Pro Wrestling and Pop Culture

Anthony asks, do you feel that workers and promoters tend to be, more often than not, behind the times on trends and popular culture? How important is it to pay attention to that kind of stuff?

Workers and promoters are at times behind when it comes to pop culture, but there is a reason for that.  Promoters can't book too much based on mainstream news stories from any aspect of pop culture within the week it occurs. That would turn wrestling into Saturday Night Live, only not funny (no matter how hard they try). Also, current event stories tend to die off quickly (IE, the Dorner story. In that case, literally), which would make angle longevity a problem.

Wrestling has always appealed to the masses by playing to their hopes, fears, and in many cases, preconceived notions. WWE always has and always will continue to play to popular sentiments of society, though maybe not in a daily scope. Pro wrestling perfectly dramatizes the preoccupations and pathologies of society. When executed properly, wrestling speaks to matters of broad and compelling interest. It says the right things at the right time, in the right way to the right people (paying customers). In other words, promoters and often workers themselves use the big ideas from pop culture and convey those ideas to the audience in an easy-to-understand way with a conclusion the way the audience wants them to play out. Those ideas mainly revolve around race, sex, nationalism, and frankly any other stereotype Vince can exploit and make money off of.

For example, look at nationalism in the '80s, Hulk Hogan — “The Real American” — took down every threat to America with great ease.  He defeated The Iron Sheik to win the Championship during the height of Iranian tensions. He later defeated Nikolai Volkoff during the height of the Cold War. In the '90s he vanquished Sgt. Slaughter, who turned against America during the first Gulf War. Hogan’s career during the '80s and early '90s was the perfect example of pop culture and American sentiment being infused into wrestling storylines. That being the idea, or reassertion, of American domination and the cartoonish villains that “threaten” the country. Each character Hogan took down was grossly exaggerated and made into the American stereotype of various foreign and domestic threats, be they Middle Easterners or Russians from their attire to their in-ring antics. Hell, they were so over-the-top cartoonish that they did in fact make a cartoon about all of this, Hulk Hogan’s Rock n’ Wrestling Show.

Brother Love was born of the '80s’ evangelical movement. The Million Dollar Man was symbolic of the wealth created by the Reagan administration and the lifestyle so many wanted to lead (as parodied in American Psycho). The list goes on and on. Stone Cold was emblematic of the '90s’ MTV generation’s attitude of sticking it to the man and blazing your own trail through life. 

Today, John Cena holds the torch as our patriotic, all-American hero. Not only as the face of the company, but as the man to take down evil. Perfect example: WrestleMania 27. Watch John Cena’s entrance. The all-American hometown choir singing an overly Godly intro. Vince basically dared the crowd to boo Cena. “If you’re booing John Cena, you hate America, God, the hometown of Atlanta, and hell, it was a black choir, so that makes you a racist too.”

For another modern example, look at Muhammad Hassan, a thinly veiled terrorist. But once shit got too real with the London bombing he had to be taken out by the former “American Bad-Ass”, The Undertaker. Or look at Jack Swagger and his manager, Zeb Coulter. Their heel gimmick is that they are extremist Republicans. Brilliant.

Today you also see a greater influx of minority wrestlers getting pushes, which has everything to do with the demographics of WWE’s audience. A huge percentage of WWE fans are Mexican or Latino, which leads to the recent championship pushes of Rey Mysterio as the blue-collar, hard working, underdog Mexican hero. Winning the WWE Championship was his take on the American dream, of hard work and perseverance paying off. Mysterio’s title reign also coincided with hotly contested immigration debates in America. Alberto Del Rio’s heel character as the aristocratic Mexican brought out the contempt many in this country hold for that nationality, as well as enlightening them to the separation of wealth in Mexico. Del Rio as a heel is everything the core white male audience hates: an educated, wealthy minority that rubs his success into the typical mid-class wrestling fan’s face. So why the gear shift (face turn) of Del Rio? The obvious answer may have been reactionary to the writing on national electoral wall and nicely ties into the new Swagger gimmick.

WWE used to be an extremely character driven company that pushed a lot of stereotypes. It broke away from that a bit during the Attitude Era, but even then, you had a gang war between the Puerto Rican gang (Los Boriquas), the Black Panthers (Nation of Domination), the skinhead biker gang (DOA), as well as that young rebellious gang of white kids thrown in the mix (D-Generation X). Stereotypes are a big part of wrestling, but guess what? They are also a big part of the entertainment business as a whole. Vince cleverly exploited this, as did the promoters who came before him with evil Germans and Japanese fresh off of World War II.

It is very important to pay attention to pop culture when you are looking at wrestling, you can create compelling storylines based off of it. One problem I see with the indies trying to capitalize on this is the lack of coverage they receive and the continuity (or lack of it) within the promotion. Will the talent involved show up religiously enough to run an angle? How many storylines are (successfully) run on indy shows? It is harder to infuse pop culture on the indy circuit unless you are basing your gimmick off of something from it.

Until next time,
-AWV