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International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies Issn 2356-5926

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International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies Issn 2356-5926 Volume 2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND Issue 1 June 2015 CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 A Cultural Studies Approach to Excessive Forms of Entertainment: A Case Study of a Spectacle of Violent Death in Bedranowsky’s The Saw Death Match (2007)1 Svetlana Makeyeva Institute for American Studies, TU Dortmund, Germany Abstract The death match in professional wrestling is stigmatized by institutions watching after the public order and by participants of the pro wrestling community. There is no comprehensive academic scholarship about this phenomenon. Despite the stigma, a unique perspective on death match is offered in this article: it is approached as a cultural production that meets specific standards of physical appearance and performance excellence. With all its ambiguities, flaws, and abundance of aesthetic and ethical problems, the author comes to a conclusion that the death match wrestler Alexander Bedranowsky uses this form of cultural production as a tool for self-empowerment. The scholar compares the death match to splatter films. With a focus on the first Saw film (2004), Saw II (2005) and The Saw Death Match (2007), performed by characters Thumbtack Jack and Drake Younger, the author elaborates on how death match wrestlers produce a “spectacle of violent death” (Schneider 2001). She is particularly interested in the aspect of ‘creativity’ in death match. This original research project is a step in the direction of raising awareness about death match in pro wrestling, and initiating discourse around this excessive entertainment phenomenon among the cultural studies scholars. Keywords: cultural studies, horror film studies, death match pro wrestling, body genre, gender 1 Special thanks to Alexander Bedranowsky, Tassilo Jung, Felix Schulz andTerence Kumpf http://ijhcschiefeditor.wix.com/ijhcs Page 357 Volume 2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND Issue 1 June 2015 CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 Introduction While researching scholarly literature about pro wrestling (PW), I found no texts that dealt specifically with the death match (DM). The ‘death match’ or ‘deathmatch’ were usually mentioned either in the context of scholarship on computer games or as a metaphor applied to describe competitive/antagonistic ideas. PW is commonly understood as a collaborative form of performance art. In this research, I approach DM as a “body genre” (Williams 1991). Unlike cinematic performance, DM is, first of all, a raw live performance. And unlike theatrical performance, DM implies actual excessive bleeding of pro wrestlers in the ring caused, for example, by using sharp foreign objects like light tubes, barbed wire, razorblades, etc., or the practice of self-inflicted cutting, which is called ‘blading’ or ‘getting color’ in the DM scene. In the long run, DM is very detrimental to physical health and psychological well- being. DM is stigmatized by the institutions watching after the public order; it is also stigmatized by the participants of the PW community. Some pro wrestlers and fans do not recognize DM as a legitimate performance genre, arguing that DM has nothing to do with PW; hence, it should be done away with for good. Despite the stigma, this article offers a unique perspective on DM: DM is approached as a cultural production that meets specific standards of physical appearance and excellence in performance. In this article, I compare DM to splatter films. With focus on the first Saw film (2004), Saw II (2005) and The Saw DM (2007), where DM is performed by the characters Thumbtack Jack (TJ) and Drake Younger (in PW referred to as ‘gimmicks’), I elaborate on how DM wrestlers collaborate together (as film and theater actors do) in the production of a “spectacle of violent death” (Schneider 2001). Along with splatter film in horror of the twenty first century, DM as a cultural phenomenon offers social commentary on ‘whiteness,’ masculinity ideals, and voyeurism in entertainment, to name but a few. Here, I mainly focus on ‘creativity’ in DM, meaning the ways by which a particular wrestler proficiently performs in his role as an opponent or, conversely, how a particular wrestler creatively inflicts damage to his own body. The article is a contribution to the body of work on horror in literature and film in which DM is a central topic for research. It is also a unique scholarly contribution to the German DM scene. Cultural Studies Scholarship about Pro Wrestling To a great extent, PW is a form of performance art. Like dance, theater, circus, ballet, etc., PW involves aspects of visual arts, literature and athleticism, and provides a “window on human thought and emotion” (Adams 2002). A number of studies of PW have gained important status within the field of cultural studies, Roland Barthes’ study being one of them. His approach to studying PW was very similar to Mikhail Bakhtin’s approach to studying carnival festivities and comic spectacles in his work Rabelais and His World (1984) during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Bakhtin pointed out that carnival festivities and comic http://ijhcschiefeditor.wix.com/ijhcs Page 358 Volume 2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND Issue 1 June 2015 CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 spectacles and the rituals connected to them had an important place in the life of an individual; they served the purpose of escaping from the official way of life. In Mythologies (1972), Barthes explored, as he put it, the myth of PW by contrasting it to boxing and judo, and drawing parallels between PW and the theatre of ancient Rome: Wrestling is not a sport, it is a spectacle. […] Boxing is […] based on a demonstration of excellence. One can bet on the outcome of a boxing-match: with wrestling, it would make no sense. […] In other words, wrestling is a sum of spectacles, of which no single one is a function: each moment imposes the total knowledge of a passion which rises erect and alone, without ever extending to the crowning moment of a result. Thus the function of the wrestler is not to win; it is to go exactly through the motions which are expected of him. […] In judo, a man who is down is hardly down at all, he rolls over, he draws back, he eludes defeat […]; in wrestling, a man who is down is exaggeratedly so, and completely fills the eyes of the spectators with the intolerable spectacle of his powerlessness. […] In wrestling, as on the stage in antiquity, one is not ashamed of one’s suffering, one knows how to cry, one has a liking for tears. (Roland Barthes. Mythologies. New York: Hill and Wang. 1972. pp.15-16.) Thanks to this particular study, a cultural studies approach to studying PW as a spectacle gained popularity among scholars. However, Barthes’ assertion that “wrestling is not a sport, it is a spectacle” (Ibid.) should be taken with reservation. Narrowing PW down to a spectacle only is not helpful in understanding the multi-layered nature of PW. Besides being dramatic public display, PW match has much in common with sports competition. After all, PW is a live athletic performance. In addition to theatrical skills, like any team sport, PW demands physical athleticism and fine motor skills along with, ideally, physical and mental agility. Often, discussions concerning PW are narrowed down to the question whether PW is fake. In the documentary Fit Finlays (2010), David Finlay, Jr, an Irish pro wrestler, explained the interplay between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ in PW: Give me a thumb. So they give me a thumb. […] You prove your friend that I am hurting you. […] I put a little bit of pressure on your thumb, you can’t explain pain, you can only feel it. So I put a little bit more pressure on your thumb… By the way, I can sing a song while I am hurting you, and your friends are going to be totally confused, what’s real here. Are you in pain? And I would snap their thumbs. Bam! Just like a chicken leg. […] That’s what I believe I should do just o make you prove that wrestling is legitimate, and what we do is for real, what we do is who we are. (Ronan McCloskey. The Fit Finlays. Ireland: Setanta, 2010.) Singing a song while putting pressure on a thumb and eventually snapping is a ‘real’ experience to the one who has his/her finger dislocated. Depending on the circumstances, and how this experience is presented or displayed (power play), ‘real’ experiences can be contested and even laughed out. To some, DM might appear more ‘realistic’ because DM pro wrestlers are actually bleeding their own blood. The viewer might be fascinated by what s/he sees or disgusted as a result of trying to figure out how painful it is for these bodies in front of his/her eyes. However, the repeated practice of self-induced pain and the release of adrenaline in the body during DM contribute to pro wrestlers’ heightened pain resistance and stamina. The aforementioned does not make DM wrestlers’ experience any less painful. These examples illustrate how setting and display of pain can move the viewer: s/he can laugh at http://ijhcschiefeditor.wix.com/ijhcs Page 359 Volume 2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND Issue 1 June 2015 CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 someone’s thumb being snapped by Finlay and/or feel nauseous when looking at Bedranowsky’s face covered with blood. In the end, the viewer’s responses matter the most: “This is sick. But I will come to the next show. Buy DVD. Consume it.” In Powers of Horror (1982), Kristeva elaborated on finding ‘jouissance’ in the abject. The question of reality here is irrelevant because this cultural phenomenon is ‘real’ and ‘legitimate’ in its own right, entertaining and pleasurable to some, superficial and degrading to others.
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