A Marxist analysis of professional wrestling

[NintendoLogic]

Well, WWE.

 

http://www.carlbeijer.com/2016/10/notes-on-wrestling.html

 

Nothing terribly subversive so far. In fact, most of the analysis is Shoemaker-esque (he even cites Shoemaker at one point). But it has the potential to be interesting.

[van_Fair]

I expected nothing and got even less than that. He seems to be in favor of WWE being a monopolist, which given WWEs track record with things like unionization is just really weird. Also no mention of the entire independent contractor situation in the third part. Really only the most basic surface level analysis of WWE and wrestling in general.

[Ship Canal]

On the topic of Marxism and wrestling, the prominent British Marxist and writer Richard Seymour recently revealed himself to be a fan. While I have major differences with some of Seymour's analysis (I'm a libertarian* communist/anarcho syndicalist), it was none the less nice to see someone else on the far left writing about wrestling.

http://www.leninology.co.uk/2016/03/kayfabe-is-dead-or-i-was-manic-pixie.html

There is also this article from Jasmin Mujanovic:

The political economy of professional wrestling: Capital, unions and spandex

https://libcom.org/library/political-economy-professional-wrestling-capital-unions-spandex


*Libertarian in the traditionally understood European sense, i.e the antithesis of what would later claim that name in Austria/the US etc. I'm not trying to patronize anyone by outlining this, I'm sure plenty of people understand the distinction, but given the high amount of US posters on here it'll probably cause less confusion if I just mention that distinction from the get go.