a export

by r. tyson smith

Because there’s no pure competi - derived from what is perhaps the oldest . c n I tion, pro wrestling gets derided for its spor t— continues its sleeper hold on our , t n e fakery, drama, and pageantry. Because culture because of its compelling offer - m n i a t it’s not conventional theater, it’s ridiculed ing of masculinity, violence, and drama. r e t n

E for its violence, lack of subtlety, and over- Pro wrestling thrives as a haven for out - g n i l t the-top, macho characters. rageous incivilit y— a thrill experience . s e d r e v W r Disdain often comes from men who considered all the more threatened by e d s l r e o R have strong social investments in spor t— modernity and a shifting gender order. s W t h 9 g 0 associations between pro wrestling and Furthermore, male body performances i 0 R 2 l l © A sport unnerve many pundits who cherish such as pro wrestling seem to take on WWE pro wrestling what they believe are sport’s meritocratic, greater interest and intrigue in an infor - character-building virtues. A 2001 article mation-based economy in which male - Pro wrestling is the most watched in Academic Psychiatry calls pro wrestling ness has less and less inherent value. “sporting event” in the United States “a virtual overflow of primary-process and increasingly . Even though [primitive-level thinking] ... It teaches the , blood-thirsty video games, and the entertainment attains little main - exact opposite of the message of sports the mixed martial arts production Ulti - stream credibility and airs on fringe net - and is, in many respects, the antithesis of mate Fighting Championship are also works like Sci-Fi and USA, wrestling sports, or ‘The Anti-Sport.’” Moreover, fast-paced violent shows targeting a sim - programs combine to attract 15 million men fake-fighting while wearing tights ilar demographic, but they don’t share U.S. viewers every week of the year. In arouses suspicion in a culture obsessed pro wrestling’s same storytelling. America’s never-ending chase for the with proving manhood. As social psychologist Jeffrey Gold - young male television market, the Yet, these hyperbolic productions stein argues in his book Why We Watch: sweaty spectacle of pro wrestling is the of bruising bravado remain a perennial The Attractions of Violent Entertainment, proverbial tortoise against the vaunted favorite, even amidst the growing num - wrestling shows feature all the hallmarks hare of professional sports like football, ber of cultural offerings like mixed mar - of what makes violent entertainment baseball, and basketball. tial arts, video games, and the Internet. appealin g— it contains “clues to its unre - To outsiders, the loud, in-your-face Pro wrestlin g— a unique pseudo-sport ality” (the staging and setting), it portrays World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) shows are patently absurd. Each pro - gram is littered with pyrotechnics, blar - ing music, smoke, nearly naked protagonists, 7-foot-tall goons, midgets, and outrageous color commentary deliv - ered by endlessly amazed chatterboxes. Cartoonishly large men who had just been talking suddenly turn to bashing s n

each other’s heads with steel chairs. o m m

Bikini-clad women escort a wrestler to o C e v i

the ring and then cry when he loses his t a e r

match. C a i v l

It’s these same qualities that demo - l e n n

nize the hybrid entertainmen t— count - o C ’

less critics abhor its violence, skin, sexism, O g g e and fraudulence. It’s the “epitome of r G y b

violence, sadomasochism, and sleaze ... o t o h

[it’s] trash TV for ugly Americans,” one P commentator inveighed. WWE action figures.

Contexts, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 65–67. ISSN 1536-5042, electronic ISSN 1537-6052. © 2009 American Sociological Association. All rights reserved. For permission to photocopy or reproduce see http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. spring 2009 contexts 65 DOI: 10.1525/ctx.2009.8.2.65. culture REVIEWS

an “engaging fantasy,” it is “exaggerated and distorted,” it has a “predictable out - come,” and it usually contains “a just res - olution.” Not unlike nearly all other successful popular entertainment, it’s pro wrestling’s stories that keep us coming back. s

Wrestling’s scripts are commonly n o m

based on timeless parables of love, m o C

betrayal, justice, and greed. It’s good ver - e v i t a e

sus evil personified in mammoth men. r C a i

These scripts play on tropes of Western v n o t

masculinity in which virtue is equated n e B c

with honor, independence, patriotism, r a M

and chivalry and evil with weakness, van - y b o t

ity, defiance, and rudeness. Intricate plots o h are generated with aggressive mono - P Edge makes his entrance. logues, tense interviews, locker room mishaps, hokey humiliations, replays of who dresses country and is introduced by everyone can access. ECW runs on paid recent conflicts, and colorful commen - the commentators as “our favorite Asian cable and has been with WWE for only tary by two ringside announcers. In a redneck.” two years. two-hour program, little more than 20 A friend at WWE explained that minutes consists of actual in-ring combat. Pro wrestling fans can find varieties of RAW has “more mature content,” is Often it’s referred to as a “male soap- this programming most nights of the “more aggressive,” and targets the 18- opera” because of the flagrant mas - week, nearly all of which is produced by and-older audience. Smackdown, on the culinity and serial drama carried from WWE. On Monday it’s RAW on USA, other hand, is a feeder program that’s show to show. Tuesday features the recently revived “cleaner and a bit softer ... more suit - Wrestlers get an emotional ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) able for the 12-year-old fans.” Smack - response from fans by establishing what on Sci-Fi, Friday it’s Smackdown on down is like a “shop window”—being their character represent s— good or evil, MyNetworkTV, Sunday at 2 a.m. it’s A.M. tamer and always free, the show helps “babyface” or “heel” —and why there’s RAW on USA, and on Sunday nights lead newcomers into the WWE mega- something at stake in a given match. RAW airs on Telemundo (in Spanish). The store. Characters are almost always derivatives Monday night production of RAW is rou - While pro wrestling’s enigmatic sta - of well-worn, degenerate stereotypes of race, class, ethnicity, and gender. Recent matches, for example, pitted Pro wrestling continues its sleeper hold on our “MVP,” a barrel-chested African-American culture because of its compelling offering of with bling themes against “Vladimir Kozlov,” a tight-lipped brute with Slavic masculinity, violence, and drama. features and crew cut who’s also known as “The Moscow Mauler.” One tag-team, tinely the top-rated regularly scheduled tus as a hybrid of sports and theater fos - “The Odd Couple,” features an enor - program on cable. ters derision, it also allows wrestling’s mous, 7-foot-tall, dark-skinned behemoth “Smarks” (“smart marks,” or corporate interests to exploit the mar - with shoulder-length, jet-black hair knowledgeable fans) appreciate the pro - keting techniques of both entertainment named “Khali” and a Caucasian midget gram distinctions and how they offer and sport. named “Little Horny,” who plays a crazed separate rosters, different storylines, and The major marketing distinction Irish leprechaun. Khali’s signature move, variation in their lasciviousness. RAW, from professional sports is WWE’s year- the “Punjabi Plunge,” consists of an the flagship program, runs on pay cable round schedule. Instead of a four-to-five opponent being dropped flat on his back. stations and is now in its 15 th year. month season like the NFL (or American Some characters are mash-ups of other Smackdown, which is six years old, Idol for that matter), WWE fills arenas clichés, such as “Jimmy Wang Yang,” always runs on free television channels three times a week, 52 weeks a year.

66 contexts.org Moreover, fans can consume more than These days his product is a growing resolution. Pro wrestling represents this a dozen pay-per-view programs that export as the company increasingly lust for violence in its crudest, most each net WWE several hundred thou - invests abroad. WWE currently airs pro - simplistic form. sand buys. Wrestlemania, the annual grams in 23 languages in more than 130 At the same time, the performance marquee pay-per-view event, had more countries and is now concentrating on remains interactive and the show is than 1 million buys in 2008. And despite expansion in Latin America, China, India, dependent upon spectators’ response. being known as a “male soap opera,” Australia, and Japan. In South Africa, for In the act of shaping the show, fans one-quarter to one-third of its viewers example, 5 million people watch RAW. experience an emotional connection. are female. While Americans like to admire the This connection is all the more valuable In addition to their nearly 300 live export of their technology, medicine, and in a fragmented social world in which productions a year, WWE merchandises democracy, they should also recognize heroes are rarely so palpably available, dozens of products. Fans swallow up the increasing flow of these man-made, aside from the contrived events tightly WWE-produced and licensed apparel, video games, magazines, movies, action As a hybrid of sports and theater, wrestling’s figures, books, DVDs, music, video-on- demand subscriptions to wrestling “clas - corporate interests exploit entertainment and sics,” and downloadable ring-tones, updates, and videos for mobile phones. sports marketing techniques. On top of that, the WWE website, which was one of the first outlets to turn ahem, RAW materials. managed by agents and handlers. streaming video profitable, attracts Despite 2007 being a tough year nearly 20 million individual visitors each for WW E— a murder and suicide by R. Tyson Smith is in the sociology depart - month. Within the United States, the mega-star Chris Benoit instigated a pub - ment at Dickinson College. He studies mas - WWE has a near monopoly on the lic relations debacl e— the company’s rev - culinity, culture and sports. industry aside from one outsized com - enues increased by nearly 21 percent, to petito r— Total Nonstop Action (TNA ). $485.7 million in the fiscal year. WWE is (Seldom profitable are the dozens of on the Forbes list of “top 200 best small smaller, regional promotions that are companies,” and because of the stock’s independent of WWE.) 12.8 percent annual yield in 2008 (the Given that many sports-entertain - highest level since the company began to ment products portend great success but pay dividends in 2003), Forbes.com never quite make it (think XFL or pro - endorsed the company as a sound fessional indoor soccer leagues), WWE investment choice in early 2009. deserves credit for its ongoing ability to capture the always-shifting market. The Among other things, understanding the company manages several contradic - attraction to pro wrestling helps demon - tions: it’s a sporting event without any strate the appeal of simplistic yet pow - true competition; it’s a series of fights erful narratives of triumph and between “mean” opponents who actu - dominance, which succeed in other ally cooperate, trust, and coordinate with realms. It illuminates why so many Amer - one another; and it’s a family-owned and icans swoon at “manly” public figures operated freak show, but also a publicly- whose well-crafted life stories become traded corporation. compelling, regardless of artifice. Embodying the contradictions and Undoubtedly, pro wrestling pro - the outrageousness is Vince McMahon, ductions tap into America’s appreciation the long-time CEO and occasional of violence as a method of solving prob - wrestler. Last year, upon receiving a star lems. With so many of our sports on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for the coaches, movie directors, and elected television category, he proclaimed, “I leaders opting for combat over dialog, already know I’m a star ... I’m the it’s clear we live in a culture that easily biggest star of all time.” endorses violence as a means of conflict

spring 2009 contexts 67