Wrestling Politics through Late-Stage Democracy (2/2)
Roland Barthes, The Montreal Screwjob and more, in Two N-Words (Two N-Bombs), Part Five
[All chapters can be read independently, but this chapter is more independent than the others. The previous chapters are here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4]
Barthes protects the business (for you, the people!)
Barthes’ essay “The World of Wrestling” first appeared in 1952, published in the journal Esprit. Writing over a decade before professional wrestling was first televised in Europe1, Barthes concerns himself with live wrestling matches as staged in the “squalid Parisian halls”2 of his native France. These events too had heroes and villains, exaggerated moments of suffering and retribution, and predetermined outcomes. After comparing this wrestling to “ancient theater”3, as opposed to ancient sport, Barthes begins to note its sociological function and import. “What the public wants is the image of passion,” he explains, “not passion itself.”4 Barthes waxes beyond poetic to make matches between sweaty grunting men seem philosophically profound: “[W]hat is at stake is at once the triumph of pride and the formal concern with truth. What is displayed for the public is the great spectacle of Suffering, Defeat, and Justice.”5
Toward the end of the piece, Barthes makes a brief aside that, to modern readers, might seem shocking in its casualness: “It has already been noted that in America wrestling represents a sort of mythological fight between Good and Evil (of a quasi-political nature, the ‘bad’ wrestler always being supposed to be a Red).”6 Here we detect the typical French lefty exaggeration—overall, comparatively few heels were purportedly communist—but that incorrect detail doesn’t diminish the importance of the statement. Barthes says that these ideas have “already been noted”, but since there were no previous references to American wrestling in the essay, we must suppose either that this line of thought was conveyed in a previous article or, more likely, that Barthes considered it common knowledge. Thus, this revolutionary essay about the grandiose and intellectual significance of pro wrestling simply takes it as a given that, of course, in America the staged sport has obvious political meaning. So this kind of thinking was apparently old-hat then, before Barthes’ groundwork paved a formal pathway for critical theory to analyze pop cultural matters, and long before 21st-century pundits did their cursory “American politics is like wrestling” routines.7
Though Barthes’ framing, with its references to “representation” and a “mythological fight between Good and Evil”, certainly suggests a deeper dimension, most of his remarks, such as the one about “Red” wrestlers, stay on the surface level. The current researchers, when they titled this chapter “Wrestling Politics”, meant to suggest and investigate deeper concerns than simply, say, the gimmicks of the Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff. We have endeavored to explore the parallels between professional wrestling and modern democracy in terms of function, sleight-of-hand, and media manipulation, especially in regard to how the public is not only duped but trained to desire their own subversion. From his essay, it is clear that Barthes implicitly senses some of these parallels—such as they were at the time, in their more rudimentary fashion, in the “squalid Parisian halls”, never televised. But he seems less interested in researching methods of manipulation and more interested in celebrating wrestling as a spectacular “Human Comedy”8.
In the early 1960s, Barthes consulted on the production of a French-Canadian documentary called La Lutte. Initially the filmmakers planned to make an exposé on pro wrestling, using slow-motion to prove that the men in the ring did not really make full, brutal contact with each other, and that they fell in certain ways so as not to injure themselves. A chance encounter with Barthes convinced the directors to revise their outlook and showcase the raw spectacle of the wrestling scene instead. Michel Brault, one of the filmmakers, recalls Barthes reacting as follows once he learned that they planned to
expose the mechanics of wrestling. He got furious. He said, “What? Are you crazy? It’s as if you want to expose theatre—the people’s theatre, popular theatre—and you can’t expose that. It exists because people go see it. That’s the reason it exists. And that’s the beauty of wrestling. It’s an outlet for the crowd, and it demonstrates to the people how hard it is for right to overcome wrong. The good versus the bad. And you don’t tamper with that! You mustn’t destroy that!” And we got the message. So we changed course and made a film on what was happening, not what we thought should happen.9
The description of pro wrestling, in all its contrivance, as “an outlet for the crowd” recalls certain passages of Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley, the historian often lauded as “Bill Clinton’s mentor at Georgetown”. Quigley, informed by access to many institutional archives, including those of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that large financial firms had, by the mid-20th century, “infiltrate[d] […] political movements in the United States” with the purpose of providing the public “with a mouthpiece so that they could ‘blow off steam’” in harmless fashion.10 In this way any serious revolt against the power structure would be curtailed: the crowd energy dissipates safely, by proxy, as the people settle down to attend to the belligerent rants of ideological performers. While the establishment itself, in Quigley’s words, “was really above parties and was much more concerned with policies than with party victories”11, the plebs were distracted by small-time contests: “The struggle, in the minds of the ill-informed, had always been viewed as a struggle between Republicans and Democrats at the ballot box in November.”12 From these statements, the psychological correspondence between democracy-believers and wrestling marks could scarcely be clearer. The difference, of course, is that the stakes are far greater in the world of politics, and so a voting population with restricted and misdirected interests could eventually cause serious, civilizational problems.
Barthes considers the “outlet for the crowd” aspect of wrestling to be a highly positive function. In this assessment, he echoes the sentiments of most 20th-century wrestling stars and promoters, who placed strong emphasis on maintaining kayfabe when in public. But whereas those in the profession were “protecting the business” for themselves, Barthes wanted to maintain the illusion for the audience.
It is tempting to accuse Barthes of wanting the public to remain ignorant and gulled by lies. He sees through the deception himself but then constructs overblown theories as to why the people, for their own good, should remain childlike and uninformed. Recall that for Barthes wrestling was “the people’s theatre”, even though the people didn’t participate in it themselves. In many theoretical musings of this sort, the people becomes sacred, as a term, even if the theorist’s actual opinion or understanding of real people proves dubious. Did Roland Barthes, charming but aloof, really understand people? Did Marx? Can one even use the people as part of a formula without having first developed a skewed understanding of human nature? Like Jed Leland told Citizen Kane:
You talk about the people as though you own them, as though they belong to you. Goodness, long as I can remember, you’ve talked about giving the people their rights, as though if you could make them a present of liberty—as a reward for services rendered. Remember the working man? [...] You used to write an awful lot about the working man.
Similar chastisement could be brought against a theorist like Barthes, sweeping in his airiness, who suggests that the common people’s very understanding of “Justice” should and must rely upon a continued belief in silly falsities.
When we overlay these dynamics onto the political scene, we cannot help but notice a similarity between Barthes’ defense of the wrestling illusion and the calls—increasingly shrill—of many system bootlickers for everyone to keep believing in Their Democracy. When Barthes notes that “The public is completely uninterested in knowing whether the contest is rigged or not, and rightly so”13—many would debate him on the last point. Perhaps a good deal of our problems could be solved, or would never have arisen in the first place, if more people became interested in the extent to which the visible political scene was a disingenuous, stage-managed show. How can the alleged democracy even exist if significant portions of the public have been seriously, deliberately misled—have been trained to mislead themselves as well—and therefore cannot do otherwise than judge and vote under false pretenses?
But let’s not conflate things too much. The extended political themes are another matter, but Barthes for his part simply defends entertainment. Fine. Barthes was right to dissuade those Canadian filmmakers from ruining the fun. A painstaking exposé of wrestling would actually be boring. Imagine the pedantic pointing out of supposed rule violations. The La Lutte documentary ends with a defeated Russian heel, bloodied and angry, arguing to a backstage camera that he had been cheated of victory, that the referee had miscounted, that the opposing side should have been disqualified for throwing his head into the turnbuckle.14 It is almost like listening to a partisan complain about “stolen elections”—but we find it far more amusing, because we know that the wrestler only pretends to believe that the rules matter.
Indeed, Barthes is wrong to suggest that conscious awareness ruins one’s enjoyment of pro wrestling. Virtually all wrestling scholars, from Barthes himself in the ’50s to the hordes of anonymous experts found online today, have not only seen through the broad illusions but also learned to appreciate the skill involved in constructing them. On the other hand, the marks necessarily have a limited aesthetic scope. Observers who don’t know that the proceedings are a work (i.e. a planned spectacle made to look convincing) can value pro wrestling only in terms of wins, losses, and the performers’ raw athleticism. But the range of perceptible meaning expands dramatically once one acquires knowledge of the fakery involved: the productions reveal themselves to be highly detailed, multilayered performance art. Indeed, it seems that the more fakery one understands, the more one can enjoy the show, and the more impressive the show seems.
As is well known, wrestling’s popularity only grew after the business became significantly exposed in the mid-to-late-’90s. As usual, technology mandated cultural change: On 19 May 1996, a fan recorded a “curtain call” at an untelevised WWF event. Face and heel wrestlers were seen embracing each other and raising their arms together after a match, breaking kayfabe, letting everyone in attendance know that the “good guys” and “bad guys” were actually all friends who enjoyed working together and putting on an exhibition.15 Around the same time, internet message boards facilitated exchanges of inside information; smarks (“smart marks”) began collaborating, building arguments and making cases for how and why wrestling was stage-managed. The major promotions soon recalibrated their products to assume a more well-informed (or skeptical) audience; storylines began to play with the uncertainty of the reality being presented, and the wrestlers themselves became more prone to breaking character and going off-script16. The result was an unprecedented, unexpected surge in popularity. The masses were not babies who needed to be protected from the truth for their own good, as Barthes imagined, lest wrestling itself die from lack of interest. The most invested wrestling fans have always been those who knew the matches were works and critiqued them as such. Similarly, beyond a certain stage of democracy, the most politically-engaged citizens are the so-called conspiracy theorists, the people who constantly look for patterns that suggest behind-the-scenes activities, and who make sport of whether or not their president is in league with foreign powers (usually the Russians). Some of them may be the most delusional citizens as well, but they are absolutely the most engaged!
The ongoing refinement of entertainment, manipulation, and self-manipulation techniques ensures that the audience remains more amused than indignant in the face of ever-mounting fakery. Indeed the concession that “Of course it is fake” provides the media connoisseurs with many more considerations to roll over in their minds, keeping themselves interested even when the proceedings might repulse them at face value. You may remember Bill Maher, staunch atheist Democrat, excusing Obama’s church attendance and references to God. Maher’s coping contention ran along the lines of:
Of course Obama doesn’t really believe in any of that. He has to say it to keep some of his coalition on board. But he knows most of his supporters don’t agree with that religious stuff. Personally I hate it! But Obama gives us enough respect to know that we—the smart ones—can see through it and understand why he has to act that way. Don’t blame him! Blame the system!17
While such assessments are more or less correct, the arguments behind them blithely tilt toward a twisted approval of the situation. So often, oblique references to “the system”—or to corrupt hands covertly manipulating the scene—are only made in order to excuse the puppets. These lightning-rod frontmen must remain the primary focus of the discourse, no matter how far the rot has worked its way into the background structures of society. Actionable solutions could only arise after sustained, substantive denunciation of the entire political apparatus; and so the ruling two-headed regime, out of self-preservation, must always interrupt and spin critiques off to the right or left before they cut too close to the heart of the matter. The egoism of voters helps immensely in this regard. Rather than admit that his favorite candidates are nothing but whores who will do and say anything to get elected, the clever partisan will actually choose to admire their lack of integrity and scruples.
Such justifications for party loyalty differ only slightly from the tactics of smark pro-wrestling fans when they see obvious, sloppy, uninspired workmanship in the ring. Both groups maintain support for their favorite enterprises because the individuals involved have each put a great deal of their identity into them: it would be too painful to remove such personal investment. No matter how fake things get, the fakeness can be seen as a necessary element. “Of course politicians lie! They have to!”/“Of course wrestling’s fake! It would have to be fake!” From this lowered baseline position, once the big lies have been deemed acceptable and good, so many more fun considerations become possible. Sifting through the layers of reality and diagnosing the hidden motivations makes one feel like a wise insider. In addition to the increased media production techniques of all political content, these self-deceptions become their own game and provide their own pleasures. Simply arrange the assortment of artful lies in whichever way causes you to find the show most interesting and most gratifying to the ego.
Besides, real wrestling is, literally, un-American. So is real politics. So is real life. And the Frenchman looks at this hyperbolic reactor core of deceit, this disorienting falseness, and says the only bad part is that it’s American.
Case study: The greatest injustice… the greatest work?
The famous Montreal Screwjob incident of 9 November 1997, in which a referee made a bogus call to cost a champion his title, seems a clear example of the WWE (WWF at the time) breaking the trust of their audience and their talent. Bret Hart, the aggrieved party, went on to excoriate the company in media interviews for decades afterward.
But what if even that was staged? Some fans, who might otherwise have lost interest in the product after witnessing such injustice and malicious mismanagement, found themselves arguing, with passion and continued attention, that even the scandalous Screwjob was a work, that Hart and Vince McMahon had agreed upon this controversial finish. The underlying, telegraphed message of this theory conveys a sense of awe and appreciation for the care that went into this deception and for the self-control it has taken for the participants to maintain it. “Isn’t it amazing that they went to this extent and fooled almost everyone, still, to this day!”
We find this particular faction of somewhat paranoid smarks far more interesting than the marks, who simply blamed McMahon and kept watching anyway. Skeptics of the Screwjob are a complicated bunch. They suspect that they may have uncovered perhaps the greatest deception in wrestling history—a gigantic lie told to everyone. And yet rather than turn away from the product, they happily continue with it, taking pride in having possibly figured out one of the magicians’ greatest tricks, which everyone else just called “magic”. These few have seen through the great mystery that no one else even knew about, and still they remain entranced.
Montreal Screwjob “Truthers” place special emphasis on the camerawork of the event, studying it like it was the Zapruder film. Soon after the referee falsely indicates that the champ has tapped out, a disgusted Bret Hart rises, walks to the ropes, and spits a loogie right at Vince McMahon, hitting him in the eye. The WWF camera captures this so perfectly that, upon reflection, it seems too perfect.
Why was McMahon standing right there—literal spitting distance away, with no one obscuring the view—in the first place? If he needed to be present to ensure the ref’s dubious call, why did he remain there after the bell was rung? Further, how could the cameraman have panned over and caught McMahon’s face unless he knew beforehand that this was the plan? If it wasn’t planned, wouldn’t the cameraman’s natural reaction have been to hide—not zoom in on—the boss getting spit upon? But wait: Did Hart’s spit really hit McMahon exactly in the eye? Or did McMahon simply wipe his eye a moment later in order to sell an unforgettable, emotional moment? Extended footage shows some saliva—not necessarily Hart’s—on McMahon’s right temple. We never see the moment of impact. Did Hart’s spit really hit McMahon at all, or did McMahon plant some of his own spit a few inches from his eye—back and to the right—in order to sell the moment?
Even some pro wrestlers have taken this skeptical stance regarding the incident, and by doing so they smugly cast themselves as experts in-the-know. The late Scott Hall, for example, said that he remembered thinking at the time—and still thought decades later—that the Screwjob was a work:
Hall gave several explanations over the years18, but in the example above he points out that the WWF cameras focused on a frustrated Hart drawing the competitor’s initials (“W-C-W”) in the air after his loss. Hall believes that moment would not have been shown so prominently unless Vince McMahon himself had okayed it, in order to sell the screwjob as real (and thereby establishing himself as an on-screen villain). “Vince has been in the TV business his whole life,” Hall opines. “Nothing’s gonna happen without his consent.”19
The current researchers find it puzzling that the video footage immediately after the match seems to spotlight Hart, the loser, to such an extent. Normally the emphasis would have been on showing the new champion (Shawn Michaels).
Moreover, as the story goes, an apologetic McMahon sheepishly allowed Hart to uppercut him in the locker room later that night. Kevin Nash notes how suspicious it was that McMahon let himself be videoed looking shaken and disheveled as he staggered away afterward, thereby “selling the punch”. Eight days later, on WWF television, McMahon claimed to have “sustained a concussion as a result of it, with vision problems to this day.”20 Nash explains that “Anyone who knows Vince McMahon knows that Vince McMahon”, depending on the circumstances, will either downplay legitimate injuries or exaggerate questionable ones for the camera.21
While we’re at it: If Hart’s “WCW” signaling had been his own disrespectful idea, it seems more likely that after the show McMahon would have been irate, not contrite. If others witnessed a remorseful McMahon, as many said they did, that very well could have been kayfabe.
In a strange way, the incident proved to be the crowning moment of Bret Hart’s career. A fan-favorite wrestler whose family pedigree went back many decades in the industry, Hart had established himself as a gritty, high-level performer. A master on the technical level, he didn’t rely on cartoonishly large muscles or flamboyant antics. Rarely used as a heel, his actions and persona radiated a sense of integrity. A sort of salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar hero and the pride of his native Canada, Hart always seemed honored to have achieved what he did in the business; and he did his best to honor the business and its fans in return, giving his all to put on top-caliber matches. For McMahon to screw Bret Hart over and rob him of a championship belt was sure to elicit boos, but it also made Bret extremely sympathetic. In contrast to McMahon’s wickedness, Hart’s perceived righteousness skyrocketed at a critical moment for him. It’s often forgotten that for most of 1997, from late March on, Hart had been playing a heel. For many marks, Hart had become “the most despised man in the entire world”, due to his sudden penchant for sanctimonious moralizing and relentless America-bashing.22 Shaking the scolding villain persona would be necessary for Hart to make it as a babyface going forward. It’s important to note that he had already signed a deal with WCW and was expected to drop the WWF belt soon anyway, as was the custom when a reigning champion was leaving a company. Hart was destined to lose the title on his way out of the WWF, but the Screwjob allowed Hart to do so while (re)gaining an indelible reputation as the best guy in wrestling. If this exchange was indeed offered to Hart in advance, wouldn’t he have taken that deal and perhaps kept the kayfabe up forever, in reverence for proper business practices? Hart sure laid the indignation on thick, and McMahon gave him every opportunity to do so. Examining the proceedings and their aftermath in toto, it hardly looks like a “screwjob” at all. Bret Hart benefitted immensely, and he wasn’t the only one.
Keep in mind, too, that this controversy would go a long way toward putting McMahon over as an all-time-great heel. The television persona of “Mr. McMahon”, modeled almost exactly on himself, was becoming the major antagonist of the WWF’s “Attitude Era”. Each week on Monday Night Raw, a growing legion of fans would tune in to see McMahon feuding with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, who was becoming the promotion’s biggest star. Austin’s character was unruly and seemingly uncontrollable, to Mr. McMahon’s frustration and to the viewers’ delight. The “Attitude Era” featured an increase in shock factors, including violence and profanity, and—as more marks were smartening up—the audience’s interest was frequently predicated on the blurring of fantasy and reality. McMahon was playing a role on screen, but his role was much like his real job. Seasoned fans accurately interpreted Mr. McMahon screwing over Stone Cold on Raw as part of a scripted show, but many of these same people also believed Vince really had screwed over Bret Hart . . . even though from the television presentation alone there’s little (if anything) that would suggest the Montreal Screwjob was not a work as well. Insisting that the Screwjob was real could have been a way of getting one step ahead of the audience, forcibly suspending their disbelief again. McMahon even did an interview a week later on Raw (17 Nov 1997) in which he appeared to break kayfabe, discussed much of what happened in Montreal, responded to internet rumors, and issued the corporate line that “The referee did not screw Bret Hart. […] Nor did Vince McMahon screw Bret Hart. I truly believe that Bret Hart screwed Bret Hart.”23 In the context of Screwjob talking points, the various admissions (sometimes implicit) that wrestling programs were scripted only added believability to the claim that that time it wasn’t—so we better watch what happens next because anything can happen now.
Maybe it was a work, maybe it wasn’t. A slim majority of our researchers believe the Screwjob to have been unscripted, but we unanimously agree that it may as well have been fake. It seems unreal. At the time, a separate production crew was accompanying Hart in order to film a documentary (Wrestling with Shadows) on his career up to that point. We believe that these additional backstage cameras caused a strange insincerity to pervade the proceedings. Hart wore a hidden mic (and lied about it) before meeting privately with McMahon before the match. Everyone present that day was being videoed and recorded from multiple vantages, with and without their knowledge or permission. In this uneasy atmosphere, candidness and self-consciousness clashed in ways too complex for anyone to track accurately. Hart knew he was performing before two different companies’ cameras—the documentary crew’s and the WWF’s—each of which would register his words and actions differently. Under those conditions, even if he wanted to shoot, he was always working.24 He suspected the double-cross anyway, but did he premediate and embellish his reactions? Or was he in on it? Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t.
The important takeaway is to understand that the audience reacts in almost exactly the same way whether the presentation is candid or planned. Behind the scenes, of course, the mentalities of the performers and producers might matter a great deal: different outlooks and beliefs might result in radically different on-screen activities. But for a critical mass of the viewership, marks and smarks alike, emotional investment relies only on the surface-level goings-on, regardless of what they might think about its exact nature or origins.
The wrestling fans who thought the Montreal Screwjob was a work had almost the same degree of engagement as those who thought it was a shoot (i.e. a natural event). In fact, this curious balance held quite steady for the entire “Attitude Era”, which was popular across all demographics. The younger or more naïve fans (who tended to believe that wrestling was “real”) and the veteran enjoyers (who realized that the matches were largely scripted) approved of the proceedings to similar extents. This contrasts greatly with the situation in the previous era or two of WWF programming, which many smarks found too childish and gimmicky. Starting in the mid-’90s, however, the kids’ tastes were still simplistic, and the older connoisseurs possessed a refined palette, but both groups really liked consuming the same entertainment commodity they were being offered.
After the early-’00s, however, as the culture became more artificial and authenticity ran in short supply, the products tilted further into fakery. On 27 June 2011’s Raw, WWE star CM Punk delivered an infamous promo in which he complained about the company’s shortcomings at the time. Wearing a Stone Cold Steve Austin skull shirt, dressed like the disgruntled fan he was, Punk spoke openly about his poor treatment and the glass ceiling that limited his career prospects. The speech described reality, but it then became fodder for the show going forward. Punk improvised the words, but McMahon Inc. had allowed him to do so. Called a “worked shoot”, the incident proves that the overarching media infrastructure can assimilate all honest criticism into its production.25 There is no escape. There is no way to rebel, or even to be genuine, within this paradigm.26 The power of the cameras has become so great that everything in their vicinity seems contrived, and the permanence and commodification of the recordings will ensure that everything stays that way. Anything captured on video becomes another rewatchable moment that extends the mythology, even and especially if it tries to bring down the ruling pantheon. Within the modern media sphere, a would-be legend-slayer will inadvertently—by exposing their flaws—cause the old heroes and villains to become more fascinating, and perhaps even relatable and sympathetic. CM Punk’s plain-spoken excoriation of WWE only made business seem more transparent and “real” to viewers.
Post 2000, the increasing prevalence of the internet had turned smarks into the new marks. Everyone started thinking they knew everything, and the changing mindset of pro-wrestling audiences mirrored that of voters in late-stage democracy. Whether a voter really believes and endorses everything about his chosen candidate, or whether he makes conspiratorial excuses for disagreeable aspects of the candidate (“Obama doesn’t really support drone strikes; the CIA made him go along with that” or “Trump had to appoint Bolton but doesn’t really value him”), either way, the prevailing sociological impact is the same: They’re still voting. They’re still watching. They’re still invested in the system and caught up in the related reportage. The exposure of some layers of deception does not result in less engagement from the public—quite the opposite. The established air of uncertainty now serves the purpose of keeping smarks interested in the legacy product. They will debate minute nuances and hypothesize about hidden influences and motivations, when otherwise, in more honest times, they may well have gotten fed up with all the deception and left the ideological holding pen to create something better for themselves.
As often as not, the conspiracy theorists end up deceiving themselves, but even then their engagement will remain high. The individual wants to remain invested, and he will do whatever degree of theorizing is necessary—posit however much or however little fakery is required—for him to keep finding his heroes and villains believable enough.
Closing: Returning to the word, and other myths
This chapter has established and analyzed ideational correspondence between democratic politics and pro wrestling. The functioning of each sheds light on aspects of the other: the manipulation of crowds, the value of spectacle, the uncertain extent to which various aspects are “real” or planned beforehand. Moreover, both activities suggest that truth values and outside knowledge of deceit do not impede the choreographed proceedings. On the one hand, the true believers will swallow anything, and on the other, the insiders or news junkies have a good idea of how the sausages get made but eat them just the same.
As we have noted regarding the Montreal Screwjob, it is in particular the televised presentation that makes the “real or fake?” question more pressing, even as the true answer in any given case becomes less crucial. It is the questioning itself that matters. It is the very experience of the raw video, not anything behind it, that lights this fire in the audience’s heads. (After all, behind-the-scenes material is only interesting because it too is recorded.) While the spirit of pro wrestling is not exactly equivalent to that of American politics, we might say that it can, at its best, attain a sort of coequal position in terms of representing the prevailing mores and outlook of a people. Especially when its stature is augmented by mass media, pro-wrestling presentations can indeed serve as enactments of the passions and customs—totems and taboos—that register with the populace at any given time. The platform by its very nature finds success when it provides what the crowd wants to see and hear, whether to boo or cheer; and if it showcases something uncomfortable, it is because at that moment the people are ready to be made uncomfortable in that specific way, perhaps because an inchoate cultural truth is about to be confronted.
Thus, the two no-no word incidents described previously—one a planned skit, the other a blooper, but both deemed acceptable—evidence two instances when a large section of the public was ready for awkwardness. In each case, the awkwardness signaled that strange changes and new realizations were imminent. Booker T was not chastised for his slip. Vince McMahon was laughed at when he played the wigga. In neither case was the word condoned—not morally—even as the fandom and the management tacitly accepted its use, at least in those circumstances. The word had long been considered more than impolite, but something was changing as gangsta rap music had made the term more prevalent in the culture.
Then, after 2005, something changed again. It is as if, somewhere in the ether, one of the imps presiding over earthy affairs had a shock of recognition. A cursed word had nearly become commonplace and fair game for anyone, and this couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t be allowed. Too much potential would be lost. So right before the word started to seem almost meaningless, the imp flicked his finger and an opposite sociological motion ensued on the stage below. The word soon reached its full potential of great and terrible meaning: it became as unprintable and unutterable as the name of God in ancient religions.
Barthes’ wrestling essay was included in his Mythologies collection (1957). He designated pro wrestling as one of the “myths” of mid-twentieth-century culture, along with Albert Einstein’s brain, Greta Garbo’s face, plastic, toys, wine and milk, steak and chips, and other artifacts and institutions of pleasant postwar life.27 Each entry on the list receives its own essay in which Barthes muses about the subject matter in typically French, postmodern ways. These topics serve as myths not in the sense of false narratives but in the sense of notable signposts “in the account given of our contemporary circumstances”.28
The no-no word would certainly stand as such a “myth”, one carrying heavy significance for us presently. It is not as amusing or jaunty as most of the examples in Barthes’ book. We, in our time, do not consider the no-no word the way midcentury Frenchmen considered striptease or ornamental cookery, for example. The no-no word is not fun, at least not for most of us. In fact, it seems that the no-no word is beyond Voldemort, and people list it even above public speaking as their greatest fear. They do not want to hear it much less be caught saying it. Their life might be over even if they murmur it in their sleep and their phone somehow tattles on them. Today the public mind considers the no-no word a terrifying cataclysm always threatening to announce its presence and thereby ruin everything.
It is comparable only to the fear of nuclear war.
The British World of Sport programme on ITV began broadcasting wrestling in 1965. From what we can find, the first native wrestling show in France did not air until EWF debuted in 1988. (WWF shows were broadcast on Canal+ a few years earlier, however.) See <https://aminoapps.com/c/wrestling/page/blog/the-history-of-wrestling-in-france/nbHL_unDZlZ8DoNRa1WgVxQQl65g7w> and <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_wrestling_television_series>.
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. New York: Hill & Wang, (1957) 1972, p. 15.
Ibid., p. 16.
Ibid., p. 18.
Ibid., p. 19.
Ibid., p. 23.
For an expanded examination of the performative aspects of modern democracy—minus the allusions to wrestling—see The Political Illusion (1965) by Barthes’ contemporary, Jacques Ellul.
Barthes, p. 18.
Quigley, Carroll. Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time. New York: Macmillan, 1966, p. 938.
Ibid., p. 1244.
Ibid., p. 1246.
Barthes, p. 15.
A wonderful example of this occurred when wrestler Brian Pillman called out WCW’s booker—live, on mic—right after losing a match in 1996. WCW President Eric Bischoff fired Pillman the next day—but he did so because he thought Pillman would use the “loose canon” reputation to re-sign with the company soon afterward and to much fanfare. Instead Pillman found himself a high-status commodity, with other promotions suddenly very interested in them. So he signed with ECW, and then with WWF, and he did not return to WCW. This wonderful layering of reality and fantasy, and of fantasy becoming reality, with an air of danger permeating everything, was handled superbly by Pillman, who unfortunately died in 1997.
This quotation is a paraphrasing of something one of our researchers remembers hearing Bill Maher say on Real Time circa 2008.
Toward the end of the Dark Side of the Ring episode on the Screwjob (S1 E2), Hall reiterates that he always thought it was “a total work. Everybody was in on it, and they all did it together.”
This quote comes from Hall’s contributions to The Dark Side of the Ring S1 E2.
It’s these sorts of conditions that, in more recent years, have led the most skeptical onlookers to suspect that everyone in the media is an actor playing a carefully prescribed role. They even think that interviewees on news programs must use pseudonyms and read from scripts. The “crisis actor” delusion can often be explained by a simple tendency: the more cameras, the less perceptible authenticity. The more coverage a person receives within an environment saturated by media and mediated experiences, the more difficult it becomes for that person to appear nonchalant and honest, especially in the eyes of political enemies.
While revising this essay, history repeated and CM Punk criticized All Elite Wrestling, the promotion that currently has him under contract. A week later it was revealed that “AEW management”, including president Tony Khan, had “approved CM Punk’s slamming comments”—he had not “gone rogue” after all (https://itrwrestling.com/news/live-updates-june-19-2023/).
The phenomenon here resembles that of a young John Lydon complaining that rock ’n’ roll had become “too much like a structure, a church”—only for the Sex Pistols to be canonized as part of the same establishment.
One of our researchers, in his book Warhol/Chris Chan, put forward Andy Warhol’s sexuality as a similar cultural myth.
Barthes, p. 11.