Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Communication Dissertations Department of Communication Fall 12-14-2011 The Playful Audience: Professional Wrestling, Media Fandom, and the Omnipresence of Media Smarks Shane Matthew Toepfer Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_diss Recommended Citation Toepfer, Shane Matthew, "The Playful Audience: Professional Wrestling, Media Fandom, and the Omnipresence of Media Smarks." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2011. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_diss/33 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Communication at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE PLAYFUL AUDIENCE: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING, MEDIA FANDOM, & THE OMNIPRESENCE OF MEDIA SMARKS by SHANE TOEPFER Under the Direction of Ted Friedman ABSTRACT This dissertation posits a new model for understanding media audiences, bringing the scholarship of game studies to the critical analysis of audience practices. The concept of play proves beneficial for understanding the complex processes of media audiences, as they are able to traverse dichotomous categories when engaging media content. The genre of professional wrestling proves a perfect case study for examining these playful audience practices, and this study is an ethnographic account of the practices of wrestling fans. Focusing on the behaviors of fans at live wrestling events, in online contexts, and in the subcultural setting of a card game entitled Champions of the Galaxy, this study demonstrates the necessity of the concept of play for understanding what media audiences do when they engage media content. These practices, however, are always negotiated by the hegemonic power of the rules that structure how audiences are encouraged to engage content, resulting in ideological constraints on the possibilities play offers. INDEX WORDS: Play, Audience, Smark, Professional wrestling, Media fandom, Fan community, Playful audience, Game THE PLAYFUL AUDIENCE: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING, MEDIA FANDOM, & THE OMNIPRESENCE OF MEDIA SMARKS by SHANE TOEPFER A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2011 Copyright by Shane Toepfer 2011 THE PLAYFUL AUDIENCE: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING, MEDIA FANDOM, & THE OMNIPRESENCE OF MEDIA SMARKS by SHANE TOEPFER Committee Chair: Ted Fridman Committee: Kathryn Fuller-Seeley Alisa Perren Greg Smith Emanuela Guano Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University December 2011 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are so many people who helped make this project possible, both directly and indirectly. But above all, I thank my partner in this absurd adventure. Donna, you are my best friend and I cannot thank you enough for giving me your support, care, and love. Thank you for enduring graduate school with me, and for sharing every failure and triumph life sends our way. I promise that we are just getting started. I also have to thank my other two ladies in the house, Allie Lou and Maggie. With so much unconditional love in Team Toepfer, we are truly a force to be reckoned with. I love all my girls, and am eternally thankful for your companionship. And we miss you Marcy. Of course, I also thank my family for their love and support. So many wonderful memories, conversations, and experiences, I most assuredly could not have finished this project without them. While I am certainly proud of earning this degree, I think their pride will be overwhelming, and just thinking of that makes me smile. And they should be proud, since they are the greatest parents/siblings/aunts/etc. one could ask for. Thanks Mom, Dad, GG (and Chloe too), Team Bordelon (Tara, Scott, Alyssa, Olivia, Katie, and Maddy), Team Toepfer 2 (Jeff, Lacey, T-Money), my Atlanta/Georgia family (Helen, Russ, Roslynn, Sammie, Pumpkin, Ivan, Kermit, Mama Lou), my weary travelers (Uncle Brian, Mawmee, and Aunt Karen too), and all of my extended family for your support. There are certainly many extraordinary people who have given me friendship during this process. I am thankful for each one of them allowing me to be a part of their lives, and my own life has benefited greatly from each of them. I am sure to leave out someone, and please know that it is not purposeful, but there are a few who deserve special mention. Thanks Bryce, Katie, v Dede, Danielle, David, Eric, Jason, Julia, Savo, and Sarah for being friends with someone who talks incessantly about geeky pastimes like pro wrestling. Of course, this project would not exist without the guidance of my professors. Ted Friedman has been the ideal mentor during my graduate career, and his patience, inquisitiveness, and support has been an inspiration to me. Kathy Fuller-Seeley has been my rock at Georgia State, as I still remember coming to her during my first semester and having her reassuring words convince me that I could make this career work. Alisa Perren has been a person I could discuss anything with, and I cherish her wisdom and advice. Greg Smith and Emanuela Guano have also been tremendously supportive and rigorous, and I am thankful for having their presence on the committee. After all these year at GSU, I am proud to be associated with this group of brilliant professors, and am positive that this project has benefited greatly from their guidance. Finally, I would like to thank my students – past, present, and future. You are daily reminders of why I love this job and why I have persevered to earn this degree. I promise to give you my absolute best and am thankful for having the opportunity to share semesters with you. Very seldom do people have the opportunity to do what they love, and my experiences in the classroom are undoubtedly what I am proudest of. I hope that you too will get to study what you enjoy and find a career that excites you the way teaching has inspired me. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv LIST OF FIGURES ix INTRODUCTION THE PLAYFUL AUDIENCE: PROFESSIONAL 1 WRESTLING, MEDIA FANDOM, AND THE OMNIPRESENCE OF MEDIA SMARKS Overview 1 Introduction 1 What is Play? – Ambiguity, Process, and Dialectics 8 Autoethnography – A Wrestling Fan Comes Clean 16 The Internet Wrestling Community (IWC) 19 Cultural and Subcultural Capital 24 Fans and Theoretical Conceptions of the Audience 30 The Genre of Professional Wrestling 39 Professional Wrestling Scholarship by Academics, 46 Journalists, and Fans Game Studies 59 The Importance of Play as a Convergent Process 71 Research Methodology 76 Chapter Outline 83 CHAPTER ONE THE WRESTLING AUDIENCE: OBSERVING THE PLAY 88 OF WRESTLING SMARKS Introduction 88 “I Can Smell the Blood” – The Aura of Liveness 92 Sutton-Smith and the Rhetorics of Play 98 vii “The Single Best Weekend of the Year” – WWE, ROH, and 100 the Wrestling Audience Surveying the Wrestling Audience – Center Stage and the 104 Georgia Dome Play as Progress 111 Play as Fate 123 Play as Power 134 Play as Identity 147 Play as Imaginary 157 Play as Self 168 Play as Frivolity 179 Conclusion 183 CHAPTER TWO THE INTERNET WRESTLING COMMUNITY (IWC): 187 FANTASY BOOKING AND THE ONLINE PLAY OF WRESTLING SMARKS Introduction 187 The Bourgeois and Popular Aesthetics of Professional Wrestling 194 Locating and Monitoring the Internet Wrestling Community 200 Professional Wrestling or Sports Entertainment? 213 The Internet Wrestling Community’s Negotiation of a Smark 219 WWE’s Popular Aesthetic – Does it Draw? 222 ROH’s Bourgeois Aesthetic – Star Ratings and Use Value 243 Fantasy Booking and CM Punk 262 CHAPTER THREE THE WRESTLING AUDIENCE AND GAMING: PLAYING 269 CHAMPIONS OF THE GALAXY Introduction 269 viii Autoethnography – Ready for a “Hot Summer” and Galacticon 271 2006 Champions of the Galaxy and the Imaginary Spaces of 278 Professional Wrestling Galacticon and Hegemony 287 The Fan Community of Champions of the Galaxy – Personal 298 Rituals and Information “It’s Your Fed, Promoter” – Playing Champions of the Galaxy 314 A Fractured Community – Champions of the Galaxy and 328 Appropriate Fantasy Booking Conclusion 338 CONCLUSION CONCLUDING REMARKS FROM “HEGEMONY” 340 BIBLIOGRAPHY 349 APPENDICES 363 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 90 Figure 2 190 Figure 3 272 Figure 4 283 Figure 5 290 Figure 6 346 1 The Playful Audience – Professional Wrestling, Media Fandom, & the Omnipresence of Media Smarks Overview Critical scholarship in communication studies has become increasingly focused on the complex reading practices of media audiences. This dissertation project contributes to theoretical models of media audiences by focusing on two parallel scholarly discourses pertaining to media consumption: audience studies and game studies. This coming together of distinct bodies of critical scholarship yields new insights concerning notions of media fandom, revealing a convergent conception of a playful media audience. The concept of play brings together these two fields, providing new insights on the practices of media audiences. This notion of “play” reveals media practices that structure how audiences are limited by ideological constructs of consumption, while simultaneously offering the liberatory or utopian possibilities of resistance that mirror the practices of “children” playing with toys or usurping the rules of more structured game spaces. It is within the playful realm of professional wrestling where these processes can be identified and extrapolated to the contemporary media landscape. Introduction The field of audience studies finds itself in a quandary of creating binaries, either/or dichotomies that posit media audiences in static categories. As we shall see, these binaries transcend various theoretical models of media audiences, from cultural studies to psychoanalysis to the social sciences. In the end, these perspectives cast media audiences into dichotomous 2 categories, differing on how much agency or power to grant them.