sycophancy. Yes, the facts remain the same; however, the WWE occasionally tends to be an equal opportunist in terms of racist portrayals, casting white performers into roles such as hillbillies, like Phineas I. and

Henry O. Godwin (Pig and Hog), Irwin R. Schiester (I.R.S.) the slimy tax man, or the elitist snob

Hunter Hearst Helmsley. The WWE also occasionally breaks stereotypes to some degree at times: Booker T actually once played the role of King Booker, to much success, donning a crown, scepter and British accent; and Jimmy Wayne Yang, an Asian cowboy, won the light heavyweight title. Despite that the minority characters in these roles still were placed in entertainment acts, at least they demonstrated that minority performers could play a role outside of the traditional stereotypes often associated with each race.

WWE, because of the advertising obsessed capitalist system and it reliance on audience commodity and segmentation, uses simplistic stereotypes to promotes hegemonic ideology in order to solidify the system its in. However, should WWE chose to treat all audience segments as equal, and view its audience as a public instead of a commodity, an admittedly fool hearted aspiration under current societal structures, then the WWE could still easily produce an entertaining product. The company has a stable of talented wresters, male and female, and from every creed and color, who given the opportunity could put on a captivating show not built around battles for ideological dominance, but around a self-narrative-creating goal, like a championship, or championships, of which WWE has numerous.WWE and professional wrestling reflect society as Barthes (1972), Webley (1986), May (1999) and Mazer (1998) suggest, but that doesn’t mean it has to reflect one of the sadder versions of society; maybe it could reflect an image of society on a good self-esteem day.

Hopefully this study adds to the already existing literature on professional wrestling by providing a new perspective on race within the WWE. By studying racial stereotypes at

WrestleMania from a political economic approach, this study intended to examine the reasons why the WWE relies on racial stereotypes beyond the narrative device response, by focusing on the ideology behind the message, and the structural factors that necessitate the ideology.

Hopefully, despite its limitations, that was accomplished in some way.

Limitations

While I find this study to be thorough, it is not without certain limitations. By studying only WrestleManias, my data was only a yearly snap shot which focused on the conclusion of many stories, but not their entire arch, which disregards a lot of content. Restricting the study to

WrestleManias also caps off possible data at a 30 event sample size, which, while significant, could be improved.

I also couldn’t acquire live audience demographic data in order to analyze what cultural population made what percentage of the live gate. In arguing that the WWE appeals to demographics with the financial backing to see the show live, I would have liked to have back that up with the appropriate data, as opposed to relying on observations from the occasional crowd shot.

This study is also limited in that it relies on strong speculation regarding the WWE’s new

TV deal, which occurred too recently to draw any discernable implications from, and WWE

Network could have been focused on at greater length considering its potential impact on how audiences receive content.

While briefly discussed, the political economy of gender and sexuality at WrestleMania, or in professional wrestling in general, could have definitely been further elaborated upon.

There’s much more there to research and discover.

Though I’m confident in my research, I would have liked to conduct interviews with wrestlers, WWE management or fans, to see if anyone beyond myself and scholars with tangential ideas believe the WWE to be acting in the suggested manner.

Further Research

In order to better study the political economy of race in professional wrestling, further research could and should be conducted. A true longitudinal study, perhaps on one performer, or on all WWE programming over the course of a year or years, could reveal interesting results. A study focused on interviewing wrestlers past and present regarding their thoughts on race portrayals in the WWE could be enlightening, as could various surveys to fans, non-fans, and fans from non-dominant cultures. Surveys would help determine if the messages are as obvious as I consider them to be, and differences between fans and non-fans could determine if fans of the product are too distracted by their fandom to notice. Survey data from the perspective of fans of non-dominant cultures could prove insightful, as they’d provide a different perspective than

I’m capable of. The political economy of gender and sexuality in professional wrestling could also be much further researched, as there is still much left to do in that field.

Final Thoughts

This study contends that the WWE perpetuates the values of the neoliberal white male through its portrayal of performers from non-dominant cultures. By relying on stereotypes

90 intended to turn the world into diametrical binaries that favor its desired audience, WWE depicts that which is not aligned with hegemonic values is to be trivialized and vilified, while those whose cultural values situate alongside hegemonic ideology are celebrated.

As discussed in the literature review, political economic studies differ from cultural studies because of Mosco’s 4th tenet: praxis, or putting theory into action. WWE fans have the unique opportunity to do just that. They are a live, interactive part of the product. Entities that reinforce hegemonic values claim they do so because it’s what the people want, they just respond to the market, yet time and time again, the WWE does not so much give the people what they want, as it gives the hegemony what it wants. Professional wrestling is historically built on giving the audience what they desire, and yet in the nationalized era, the WWE has diverged from that into supporting the white, masculine, neoliberal hegemony at the expense of a sizable portion of its audience. However, professional wrestling organizations have always adapted to survive, and if the fans tire of one star, it usually responds by giving the audience another.

Industry moves slower than people, but if the people want equality among professional wrestlers, eventually, one would think, the WWE would have to give it to them. That said, the fans, by all appearances, wanted Booker T and Eddie Guerrero, among other minorities, to serve as the company’s main champion, and yet the WWE neglected to make it happen. It appears that so long as WWE is more concerned with appealing to the hegemony, and bringing in advertising dollars, than appealing to all of its fans, WWE will continue to break the first rule of wrestling: give the people what they want: justice. Until then, fans will have to keep asking.

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WWE. (1993). WrestleMania 9 [Web]. Retrieved from http://network.wwe.com

WWE. (1994). WrestleMania 10 [Web]. Retrieved from http://network.wwe.com

WWE. (1995). WrestleMania 11 [Web]. Retrieved from http://network.wwe.com

WWE. (1996). WrestleMania 12 [Web]. Retrieved from http://network.wwe.com

WWE. (1997). WrestleMania 13[Web]. Retrieved from http://network.wwe.com

WWE. (1998). WrestleMania 14 [Web]. Retrieved from http://network.wwe.com

WWE. (1999). WrestleMania 15 [Web]. Retrieved from http://network.wwe.com

WWE. (2000). WrestleMania 16 [Web]. Retrieved from http://network.wwe.com

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WWE. (2003). WrestleMania 19 [Web]. Retrieved from http://network.wwe.com

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WWE. (2005). WrestleMania 21 [Web]. Retrieved from http://network.wwe.com

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WWE. (2013). WrestleMania 29 [Web]. Retrieved from http://network.wwe.com

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Zach Bartlett is a son of The Sunshine State, and though he readily admits its undeniable quirks, more than occasional insanity, and many flaws, he claims Florida as his home. He earned his bachelor of science in communication in 2008 from Florida State

University, where he was the Sports Director of WVFS. His intended professional basketball career derailed by genetics and lack of training and talent, he worked in sports radio, TV,

Internet journalism, and taught high-school English. In 2012, he returned to Florida State

University to pursue a master’s in media communication studies and teach public speaking.

He is an above average saxophonist and could once dunk with two hands. He loves his family, friends, music, professional wrestling, and Orlando Magic basketball.

“Up with life. Stamp out all small and large indignities. Leave everyone alone to make it

without pressure. Down with hurting. Lower the standard of living. Do without plastics.

Smash the servo-mechanisms. Stop grabbing. Snuff the breeze and hug the kids. Love all

love. Hate all hate.” –John D. MacDonald (1972)

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