WWE Network... It's Here

[joeg]

Well said. I think any form of censorship is a dangerous slippery slope. When tobacco bowdlerization was a big thing in the 90s and early 2000s it didn't spread awareness of the dangers of smoking. It only tainted the classic films and shows that were edited. In fact, it had an adverse affect as teen/youth tobacco usage increased in the following years with the rise in popularity of dip, ecigs, and vaping. What we are seeing now reminds me of that. For awhile now anything remotely racially insensitive from the past must be removed from any digital platform in the fight against racism. Well it doesn't work that way, racism and racial violence seem to be on the rise not decline right now. But I digress this is prowrestlingONLY not history class. 

[El-P]

However it should be pointed out as racist, homophobic, sexist and such in public forums, because it was. People rave about Piper's stuff all the time, but a lot of Piper"s stuff was way offensive period.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I know Disney+ uses a disclaimer before a lot of their old cartoons, warning that some of the content may be racially insensitive. I think something like that would be appropriate here, but I don't agree with cutting stuff out.

Actually, now that I think about, I believe the network had disclaimers on stuff anyway.

[SteveJRogers]

12 minutes ago, Yo-Yo's Roomie said:

Actually, now that I think about, I believe the network had disclaimers on stuff anyway.

Most well known being before shows where Chris Benoit is heavily featured, and not making bookmarks for his matches and featured segments 

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

Yeah, that's right. I seem to remember disclaimers for some of the more salacious Attitude era stuff too. Been a while since I canceled the network though.

[SteveJRogers]

7 hours ago, El-P said:

However it should be pointed out as racist, homophobic, sexist and such in public forums, because it was. People rave about Piper's stuff all the time, but a lot of Piper"s stuff was way offensive period.

A ton of that can be “excused” to Piper being a massive trolling (before it became a social network term) bully heel.

True his nature remained when he turned baby face/tweenier, but it was never as over the top vile as it got when Piper was the white hot heel from 84-86

[NintendoLogic]

They also had a disclaimer for exceptionally bloody/violent content like ECW and the original WarGames matches.

Really, though, editing out objectionable content is a chickenshit move. If it's worth paying a billion dollars for, it's worth preserving in its entirety. They knew what they were getting into when they gave Vince McMahon all that money. They need to own it.

[Migs]

If you're waiting for major television networks to own up to their hypocrisy, you'll be waiting a long time.

I'm anti-censorship in general and would rather a disclaimer, but (a) the blackface stuff *in 1990* is pretty wild to modern eyes and (b) its not like there aren't a million cheap ways to acquire a copy of the match if one feels the need to see it.

[Mad Dog]

10 hours ago, joeg said:

Well said. I think any form of censorship is a dangerous slippery slope. When tobacco bowdlerization was a big thing in the 90s and early 2000s it didn't spread awareness of the dangers of smoking. It only tainted the classic films and shows that were edited. In fact, it had an adverse affect as teen/youth tobacco usage increased in the following years with the rise in popularity of dip, ecigs, and vaping. What we are seeing now reminds me of that. For awhile now anything remotely racially insensitive from the past must be removed from any digital platform in the fight against racism. Well it doesn't work that way, racism and racial violence seem to be on the rise not decline right now. But I digress this is prowrestlingONLY not history class. 

I also think the average person is smart enough to understand if they are going back and watching something from the past that societal norms are going to be different. I also think you should just leave that stuff in there. When I was growing up, some of those differences turned into teaching moments from my parents.  Just throw a disclaimer on things.

[joeg]

14 hours ago, Mad Dog said:

I also think the average person is smart enough to understand if they are going back and watching something from the past that societal norms are going to be different.

I think you give the average person far too much credit. I'm joking, but kind of, not really. 

[Mad Dog]

15 minutes ago, joeg said:

I think you give the average person far too much credit. I'm joking, but kind of, not really. 

I think most people usually get it. Like when I was a kid and seeing people smoking in cartoons. Even as a 5 year old I think I asked my parents about Goofy chain smoking in some cartoon and they explained everyone used to smoke until they figured out it was really bad for your health. 

I think the issue tends to be people going in with the express purpose of finding things to be offended by so they can bitch about it on social media. 

[JRH]

I was thinking that since WWE is so chummy with FOX, they can take the stuff that NBC might think either has little to no demand (AWA, HIdden Gems), or that may be "problematic" (ECW, SMW) and put it on the Tubi (An ad-supported streaming service owned by FOX). 

[NintendoLogic]

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure there was a strong societal norm against the use of blackface back in 1998 when DX did the Nation parody.

[Loss]

My take is typically that censoring these things empowers denialists who like to revise history and claim that things were never as bad as they were purported to be. However, this is a for-profit platform, not an official historical record, as was mentioned above. The streaming service is not intended to be a historical project. If it was, I'd have a different view.

[SteveJRogers]

2 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure there was a strong societal norm against the use of blackface back in 1998 when DX did the Nation parody.

Once the WWE started to make kayfabe breaking documentaries, Piper’s minstrel performance got the “we don’t know what he was thinking, or going” treatment on them.

I haven’t seen/read any official discussion about that segment.  Neither falls under the “excuse” of heels that should get comeuppance, so both are justifiable in needed to be scrubbed in light of what actually did pass for comedy.  

To NL’s point, yeah in the mainstream that kind of offensive shit was taken very seriously, decades before “cancel culture” or SJWs were even considered terms for it.  Probably the one of the most famous heat against that sort of “act” was an early 1990s blackface gag Ted Danson did performing for then girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg.

Then again caucasian comedic actors were still using greasepaint and wigs to do impressions of noted black people as late as the late 2000s, so there is still plenty of “circumstances for the sake of what our/my audience expects” instances of “excuses” for something that rightfully should have been left in the dust bin of “entertainment genres” history 

 

 

[Robert S]

What makes the Piper blackface thing so baffling is that it was not a one time thing. He did an interview in blackface a couple of weeks before Wrestlemania on Superstars:

If it happened once you could have blamed Piper, as it happened twice you have to blame the company.

[C.S.]

8 hours ago, joeg said:

I think you give the average person far too much credit. I'm joking, but kind of, not really. 

Especially the average rasslin' fan.

[Ricky Jackson]

1 hour ago, Robert S said:

What makes the Piper blackface thing so baffling is that it was not a one time thing. He did an interview in blackface a couple of weeks before Wrestlemania on Superstars:

If it happened once you could have blamed Piper, as it happened twice you have to blame the company.

Well, at least Andre and, I think, Patterson decided to rib Piper for Mania and changed the paint so it wouldn't come off right away, so Piper was stuck looking like that for several days afterward. Or so the story goes 

[El-P]

The comments under the videos are... what you'd expect.

Maybe Hogan can pull that one off this year. I mean, he's only half racist apparently now.

[JNLister]

Piper-Brown is now removed from the non-Peacock original WWE Network. Thumbnails still there but the video skips straight past it.

[CarpetCrawler]

22 hours ago, Ricky Jackson said:

Well, at least Andre and, I think, Patterson

Andre and Skaaland, for the record, which just picturing those two together plotting anything gives me great comedic delight for some reason. 

[sek69]

Someone shared a clip of the ham-fisted way they edited out Brian Pillman (as Yellow Dog) calling Johnny B. Badd "Johnny B GAY" by adding fake technical difficulties, and if that's the way things are going to be edited going forward the internet outrage will be amazingly hilarious. 

[PhilTLL]

I don't think the world will miss any of that retrograde shit, but I am concerned that eventually, everything from before about 2010 will be hacked to shit and annoying to watch.

[sek69]

Yeah I wasn't particularly sad that comment was edited out, it was just shocking to see it done in a manner that looked like my 9 year old did it. 

I can't imagine how like.......75% of ECW stuff is going to pass muster either. 

[NintendoLogic]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

Someone shared a clip of the ham-fisted way they edited out Brian Pillman (as Yellow Dog) calling Johnny B. Badd "Johnny B GAY" by adding fake technical difficulties, and if that's the way things are going to be edited going forward the internet outrage will be amazingly hilarious. 

That might predate Peacock. I've seen posts from years ago referring to "technical difficulties" on the WWE Network during the Johnny Be Gay promo.