Hi all, welcome once again to a weekly rambling oftentimes about WWE, sometimes non-sensical and always about wrestling. A TV based offering this week, asking just what affect has reality TV shows had on wrestling and what impact could it have for the future of the industry?
Quite possibly the biggest television influence of the last ten years has been the reality format. It started out over two generations ago as documentaries about real people, the jobs they do or the day to day grind of their real lives, something celebrities were never seen to be a part of. These stars were often considered the Working Class Hero or Average Joe that previously never got to be a part of an industry dominated by trained performers and actors. Over forty years ago an innovative new project began in the UK entitled "7Up", which chartered the lifestyles of a number of seven year old children from a variety of backgrounds based on wealth, social standing and family circumstances. On their own it was an interesting snapshot into the class system's affect on family life, but it was the continuation of the project with the same people every seven years thereafter with "14Up", "21Up", "28Up" and so forth that showed a sense of progression of events for the first time and an attachment to real life characters as opposed to fictional ones, albeit at an incredibly slow pace!
Fast forward to the 1990's and the "Docusoap", a documentary that was properly serialised like a Soap Opera, became the fashionable thing. It had been done before, but never with such a focus on the individual personalities of the central figures and how they coped with what was thrown at them. Memorable personalities even became overnight celebrities for a period just for doing their jobs in front of a camera! It wasn't long either before one bright spark came up with the idea of a game show based on the audience's love for individual personalities over others, and the phenomenon of Big Brother was born. Contestants live together in a house with their every move recorded 24/7 and the winner is the one whose personality traits allowed them to deal with the scenarios within the house in what was perceived to be the most favourable or entertaining way by the viewing audience. Much fortune and possibly fame would then follow. Since then yet more reality shows have popped up where the human endeavour of the ordinary men and women participating is key to the show's success.
The evolution of reality shows relies ultimately on a very simple concept often used by professional wrestling writers, they allow the natural quirks and foibles influenced by their character's personality to come to the fore and create a connection with the viewers at home. In the words of Vince McMahon, they make you "…care about the characters".
So what about wrestling? It's entertainment with a sporting theme, but does it present itself in the form of an ongoing Soap Opera or a Reality Show? It wasn't long ago the answer was obviously a Soap Opera, but now I'm not so sure as changes in the WWE presentation style have added much more of a Reality twist.
These days Reality Shows and Soap Operas have an awful lot in common. Both have writers that create scenarios for the respective protagonists and antagonists to react to and overcome. Both will focus on their character's initial response to the new problem and both will do their utmost to illicit very clear and opposite emotions from both the characters involved (depending on whether the writers want them to be liked or not) and the viewing audience as well. It has become common practice for reality shows to treat their contestants like they are a Soap Opera with no word-for-word script and in many respects that is now the only real difference between the two styles – Soap Operas use actors and tell them what to say whilst Reality Shows use ordinary people and just let whatever happens happen.
In many interviews discussing successes and failures within the industry, it has often been mentioned that WWE characters that tend to make the greatest impact on the viewing audience are the ones that are simply amplifications of the real life persona behind them. So does that mean that to a point they use real people? Specific matches are not necessarily planned exactly from spot to spot, so does that mean that the matches are influenced by the dynamic and ultimately to some extent unknown reactions that the characters can give? On the other hand of course the last couple of years have started to see more things within WWE scripted particularly any microphone work, promos and backstage segments. But they have had occasions where everything that's been said is 100% real. Joey Style's shoot when he quit Raw, Mick Foley and Ric Flair's promos together, not to mention of course Matt Hardy and Edge. These were just some of the most talked about moments in the WWE over the last couple of years and they took real emotions and reactions and put them on screen for our entertainment. Here it was reality TV through and through.
On reflection it seems like the WWE have good reasoning to make this shift in presentation style and I have a theory that it is all down to tradition. You see back when the backstage of the wrestling world was closed to the public the concept of "kayfabe" (a term supposedly used to mean to be in character) was very important both in maintaining the believability of wrestling (when it was perceived to be real) and keeping the private lives of the wrestlers private. But with internet news sites, the admission that wrestling is fake out in the open and a need to keep viewers entertained like never before how to keep people interested? Good matches as we know only makes up so much of a modern day wrestling show and so there needs to be something exciting outside of the ring also. This appears to be what they have come up with and I think it's a fantastic idea, possibly the most exciting change in wrestling since the Attitude Era was born and in my opinion if used effectively could be the trigger to the next boom in popularity in wrestling.
By blurring the line between fiction and reality and allowing real life situations to influence what goes on in front of the camera, does wrestling become by definition a Reality Show? Other reality shows have scriptwriters and producers that can manipulate circumstances to give one character a favourable position over another, so there is nothing wrong with the continued pre-determination of results and so forth, and the idea that events in wrestler's lives that occur 24/7 could end up as part of a key event on WWE programming brings back the unpredictability and illusion of kayfabe, a concept that some traditionalists have long been keen on reviving. After all if your actions all day every day can influence your character's actions, are you not permanently your character and therefore in kayfabe?
So where does that mean the WWE is headed in terms of continued presentation style? Will we continue to see an extension of the part-shoot-part-work feel that their website currently gives? Will storylines get edgier as everything we hear about wrestlers, their private lives and their friendships with each other and so on be acted out and resolved in the ring? What impact does that have on the wrestler's themselves? Will they have cameras following their every movement 24/7? Is every interview and every public appearance they make subject to an advancement in their latest storyline? Will they have to be comfortable with the idea that their lives are now open not just to public scrutiny but also to the manipulation of the WWE scriptwriters? In which case you have to ask WWE a question, are they doing this because it's the next step in the evolution of entertainment in wrestling or are they just doing it to try and get one over on the otherwise fairly knowledgeable internet fan? More worryingly, does Kurt Angle's recent allegations of the WWE "owning you" as a contracted talent take on a whole new literal and far more sinister meaning?
Just a thought…
"Just A Thought…" tries to think about the impact professional wrestling has on the lives of those associated with it at all the different levels. Please feel free to send any thoughts about this column, good bad or indifferent to stuart_black@hotmail.com. I will do my best to get back to you, particularly if you get me thinking myself, but even if you don't.
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