Long before Kevin Federline graced the wrestling world with his presence and reminded us that a lucrative career can be achieved with just a handful of dreams and a white-trash soon-to-be ex-wife who likes to feel the wind in her hair, mainstream celebrities have been appearing on WWE television. And while a number of these stars have been adventurous enough to try something more than the standard three T’s of celebrity appearance (teeth, tits and too drunk to care) the vast majority seem completely lost in front of a camera without the benefit of re-takes and appear unable to perform at a similar level to, supposedly, nothing more than meatheads and bimbos. But then if Vince were looking for anything other than the kudos of having someone famous from outside of his protected organisation on the shows then he would probably require that they audition first. An unthinkable occurrence as the situation currently stands. So if both wrestling and non-wrestling entertainers view the other as less than (for precisely the same reason) then why can’t they just fester their hatred from afar and spare fans from seeing two grinning dorks making Jackasses of themselves and the industry we respect. Actually, there’s no point in waiting until the final paragraph to answer that one ... it’s money isn’t it. Well that was easy. What do I do now? I’ve only written 235 words and I’m finished. I know, I’ll go off on one.
As it relates to the entertainment industry, I hate celebrities. For me, there is a tangible distinction between artists (who have talent) and celebrities (who seek fame) and it is the public’s inability or reluctance to discern between the two that is causing art to become meaningless as a creative process in the modern world. The music scene is flooded with bland, soulless smiley-faces that rely on computer enhancement and backing tracks to cover the fact that they can’t sing, can’t play an instrument and don’t have the depth, let alone the capacity, to write a song. The film industry is monopolised by massive corporate studios that have ceded to every facet of commercialism to the point where movies are sanitised and de-clawed in the fear that some tiny challenge to an audiences comfortable perception of life will result in the company being held responsible for the breakdown of our society’s fragile civility. Television has determined that the standard human psyche is predisposed for hatred so, rather than enliven, it over-feeds people’s already obese minds with repeated examples of the worst excesses imaginable. Nasty talent show judges, one-dimensional reality contestants, fear-mongering news channels, occupations ‘from hell’, when anything ‘goes bad’, secrets ‘revealed’ ... anything to fuel the viewer’s insatiable appetite for vicarious admonition. And what has lead us to this precipice of plasticity? Control. Craftsmanship is founded in introspection, the willingness to succumb totally to the pursuit of artistic refinement. The last thing a music label executive or a film studio boss needs is a performer who doesn’t care how long it takes to create a song or whether the movie hits the cinemas before Christmas, just so long as it is as close to an encapsulation of their creative intention as possible. So the media moguls break the process down into manageable pieces and give as few of these as they can to the performer that will front the idea. In fact, once the product has gone through the factory and emerged nearly a finished concept the only thing left is to find a pretty face with a fit body and the confidence to carry the item off as if it were their own. If art doesn’t come from the soul, it is worthless.
With wrestling, it’s a little different. I’m all in favour of proper wrestling matches that contain a competitive psychology but there really isn’t a requirement for every WWE performer to be a surly mat technician and colourful characterisations are as much a viable part of the fabric of sports entertainment as anything else. Granted, the physical limitations of these performers hopefully shouldn’t be such that they can’t execute the fundamental machinations of pro-wrestling (Khali, Heidenreich) but some leeway should be given to those who do the basics and fill in the blanks with charisma and chatter. It only becomes an issue, with regard to individuals, when a performer goes into a slump but their popularity stays high. As much as every wrestler wants to be pushed, it is equally applicable that at times wrestlers need to be safeguarded from the ‘superhero’ expectations made of them by fans. Take Batista. Before the injury last year Batista was wrestling as good as he ever had previously, seemed so much more comfortable with his laid back persona and was the lead babyface on Smackdown and World heavyweight champion. After the injury and his subsequent return to the show and to the position of champion, The Animal appears to have lost a lot of the surety he had about his own performance and has resorted to playing it safe for fear of being exposed. This probably could have been avoided if Batista had been brought back into the US title race and worked through his suspicions away from the glare of the main event but other injuries and a depleted full-time roster has meant he must shake off his ring-rust at the top of the card. Whilst not a threat to life or livelihood (yet), a performer’s confidence in their own abilities is the foundation of execution and any self-doubt or second-guessing in someone that powerful could be potentially very dangerous if allowed to continue.
The problem really lies in the creative departments, especially when the tail starts to wag the dog and a reliance on ideas aimed at the mainstream takes precedence over that which has an esoteric appeal to its target audience. There’s no reason why both general audiences and wrestling fans can’t benefit from angles involving pop culture figures, like Tyson/Austin/DX in 1998, as long as the differences between the two aren’t spotlighted. Wrestling requests that it is rated with some equal standing in comparison to the other, more popular, performing arts and that doesn’t look likely in today’s society. It is noticeable that wrestling has progressed in the mainstream from the days when it was considered a branch of entertainment falling somewhere between conjuring and paedophilia but it must also stick in Vince McMahon’s craw that the show on which Cena initially FU’d Federline was, on one channel, inaccurately referred to as “WWF Smackdown”. Conversely, the media at large wants to regard pro-wrestling as a clichéd niche market so that it protects itself from appearing to be attached to the business, which would undermine its plausibility. The best marriage of the two appears to happen when wrestling is allowed to take itself seriously and the invited celebrity just goes with the flow and has fun with it. Although not the most successful instance I can recall, William Shatner’s over the top interactions with Lawler and Bret Hart in 1995 seems about the correct balance of importance and the ridiculous. As much as I enjoyed the Lawrence Taylor/Bam Bam Bigelow match at Wrestlemania XI it is worth remembering that during the press conferences before and after the event the mainstream press had already concluded that the former NFL star was forgetting his allegiance to ‘real’ sports and adopted a derisory tone when asking him any questions. And this was way before Vince finally blackballed himself from any corporate association with US football thanks to the XFL idea. At least now we don’t have to guess how other environments will react when pro-wrestling encroaches into their territories.
If you want to see how the cult of celebrity has diluted the WWE from within its own world then you should look no further than Vince’s answer to talent shows ... (the slightly defunct) Tough enough and (the disappointingly active) Diva search. But first, a brief reality check (I’m quoting the Miz now?). These structured, self-contained processes will NEVER replace feeder promotions and talent scouting as a way to develop new wrestlers and any suggestion that they ‘threaten the future of pro-wrestling’ is merely exasperation that valuable tv time is devoted to them. The trick with shows like Pop/American idol is to bypass the creative stage and allow the audience to become acclimatised to potential stars without the svengalis having to make definitive decisions about how they are packaged, which could alienate a demographic group before their ‘talents’ are assessed by the public. In much the same way, the WWE reality concepts expose the underlying characteristics of the contestants so fans can determine whether they like or dislike someone without all that messing about coming up with a gimmick or an aesthetic image. God, the idea works so well that fans even cheered for a plank like Daniel Puder, until they realised what a charmless git he was. As for the Diva search, the only real shame is that the mystique is taken out of the process when it is exposed. Like it or not, with the exception of being televised and grouping the women together into a line up, the Diva search is no different to the way in which the WWE acquired the services of Trish Stratus, whom most people would argue went from fitness model to the greatest women’s champion in history. True, if this was the only way that female performers were recruited then you’d end up with a women’s division that was permanently two to three years away from being as technically accomplished as it should be but there has been a steady stream of skilled wrestlers coming from various sources that will elevate the workrate and inspire the non-workers to train harder and aim higher. Something that has probably brought about the recent dearth of underwear/bikini related segments over the last six months or so. But ultimately how it affects the way new stars are found isn’t the issue. Reality television is a cancer because it kills the answer just for the thrill of revealing the question. If anything, the WWE’s sporadic reliance on the reality format is less of an insult to our intelligence and more likely, despite reasonable hope, a sign that there is still a large cross section of the audience that chases after the stick simply because it is thrown.
The reason why I made a conclusion in the first paragraph is because it’s a waste of time for me to prattle on for 1,756 words just to arrive at such an obvious statement. Likewise it was fairly redundant because there looks like no cessation in sight to this love affair between Vince and anyone vaguely famous. In truth, money is the basic motivation for this bizarre relationship but there is some subtext. For the WWE to be accepted by the mainstream as a division of entertainment on a level with singing and acting requires legitimacy from its contemporaries and personal appearances are the only way to achieve this. From the celebrity’s perspective, any publicity is good publicity no matter how cheaply attained and, even though associating with wrestling rarely enhances a performer’s credibility, a largely judgmental public should be ready to forgive in a few short months (about half as long as it takes to socially pardon an adulterer or a cocaine addict). In the end, the biggest whore on the street isn’t the one that buys sex or even the one that offers sex in exchange for money. The real whore is the one that pays money to watch them do it but doesn’t benefit from the experience. But then if people enjoy that kind of thing, why should anyone spoil their fun?
Lee
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