The Kayfabe Question

[sek69]

I was wondering something today, the kind of thought that only pops into your head while you are standing outside with your dog waiting for her to decide if she's going to answer nature's call or hit the snooze alarm. Most of us are about the same age, and as such, a lot of us either already have kids or are in a position in life where kids could become a possiblity. What are you going to tell them about wrestling?

 

I'm assuming any kids that would have us as a parent would be around wrestling, even if it's DVDs of old 80s territory stuff. I remember back to when I was growing up in the 80s, watching wrestling with my grandfather. I don't think I was ever specifically told about fake and real, it was just one of those things I just started to notice on my own. That was a time where it was a lot more popular too, so being late on something like that would be akin to being the last kid in class to believe in the Tooth Fairy. There's a fine line, I would think. I'd kind of not want to spoil it since part of the fun is having that emotional investment you only get from believing what you're seeing is 100 unscripted (I really enjoyed the Taker-Batista cage match live since I had no idea what was going to happen). You also don't want your kid to be that 30-something guy you see at TV tapings who still has the HULK RULZ shirt and homemade John Cena chain.

[Loss]

I think it's a matter of safety. You have to make sure your kids understand that wrestling, cartoons, etc are fake so they aren't imitating dangerous moves on their friends. Sad but true.

 

When I have children, I honestly hope they hate wrestling.

[Bix]

I think it's a matter of safety. You have to make sure your kids understand that wrestling, cartoons, etc are fake so they aren't imitating dangerous moves on their friends. Sad but true.

You also have to explain that wrestlers are trained and get hurt, though.

[pantherwagner]

When I have children, I honestly hope they hate wrestling.

 

My thoughts except maybe CMLL.

[sek69]

 

When I have children, I honestly hope they hate wrestling.

 

My thoughts except maybe CMLL.

 

 

Why would you hope your kids hate wrestling? I could see not wanting them to like the post Attitude Era stuff, but a world where kids grow up hating 80s territory wrestling makes me a Sad Panda.

[tim]

I never really got how so many wrestling fans say they don't want their kids to be wrestling fans. Admittedly, I'm a good deal younger than most here(17), but I'd certainly want my kids to like wrestling because it's one of, if not my biggest hobby. It's like someone who is into hunting teaching your kid how to hunt, but instead teaching your kid about selling and the importance of psychology! Just always struck me as being like a self hating Jew, and we all know Michael Savage dosn't like that.

 

 

Anyway, about the topic question, just tell them the wrestlers are trained and that they shouldn't try the stuff themselves(they probably will anyway), and it's really not too hard to find out wrestling is fake on your own.

[Loss]

My issue is more with kids learning that the best way to resolve conflict is through violence, or that it's cool to swear at people and cut promos on your teacher, or that being jacked up on steroids and/or having ridiculous breast implants is the ideal male/female body image, or that jokes centered around racism, misogny and homophobia are cool, or that making jokes about people's recently deceased family members is somehow acceptable. Wrestling has never been wholesome, but it was a lot more harmless in days past than it is now.

 

I wouldn't forbid a child to watch wrestling, as that would only serve to make it more desirable. If I had a kid that wanted to be a wrestler, I'd support it. If I had a kid that loved watching wrestling, I'd take the kid to matches and probably have a good time myself. I'm just saying as a parent, I'd have to spend a lot more time explaining these things than I would if my kid(s) found a different hobby, like music or magic or sports.

 

There's also the concern of having people chant obscenities at your kid if you go to an indy show where the above-mentioned problems aren't as prevalent. If there was a safe haven *somewhere*, it wouldn't be as big a deal.

[anarchistxx]

And there's the fact that you want your kid to be cool.

 

I mean, I want my kid to be out playing for his school football team and stuff, not in watching Kobashi v Hansen or something.

 

You can do both, obviously, I did it for a couple of years, but hardly anyone knew I was a fan of wrestling at school, and at College people only know because they've enjoyed seeing clips of me and my mates in action. I just think there's a lot better things to be interested in.

 

Then again, I'm not into wrestling anymore, so I would say that

[MikeCampbell]

The problem with wrestling nowadays is that it's *so* different from what we watched as kids. I think the worse thing you'd see in wrestling those days was a fireball, or maybe the word "ass" being spouted off. I recall the Big Bossman being bleeped for saying during a promo about Nailz.

 

If my kids love wrestling, I'd treat it the same way my parents did. They let me have my fun with it, and bought me the magazines, action figures, video games, tapes, etc. But also making damn sure that I understood that I only watch it, nothing I tried to do anywhere (Except in the basement on my WWF Wrestling Buddy).

[tim]

And there's the fact that you want your kid to be cool.

 

I mean, I want my kid to be out playing for his school football team and stuff, not in watching Kobashi v Hansen or something.

 

You can do both, obviously, I did it for a couple of years, but hardly anyone knew I was a fan of wrestling at school, and at College people only know because they've enjoyed seeing clips of me and my mates in action. I just think there's a lot better things to be interested in.

 

Then again, I'm not into wrestling anymore, so I would say that

 

maybe some people are mature and dont have a high school complex

[anarchistxx]

Keep in mind that school over here is 11-16 then you can leave and do what you want, so it's not as old as it is in America.

 

But, yeah, if you wanted to be in with a lot of people and popular it wasn't a good idea to admit watching wrestling. There were some other 'popular' people who watched wrestling, so I talked about it if I was on my own with them, but they kept it quiet as well.

[Strummer]

I'd have to spend a lot more time explaining these things than I would if my kid(s) found a different hobby, like music or magic or sports.

 

For the sake of argument you often find drug issues (especially steriods and performance enhancing drugs), misogny and homophobia in major sports also.

 

How would parents explain to their kids their favorite player getting busted for a DUI or for firearm possession? Or why brawls happen?

[tim]

I don't go spouting how much wrestling I watch to anyone I see, but it not like I "wouldn't admit it." If someone asks if I watch wrestling for whatever reason I wouldn't say no. Lying about your interests for "popularity" is a bit ridiculous, isn't it? For getting out of high school earlier, you seem to be taking this with a very high school mentality.

[anarchistxx]

I don't go spouting how much wrestling I watch to anyone I see, but it not like I "wouldn't admit it." If someone asks if I watch wrestling

Well, I might concede I watch the odd match but I'm certainly not going to go round telling everyone I watch a load of it, even if they ask.

 

What's the point?

 

Lying about your interests for "popularity" is a bit ridiculous, isn't it?

You don't lie, you just don't tell anyone.

 

For getting out of high school earlier, you seem to be taking this with a very high school mentality.

No, just explaining how if I had a kid, I wouldn't really want him to be a massive fan of wrestling.

[MikeCampbell]

I actually found high school to be sort of fun from a wrestling fan perspective. Because when I was younger I'd routinely get picked on for liking wrestling. But in '98 or so when it started gaining steam, everyone and their brother suddenly wanted to be my buddy and bullshit with me about it.

[anarchistxx]

Well, yeah, I got into wrestling in that period when everyone was watching it, but after everyone had moved on to the next 'cool' thing, I was still watching it.

[Loss]

For me, it has nothing to do with how they appear to others or being out of the in crowd. The kid will decide on his own if that's important to him or not. I just don't think a child's personal morality and world view should be influenced in any way by WWE television. If the kid can distinguish and understand that it's just fantasy, it's cool, and they can probably watch all they want without getting warped. If you have an impressionable kid who has a habit of imitating what they see on TV, that's when I'd be a little concerned as a parent.

 

Sek mentioned 30 year olds waving foam fingers, which is another issue entirely that would be interesting and fun to discuss, but we could talk about that forever. There are things a parent can do if they realizing they're raising a manchild.

[Marty]

My issue is more with kids learning that the best way to resolve conflict is through violence, or that it's cool to swear at people and cut promos on your teacher, or that being jacked up on steroids and/or having ridiculous breast implants is the ideal male/female body image, or that jokes centered around racism, misogny and homophobia are cool, or that making jokes about people's recently deceased family members is somehow acceptable. Wrestling has never been wholesome, but it was a lot more harmless in days past than it is now.

 

I wouldn't forbid a child to watch wrestling, as that would only serve to make it more desirable. If I had a kid that wanted to be a wrestler, I'd support it. If I had a kid that loved watching wrestling, I'd take the kid to matches and probably have a good time myself. I'm just saying as a parent, I'd have to spend a lot more time explaining these things than I would if my kid(s) found a different hobby, like music or magic or sports.

 

There's also the concern of having people chant obscenities at your kid if you go to an indy show where the above-mentioned problems aren't as prevalent. If there was a safe haven *somewhere*, it wouldn't be as big a deal.

 

Not to sound like a big defender of wrestling (specifically the bad parts of it) but it's not like the other things you mentioned don't have their share of bad sides to them. (Well, I got nothing on the "magic" part, but the music and sports things I can discuss.)

 

You mentioned about people chanting obscenities at your kid at an indy show. It's not like music and sports don't have bad sides either, in crowds and such. Here in Ottawa, the big controversy right now is what happened at Game 4 of the Senators-Sabres playoff series. If you haven't heard the story yet, a couple from Buffalo made the trip here to see their team play, and when the Sabres' win was official (which prevented a four-game sweep for Ottawa), the woman of the couple turned to some Sens fans nearby and said "Put the broom away" in reference to a sweep. This resulted in one of those Sens fans (males, by the way) punching the woman four times. This also took place in the third deck of the arena, which means it's more affordable (well, as affordable as playoff hockey could be), which means more families would sit there. How would kids react to witnessing a situation like that? God knows there's been other cases in sports where crowd control is in question. Sports also deals with a lot of situations that wrestling deals with. The issue of steroids. The occasional (or moreso) fight during gameplay. The existence of cheerleaders (how do they represent a woman's role in society). Idiotic media types saying so-and-so is the first African American to do whatever, when most (if not all) black sports personalities could care less about that sort of thing, since our society is past (or should be past) all that. Athletes attacking reporters. Athletes being reported as being in trouble with the law, being involved in prostitution rings, drug rings, dog fighting rings (in Michael Vick's case), etc., etc., etc. Once a kid sees all this, and he/she will, they will, at the very least, ask question.

 

On the music front, which I won't go nearly as long about, there's what's written in music. Children, for the most part, begin liking whatever music their parents are into, but eventually expand. What will happen if Little Johnny listens to Eazy E singing "Trust No Bitch"? How will he handle women after that? Or what about Little Jenny listening to Alanis Morisette's "You Oughta Know" for the first time. Would it affect her outlook on relationships with men in the future? That's just scratching the surface of some of the lyrics out there (sex, drugs, crime, amongst other things are all written these days, as well as the past). There's also going to concerts and the rowdiness of some, as well as the existence of drugs there. And God knows a lot of artists are in the news for the wrong reasons, like athletes I mentioned above. All stuff to keep in mind.

 

Bottom line is everything does come down to parenthood. You're right: total preventation is not the answer, but talking to your kids about certain things is definitely the best way to go. I'm happy you're already thinking about these things, but remember, just because wrestling has its nasty points (which I think are more apparent to us because we discuss it more) doesn't mean that other areas of entertainment are angelic. Good luck to you in the future! No one said this parenthood thing was going to be easy, but thinking about it beforehand is always a good step, even if you wind up not having kids.

[Loss]

You mentioned about people chanting obscenities at your kid at an indy show. It's not like music and sports don't have bad sides either, in crowds and such. Here in Ottawa, the big controversy right now is what happened at Game 4 of the Senators-Sabres playoff series. If you haven't heard the story yet, a couple from Buffalo made the trip here to see their team play, and when the Sabres' win was official (which prevented a four-game sweep for Ottawa), the woman of the couple turned to some Sens fans nearby and said "Put the broom away" in reference to a sweep. This resulted in one of those Sens fans (males, by the way) punching the woman four times. This also took place in the third deck of the arena, which means it's more affordable (well, as affordable as playoff hockey could be), which means more families would sit there. How would kids react to witnessing a situation like that? God knows there's been other cases in sports where crowd control is in question. Sports also deals with a lot of situations that wrestling deals with. The issue of steroids. The occasional (or moreso) fight during gameplay. The existence of cheerleaders (how do they represent a woman's role in society). Idiotic media types saying so-and-so is the first African American to do whatever, when most (if not all) black sports personalities could care less about that sort of thing, since our society is past (or should be past) all that. Athletes attacking reporters. Athletes being reported as being in trouble with the law, being involved in prostitution rings, drug rings, dog fighting rings (in Michael Vick's case), etc., etc., etc. Once a kid sees all this, and he/she will, they will, at the very least, ask question.

These are all valid points. I guess the big difference with wrestling is that it's actively a part of the attraction, while with other sports, it's just something peripheral that could happen. Part of the appeal of wrestling is its sleazyness. I don't know if you could say that about any sports. You definitely can't shield a child from everything you personally don't agree with, and I agree that just about anything has the potential to be seedy.

 

On the music front, which I won't go nearly as long about, there's what's written in music. Children, for the most part, begin liking whatever music their parents are into, but eventually expand. What will happen if Little Johnny listens to Eazy E singing "Trust No Bitch"? How will he handle women after that? Or what about Little Jenny listening to Alanis Morisette's "You Oughta Know" for the first time. Would it affect her outlook on relationships with men in the future? That's just scratching the surface of some of the lyrics out there (sex, drugs, crime, amongst other things are all written these days, as well as the past). There's also going to concerts and the rowdiness of some, as well as the existence of drugs there. And God knows a lot of artists are in the news for the wrong reasons, like athletes I mentioned above. All stuff to keep in mind.

I'd be lying if I pretended hip hop isn't sometimes degrading to women, but I'm not sure if Eazy E is only referring to women when he refers to bitches. A guy can be a bitch too, especially in hip hop's typical context. The words can mean more than just the words, and are sometimes a metaphor for a political statement also. If you hear your kid listening to music about bitches, you ask him who you think the lyricist is referring to, engage him in a conversation about it and make him think. Can you do that with wrestling? I also think it's easier for children to distinguish movies and music as performance than it is wrestling, because there are no booked angles designed to sell concert tickets in music.

 

Bottom line is everything does come down to parenthood. You're right: total preventation is not the answer, but talking to your kids about certain things is definitely the best way to go. I'm happy you're already thinking about these things, but remember, just because wrestling has its nasty points (which I think are more apparent to us because we discuss it more) doesn't mean that other areas of entertainment are angelic. Good luck to you in the future! No one said this parenthood thing was going to be easy, but thinking about it beforehand is always a good step, even if you wind up not having kids.

Thanks! I do want kids someday, and yes, it's good to think/talk about this sort of things. The main point I would make is that because there's no kayfabe in music or movies, it's easier for a child to distinguish them as performance instead of reality.

[sek69]

If anything, wrestling's more up front about it's general fucked up-ness than most real sports, which in a way makes it easier. Especially since wrestling already carries the "everyone knows its fake" stigma, it makes it easier to explain to a child that what they're watching is make believe. I know my mom actually took the time to explain to me that wrestling was like movies or TV, and the wrestlers were trained to do what they do. Ironically she ended up keeping kayfabe that way, because she never came out and flatly said "it's fake" since she thought that would mean I'd try to do wrestling moves on people since it wouldn't hurt if it was fake.

 

I mentioned the 30 year old foam finger wavers because I think that's the real problem. Most kids know the deal with wrestling and a lot of them grow out of it when they either graduate high school or college. The emotionally stunted manchildren you see populating message boards (not here of course ) really scare me, especially with their views on women. It's not just WWE Diva types either, they routinely refer to women as sluts and whores to the point it really starts to come off as lashing out for their own stunted social lives. Their lack of real-life social skills ends up manifesting in internet arguments that end up coming off like someone with autism since they can't handle anyone challenging their views on their beloved promotion/wrestler/whatever. I don't know if it's because the Venn diagram of wrestling fans and social misfits has a large overlap or what, but it would make for an interesting study.

[Strummer]

I agree Sek about the mainchild dilemma but there has been somewhat of a backlash online where if you even remotely suggest a WWE or wrestling "diva" is attractive you are automatically an "overweight dork who obviously can't get laid" or that "you should be watching porn buddy, because this is WRESTLING" and stuff of that ilk.

 

For example was anyone kind of horrified when a group of posters at TSM were saying some absolutely horrible things about Torrie Wilson back in 03-04? It's like they were angry that she was on a wrestling show and that some fans dared to find her attractive?

 

You can find women in wrestling attractive and still be a functional male who treats women properly. Suprisingly these people do exist.

 

So yes the "manchild" is often misogynistic, but often so are the "smart" wrestling fans that claim to be normal.

[Loss]

I would agree that the "diva is attractive" thing can sometimes be overblown.

[sek69]

There's also something to be said for people who get way overdefensive when it's pointed out that GH and fat burners have made a lot of the current Divas gain masculine features. Post-jaw surgery Chyna wouldn't stand out amongst today's WWE diva roster.

 

Regardless, I find the near total lack of social skills and graces to be the most alarming feature of a lot of wrestling.

[Mad Dog]

This conversation comes up a lot with my other main hobby too which are comic books. Honestly no wrestling and nothing but Archie comics if I ever have kids. Ok, I might exceptions on wrestling if it were Chikara, CMLL or Dragon's Gate. Those are all fairly harmless.

 

With the WWE I don't trust their programming. There's just too much that's not appropriate for a child on those shows. The Katie Vick thing, the HHH/Booker T racism deal, the post Eddie death stuff, the Kane/Lita rape angle and Edge/Lita live sex show are all things that a kid shouldn't be exposed to. Indy shows are a matter of the fuckface fanbases and their odd hostility to kids, see that RoH show from last year. Now real sports are a lot different. I can watch an NFL game with a fair amount of confidence that Tom Brady isn't going to get on the mic after a game and cut a promo on Bill Parcells and accuse him of fucking a dead chick. I mean it could happen in theory I guess but you get the point.

 

Comic books are just a matter of violence and the graphic nature of what that's become.