And I finally bring Pro Wrestling to the blog...

Interesting post on a blog run by Scott Keith, the online writer who did a good deal to shape my understanding of one of my high school obsessions, the WWF(now WWE) and the pro-wrestling business.

The basic storyline is that during the Gulf War, Sgt. Slaughter:



betrayed his army roots and his country, and aligned himself with General Adnan, who was the heel embodiment of the Iraqi army and Saddam Hussein:



In doing so, he underhandedly won the WW(F)E world title from the Ultimate Warrior :



at the Royal Rumble. This set the table for a showdown between All American Male Hulk Hogan:



At biggest show in pro wrestling, Wrestlemania:



So, basically at the time, the WWF put the politics of the Gulf War in to the simplified morality tale of pro wrestling, good versus evil, face versus heel. Sgt. Slaughter was a literal trader who denounced America and took up the Iraqi flag. If Ann Coulter had been around back then, she would have called him a liberal. There were some very heavy undertones to the storyline, which has come to be seen by some as a black eye on the company's history and reputation, eventhough the WWF promoted it as one of the highest selling pay-per-views at the time.

The tone of the angle was one of an "aggressive" streak of patriotism that one would expect to find in a Casey Nethercott, not a highly successful entertainment show aimed at kids and teenagers. Though of course, there have been arguemtns that the overall message of the WWE is a conservative one. I haven't really watched much since 2001, but the bits and pieces that I have seen seems to indicate that the WWE does still create a moral world that is largely based on many conservative archetypes and norms.

From what I've vaguely gathered, the WWE has run storylines based around terrorism that bring up a lot of questions about racial representation in the media.It's hard to tell whether this is an expression of what the writers actuall think about minority characters and the politics of global conflict or if it is just an indictation of what the witers think will sell to the public and their fanbase. Either way, it's hard to deny that the lessons of the spectacle that is pro wrestling can wade into some pretty iffy territory, especially when considering the potential power it has to normalize notions. After all, it is it's own mythology.