Professional Wrestling, Sports Entertainment and the Liminal Experience in American Culture

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Professional Wrestling, Sports Entertainment and the Liminal Experience in American Culture PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING, SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT AND THE LIMINAL EXPERIENCE IN AMERICAN CULTURE By AARON D, FEIGENBAUM A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2000 Copyright 2000 by Aaron D. Feigenbaum ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are many people who have helped me along the way, and I would like to express my appreciation to all of them. I would like to begin by thanking the members of my committee - Dr. Heather Gibson, Dr. Amitava Kumar, Dr. Norman Market, and Dr. Anthony Oliver-Smith - for all their help. I especially would like to thank my Chair, Dr. John Moore, for encouraging me to pursue my chosen field of study, guiding me in the right direction, and providing invaluable advice and encouragement. Others at the University of Florida who helped me in a variety of ways include Heather Hall, Jocelyn Shell, Jim Kunetz, and Farshid Safi. I would also like to thank Dr. Winnie Cooke and all my friends from the Teaching Center and Athletic Association for putting up with me the past few years. From the World Wrestling Federation, I would like to thank Vince McMahon, Jr., and Jim Byrne for taking the time to answer my questions and allowing me access to the World Wrestling Federation. A very special thanks goes out to Laura Bryson who provided so much help in many ways. I would like to thank Ed Garea and Paul MacArthur for answering my questions on both the history of professional wrestling and the current sports entertainment product. Their willingness to help is greatly appreciated. iii I thank Keith Akins, Dennis Argerson, Martin Crawford, Pete Guldseth, Larry and Joy Katz, Richard Lewis, Joe Payne, Glenn Roberson and John Zehner for all their assistance and for helping me stay relatively sane. I thank Dr. Arvilla Payne-Jackson for taking an accountant down to Jamaica and introducing me to the field of anthropology. I thank all my informants for sharing their thoughts and experiences with me. Finally and most importantly, I would like to thank my parents without whose love, patience, and support none of this would have been possible. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii ABSTRACT ix CHAPTERS 1 PROLOGUE 1 Methods 6 Participant-Observation 6 Ethnographic Interviews 8 Sample Selection 10 Content Analysis 12 Correspondence 13 A Note on the Use of the Term “Sports Entertainment” 14 Notes 14 2 INTRODUCTION 16 The Everything and Anything Spectacle 19 Ritual 22 Alienation 29 Ritual Stories 32 Ritual Celebrations 35 Notes 37 3 THE PAST 40 Out From the Shadows: The End of the Civil War to World War I 44 Between the Wars: Reinventing the Game 52 The Television Era 61 National Television and Showmanship 62 Regional Television and the Cold War 68 Sports Entertainment and WrestleMania 72 Attitude 78 Notes 81 4 THE PRODUCT 87 Organizational Framework 88 Sports Entertainment Dramas 92 The Social Drama 93 The Psychologies 101 Television shows 108 Pay-per-views Ill House shows 112 The Television Experience 113 The Dramatic Process 116 Engagement 119 Entrance Themes 119 Entrance Routines 126 Mic Work 129 Ring Work 132 Gimmickry 136 Pyrotechnics 139 Costuming 141 Notes 143 5 THE COMMUNITY 148 Demographics 149 Solidarity 150 The Internet 152 Fans 154 Marks and Smarts 155 The Fan as Tourist 156 First Order 157 Second Order 159 Third Order 160 Fourth Order 162 Profiles 163 Glenn 164 Peter 167 Stef 170 James 173 Paul 175 Notes 181 VI 6 THE CONSPIRACY 184 Prologue 184 The Conspiracy 186 Unforgiven 196 Over the Edge 200 Notes 220 7 THE HIGHWAY TO HELL 222 SummerSlam 226 Note 227 8 THE MASTER PLAN 228 Survivor Series 247 Notes 251 9 THE ROAD TO WRESTLEMANIA 252 Rock Bottom 255 The Royal Rumble 257 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre 264 WrestleMania XV 266 Notes 271 10 GET IT? 272 - ^ ^ Social Conflict t- ."i 273 Struggle : ...Ill Loyalty, Friendship and Family 2§0 Friends and Fame 281 Brotherly Love 283 Fathers and Sons .* 286 Men and Women 288 Moral Dilemmas 290 Engagement and Drama 292 Conclusions 296 Notes 298 vii APPENDICIES A DATES OF WWF PAY-PER-VIEWS: MARCH 1998 -MARCH 1999 300 B DATES OF TELIVISED PROGRAMS VIEDEOTAPED ANALYZED FOR CONTENT 301 C INTERNET SITES AND NEWSLETTERS MONITORED: MARCH 1 998 -JULY 1999 302 D LIVE EVENTS 303 E GLOSSARY OF PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING TERMS 304 REFERENCES 309 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 313 viii Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING, SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT, AND THE LIMINAL EXPERIENCE IN AMERICAN CULTURE By Aaron D. Feigenbaum May 2000 Chairman: John Moore Major Department: Anthropology Sports entertainment, the latest incarnation of professional wrestling, is among the more popular forms of entertainment in the United States. Yet, despite its popularity, it remains a poorly understood cultural phenomenon. Through an ethnographic analysis of sports entertainment and the community it engenders, this dissertation clarifies many of the popular misconceptions surrounding the genre by answering the following questions: What is sports entertainment? How does it work? What does it reveal about American society and culture? Data for this study were collected from March 1998 through July 1999. Data were collected by the author through a variety means, including participant- observation, ethnographic interviews, content analysis, and correspondence. In this dissertation, sports entertainment is described as a modem ritual form, a liminoid genre that reveals underlying stmctures and tensions in American society IX and affords its audience the opportunity to reconfigure the existing social order. Sports entertainment performances are viewed as symbolic reenactments of the audience's personal and social struggles where wrestlers are not merely athletes, but symbols of positions in the social order. The storylines are shown to be not only interesting and suspenseful, but also simplified and exaggerated dramas about everyday life, and the "competitions" are revealed to be not so much about athletic superiority as they are about competing social relationships. Sports entertainment productions are shown to be complex productions that rely on a variety of specialized strategies and techniques to engage the audience These productions combine just about every form of American popular culture into one grand spectacle and play upon the audience's frustrations with the social order. The sports entertainment audience, contrary to the popular stereotype of being blue-collar and uneducated, is shown to be comprised of diverse individuals that unite under the barrage of criticism that they all encounter as a result of being sports entertainment fans. What they share besides the disdain of sports entertainment critics is a love for the spectacle and a chance to celebrate their society, the good, the bad, and the in between. CHAPTER 1 PROLOGUE In the ring, and even in the depths of their voluntary ignominy, wrestlers remain gods because they are, for a few moments, the key which opens Nature, the pure gesture which separates Goodfrom Evil, and unveils the form ofa Justice which is at last intelligible. - Roland Barthes’ Sports entertainment, the latest incarnation of professional wrestling, is among the more popular forms of entertainment in the United States. It is also among the more controversial. Every week, millions watch sports entertainment television programs and thousands attend live performances. Y et, despite its popularity, sports entertainment remains a poorly understood cultural phenomenon. Critics of the genre accuse such sports entertainment companies as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), of producing lewd, anti-social performances, and they stereotype its fans as uneducated and deviant. The WWF and its fans respond by claiming that these critics simply do not “get it.” Through an ethnographic analysis of WWF productions and the sports entertainment community, this dissertation aims to clarify many of the popular misconceptions surrounding sports entertainment by answering the following questions; What is sports entertainment? How does it work? What does it reveal about American culture and society? As an anthropologist, 1 am concerned with sports entertainment as a cultural production. I am not concerned with issues such as whether children should or should not watch WWF programs. That discussion is 1 2 beyond the scope of this dissertation, and that decision is best left to the parents and guardians of the children who want to watch sports entertainment. This dissertation provides a cultural assessment of sports entertainment. My aim is not to sway attitudes concerning sports entertainment one way or another. My aim is to explain the phenomenon so those who wish to learn more about the phenomenon can do so. This dissertation is organized in the following manner: Chapter 2 provides the theoretical framework within which sports entertainment will be examined. In this chapter, sports entertainment is described as a modem ritual form, a liminoid genre that reveals underlying structures and tensions in American society and affords its audience the opportunity to break free from their everyday structural roles and play with the existing social order. As a participatory ritual, sports entertainment offers its audience a respite from the alienation and estrangement that is characteristic of structural relations and provides its audience an opportunity to participate in something that they can feel part of, and to form a community in which they feel comfortable. Chapter 3 looks at professional wrestling’s colorful if not well known past and demonstrates that professional wrestling has always served as a lens through which American culture and society could be examined. Since the nineteen twenties, the "competitions" in and around the ring have not been so much about athletic superiority as they have been about competing social relationships and moral ideals.
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