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Wrestling with Morality: a Narrative Analysis of The

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Wrestling with Morality: a Narrative Analysis of The Running head: WRESTLING WITH MORALITY: A NARRATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE WWE’S PORTRAYAL OF RACE AND GENDER Wrestling with Morality: A Narrative Analysis of the WWE’s Portrayal of Race and Gender Thomas McIntyre University of Alaska Anchorage Wrestling with Morality 2 Abstract This study examined 12 episodes from the 1999 season of WWE Monday Night Raw. Using narrative analysis, the research identified the narratives of race and gender the WWE created during this time period. The research generated dozens of cases in which the WWE emphasized gender roles and racial stereotypes within its programming. The company used female performers in sexist character roles and portrayed African Americans in restricted, racially driven narratives. While the strategy was questionable, the company thrived from it and continued to ascend to new heights of popularity. Wrestling with Morality 3 Wrestling with Morality A Narrative Analysis of the WWE’s Portrayal of Race and Gender World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW) were engaged in a fight for viewership in 1999. The feud spawned what was known as the WWE’s “Attitude Era” – the most successful stretch in company history. In the fall of 1999, Vince McMahon – the chairman of the WWE – took the company public, and established the funds to finish the blow to the WCW. The WWE took control of the viewership totals, and went on to make $456 million in 2001. McMahon would later parlay the WWE’s earnings into creating the Extreme Football League (XFL), which was an attempt to counter the National Football League (NFL) (Beekman, 2006). The WWE was a juggernaut, built on its weekly show, Monday Night Raw. Monday Night Raw airs every Monday night of the calendar year. There were 52 Mondays in 1999, and 52 two-hour installments of Monday Night Raw. During that time, Raw was the WWE’s flagship television program. It housed the main storylines, and pulled in the big ratings. As reported by Newsweek in February of 2000, Raw was the most watched show on cable television (Leland, 2000). The popularity and profitability of the WWE was not in question; however, there was heat on McMahon for the content of the product that was raking in millions. As the new millennium approached, the number of WWE critics grew. McMahon was facing criticisms from conservative and women’s groups, as well as wrestling fans. The company’s shift into an edgier and adult-oriented approach to wrestling is what sparked the meteoric rise in the late 1990s, but was also what generated a surge of detractors (Beekman, 2006). Wrestling with Morality 4 “Darwin proved there was a theocrat of evolution,” said former professional wrestler, Jim Raschke, in a 2000 interview with Newsweek. “McMahon has taken us back to where we started.” Raschke’s comments backed the notion that the company was using an inappropriate method to get itself over. This was a time in wrestling when people saw the good guys and bad guys getting replaced with pimps, porn stars and sociopaths (Leland, 2000). In Steel Chair to the Head, Nicholas Sammond (2005) described wrestling as “a hotly contested site for working out social, cultural, political, and economic ideals and desires” (p. 15). During the 1999 season of Monday Night Raw, the WWE’s handling of those issues was controversial enough to inspire this study. The questions being asked in this study are about the WWE’s portrayal of race and gender during that 1999 season of Monday Night Raw. By examining 12 episodes of Raw from the beginning, middle and end of the year, this study aims to explain the narratives behind the portrayal of race gender throughout that time period, as well as the impact those narratives had on the WWE audience. Other researchers have delved into similar projects, but have not specifically broken down a piece of the booming “Attitude Era” in this fashion. Hart (2012) conducted research on the WWE’s treatment of race, class and gender through a textual analysis of broadcasts from 2010. Hart’s research focused on a time frame when the company had tailored its material to be more family-friendly. He found that, even when the WWE was operating with a censored approach, it was still behind the social curve in its representation of cultures, genders, and classes. Petten’s (2010) research was done to create a theory about the narrative structure of televised professional wrestling. Petten was able to analyze the architecture of professional wrestling’s narrative style, which proved to be very formulaic. His work also discussed how the Wrestling with Morality 5 WWE influences the ways the audiences feel about wrestlers. In addition, it showed that fans’ relationships with wrestlers have become more interactive through platforms such as fanzines, websites, forums, and merchandise (Petten, 2010). The purpose of this study is to contribute to an area of research that has been largely overlooked. It will put an important section of the WWE’s past under a microscope, dissecting the controversial tactics that formed the most successful run in company history. Using Foss’ (2008) eight dimensions of narrative analysis, this research will explore the storylines, angles, and characters that the WWE manifested in the 1999 season of Monday Night Raw. The research begins by providing an overview of the WWE. It gives a brief history of the company, and describes the makeup and inner workings of the wrestling business. After that, there are sections explaining race and ethnic stereotypes, and gender roles and sexism. The historical roots of the categories will also be discussed. From there, the topic turns to television fans. The way in which fans interact, are affected by, and consume television is examined. The 12 episodes of Monday Night Raw will then be analyzed. Lastly, the conclusions from this research are presented, as well as suggestions for areas of further study needed. Literature Review World Wrestling Entertainment The WWE has gone through several name changes since its origin. The company originally started as Capitol Wrestling Corporation, which was under the National Wrestling Alliance banner until 1963 (Sullivan, 2011). In ’63, the CWC left NWA and formed the World Wide Wrestling Federation. The name was shortened down to World Wrestling Federation in 1979 (Sullivan, 2011). The last change came in 2002 when it took on the World Wrestling Wrestling with Morality 6 Entertainment name, after a legal spat with the World Wide Fund for Nature over the trademarking of WWF (Sullivan, 2011). The WWE currently produces 10 different shows, including 12 pay-per-view events per year. The shows air on a variety of networks and web platforms. The flagship weekly programs are shown on USA Network (Monday Night Raw), Syfy (SmackDown), and ION Television (Main Event). The other content is hosted on WWE.com and Hulu.com, and is made up of both weekly and monthly programming (WWE, 2013). The shows range from one to three hours long, and house wrestlers and storylines that are exclusive to that particular program. The WWE is now broadcasting in more than 150 countries and 30 languages, and it reaches more than 650 million homes worldwide (WWE, 2013). And while its headquartered in Stamford, Conn., the WWE has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Mumbai, Shanghai, Singapore, Istanbul, and Tokyo (WWE, 2013). In a 2008 piece for the New York Times, Linda McMahon recalled the inception of what turned into the international empire that is the WWE. Vince McMahon’s father, Vince McMahon, Sr., created the WWE in 1952 (Dempsey, 2008). The wrestling organization had its roots in Washington, and operated solely in that region. It wasn’t until Vince McMahon and his wife, Linda, took over that the company began to branch out. The two saw an untapped area of the wrestling market and took advantage. They started by selling souvenir merchandise at live events, and would later venture into the pay-per-view business in 1985, expanding a revenue stream that was primarily coming from ticket sales (Dempsey, 2008). The snowball continued with the licensing of consumer products. Television aided the boom, as well, allowing the McMahon’s to take their product nationwide (McQuarrie, 2006). These strategic moves were a big part of building the WWE into a global business (Dempsey, 2008). Wrestling with Morality 7 During the interview with Bobbi Dempsey (2008), Linda McMahon also shed some light on the basic character roles the WWE utilizes: Our fans are very passionate, especially when it comes to their favorite wrestlers. After hearing just the first note of the Undertaker's entrance music, for example, the audience in an arena will immediately go wild. The fans also give you clear feedback by their reactions while the match is in progress. Boos aren't necessarily bad, because that can mean the crowd is reacting strongly to a "heel" – what we call a bad guy – which tells us we've succeeded in creating a compelling character. (p. 9) McMahon says their business is all about the content, and is driven by the creative development of their intellectual property. That intellectual property is the characters, and they are responsible for creating the compelling content that keeps people hooked (Dempsey, 2008). While the wrestling requires athletic maneuvers, the WWE operates more as a modern soap opera than a sport, with its televised action being the cornerstone of the business (Hart, 2012). Events and conflicts are staged, the wrestlers are actors, and the audience is strung along using the drama of storylines and character angles, not the stats of each performer (Hart, 2012). As Mazer (2008) stated in Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle, “Its display of violence is less a contest than a ritualized encounter between opponents, replayed repeatedly over time for an exceptionally engaged audience” (p.
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