Is Everything Wrestling?

[peachchaos]

 

With each passing year, more and more facets of popular culture become something like wrestling: a stage-managed “reality” in which scripted stories bleed freely into real events, with the blurry line between truth and untruth seeming to heighten, not lessen, the audience’s addiction to the melodrama.

 

from the New York Times.

 

I hadn't seen this posted anywhere on the board and found it an interesting read.

[El-P]

No. It's juts us pro-wrestling fans who see pro-wrestling everywhere.

[Gutenberger]

It's the old when you're pregnant, you see pregnant women everywhere and hren you got a new red car, suddenly red cars everywhere. The human brain is so easily constructed sometimes.

[Cap]

Some of what that quote is getting at was being discussed a little int he post-wrestling thread.

 

As for the quote,I do think it is a little more there than "we like wrestling so we see wrestling everywhere". Wrestling has been the obviously staged form of entertainment that passes itself off as reality for a long time. At its absolute core, wrestling attempts to blur the lines between reality and fiction in a way that gives the creators of the entertainment a level of control that the consumers don't assume. For a long time that was a thing that sort of defined wrestling, a point of juxtaposition against film, tv, and sports. Even after wrestling "came out" as entertainment I think it has still maintained a somewhat unique relationship with that line between shoot and work, entertainment and reality. Wrestling relationship with that in the 70s, 80s, and maybe even early in the 90s is now being mimicked in reality TV most obviously, in the way celebrities craft their personas (brands) via social media, and some might argue in certain political contexts.

 

Sure, wrestling fans love seeing wrestling everywhere, but i don't think the original quote can be reduced to that.

[Laz]

Not everything is two guys in a ring faking a fight. Aspects of the art of wrestling - the sell, the work, building heat, etc. - are found in any social ecosystem to one degree or another. It's more because of pro wrestling's reputation as a total work that the analogy comes in handy, and we're so used to the idea of crafting a work and how it's done best that we see it.

 

Less "we see wrestling because we like wrestling," more "we describe it as wrestling because we're familiar with wrestling."

[Johnny Sorrow]

You kinda need to read the article and not just the quote before yapping.

[Cap]

The article itself is a far more articulate account of what I was trying to get at.

[peachchaos]

You kinda need to read the article and not just the quote before yapping.

 

Right, I almost wish I hadn't posted that quote now. The article goes into great detail and is very well thought-out. I certainly think it's worth reading and discussing.

[Death From Above]

I think "everything is wrestling" in the sense that almost any field has people that are trying to sell you chicken shit and call it chicken salad, and there are cons everywhere. I guess that sort of goes back to Foley's book where he wrote about wrestling being more honest than many other things because at least with wrestling we know it's all a con and we just don't care.

 

Contrasted against things like, say, doctors that were last in their graduating class in medical school hyping diet pills, politicians who think anyone believes you can "defeat terror", bankers that want to extend your line of credit to help you slip further into debt for their own ends, car companies trying to convince people we need computerized motion sensor activated windshield wipers or your car isn't cool, oil industry lawyer global warming truthers, people that hide bigotry behind religion, tv companies justifying rate hikes to pay executives, etc... maybe wrestling's con isn't so bad after all.

 

"Everything is wrestling" only in the sense a lot of people are trying to bullshit a lot of other people, and often do so in very over the top ways. We often know those ways are nonsense but can't really do much about it. In that sense I think it's a pretty defensible statement. If that's a short hand term that describes it well for you, sure, why not.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

Politics definitely are, though I don't think that is particularly new. Lee Atwater really perfected that aspect almost 30 years ago.

[flyonthewall2983]

Hate to be that guy, but it's funny that if you watch only WWE it seems everything is wrestling BUT wrestling.