So Why Wrestling?
Jan. 31st, 2002 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bryantDamifino.
I'll say this, though; there aren't very many forms of entertainment which appeal to me on as many levels as wrestling. When I watch a match in a ring, I get to think about it in all kinds of ways.
First off, it's acting. No, it's not the same kind of acting as you see in movies; yes, wrestlers seem to make lousy movie stars. I wouldn't ask a mime to star in my next Hollywood blockbuster, either. Wrestlers have the job of making fans feel like they're watching a real match, and that is not even remotely easy. When you flip past the WWF on television, it looks like the audience is a bunch of idiots who'd cheer anything. Believe me when I say they won't. It is not as easy as it looks to engage the emotions of a bunch of people who know full well it's not real. I've seen two wrestlers go out there with all the hype in the world behind them and cause the arena to fall silent within a minute. Not pleasant.
The comparison to mime wasn't accidental. These guys do get to speak, but in the ring, they're communicating with their bodies. They need to get across a story with their actions alone. If the script calls for a wrestler to be a coward, he's got to show that through every movement in the ring. If his opponent is supposed to be working over his shoulder, he's got to show that; he's got to make sure the audience knows he's in pain. If he's a plucky guy who can come back from huge punishment, well, he's gotta show that.
All the while, he's doing stuff you'd normally use a stuntman for. Doing a backflip off a turnbuckle without hurting yourself or the person you land on isn't actually all that easy. Heck, picking someone up by the throat and slamming them to the ground without hurting them isn't a piece of cake either. I should also perhaps mention that matches aren't rigidly scripted; the wrestlers go into the ring knowing how long they have to work, and what the desired outcome is, and maybe a couple of spots choreographed to go off during the match. But most of the back and forth is ad libbed.
So: there's the acting, which is complex and fascinating once you learn to understand what you're looking at. There's also the physical wonder of what these guys do, night in and night out. Two levels, probably the most important.
(Oh -- I meant to note, parenthetically, that Hulk Hogan sucked at both these levels. Which is a real pity, because he shaped a lot of what people thought the WWF was, back in the 80s. I dunno what to say. It's sort of as if your first exposure to movies was Jaws IV. An awful thing to have happen.)
The stories told inside the ring tie into the long term stories, as well. The writers don't say "Hey, be a plucky good guy," and leave it at that -- ideally, that's going to be part of an ongoing story. Maybe the bad guy keeps beating you down until you finally get your revenge. Maybe you aren't in the bad guy's class, but you're gonna save his real competition from some cheat he tries somewhere down the line. None of this is great literature, but it's there.
And, to tell the truth, I appreciate it more on the level of thinking about how it's crafted than the story itself. Oh, sure, I wanna know if the Rock gets his vengeance on the Undertaker, but I'm more interested in thinking about why the writers are building the story the way they are. It's a blast trying to out think them and guess what we'll see next. It's probably even more fun bitching about it when you think they get it wrong.
Behind the writing, of course, lurks the politics. I follow the backstage stuff as assiduously as I do the stuff we see on TV, at least as much as I can. Hm, my favorite wrestler is getting buried for no good reason... but that meshes with the story I read on the Internet last week! Neat. The behind the scenes soap opera is just as interesting as the stuff they put on TV.
But in the end, for me, it comes back to the endless drama of two men interacting in the ring. When it all comes down to the bottom line, you have two men putting their bodies on the line to entertain people. You have ten, twenty, thirty minutes of competition at the most primal level. When I'm watching the good stuff, I do forget that I'm watching something that's scripted, and I'm as cynical as anyone I know. I don't know of any better way to explain it than that.
The best wrestlers believe that what they do is an art, and I don't think I'm in any position to tell them that they are not artists.
I'll say this, though; there aren't very many forms of entertainment which appeal to me on as many levels as wrestling. When I watch a match in a ring, I get to think about it in all kinds of ways.
First off, it's acting. No, it's not the same kind of acting as you see in movies; yes, wrestlers seem to make lousy movie stars. I wouldn't ask a mime to star in my next Hollywood blockbuster, either. Wrestlers have the job of making fans feel like they're watching a real match, and that is not even remotely easy. When you flip past the WWF on television, it looks like the audience is a bunch of idiots who'd cheer anything. Believe me when I say they won't. It is not as easy as it looks to engage the emotions of a bunch of people who know full well it's not real. I've seen two wrestlers go out there with all the hype in the world behind them and cause the arena to fall silent within a minute. Not pleasant.
The comparison to mime wasn't accidental. These guys do get to speak, but in the ring, they're communicating with their bodies. They need to get across a story with their actions alone. If the script calls for a wrestler to be a coward, he's got to show that through every movement in the ring. If his opponent is supposed to be working over his shoulder, he's got to show that; he's got to make sure the audience knows he's in pain. If he's a plucky guy who can come back from huge punishment, well, he's gotta show that.
All the while, he's doing stuff you'd normally use a stuntman for. Doing a backflip off a turnbuckle without hurting yourself or the person you land on isn't actually all that easy. Heck, picking someone up by the throat and slamming them to the ground without hurting them isn't a piece of cake either. I should also perhaps mention that matches aren't rigidly scripted; the wrestlers go into the ring knowing how long they have to work, and what the desired outcome is, and maybe a couple of spots choreographed to go off during the match. But most of the back and forth is ad libbed.
So: there's the acting, which is complex and fascinating once you learn to understand what you're looking at. There's also the physical wonder of what these guys do, night in and night out. Two levels, probably the most important.
(Oh -- I meant to note, parenthetically, that Hulk Hogan sucked at both these levels. Which is a real pity, because he shaped a lot of what people thought the WWF was, back in the 80s. I dunno what to say. It's sort of as if your first exposure to movies was Jaws IV. An awful thing to have happen.)
The stories told inside the ring tie into the long term stories, as well. The writers don't say "Hey, be a plucky good guy," and leave it at that -- ideally, that's going to be part of an ongoing story. Maybe the bad guy keeps beating you down until you finally get your revenge. Maybe you aren't in the bad guy's class, but you're gonna save his real competition from some cheat he tries somewhere down the line. None of this is great literature, but it's there.
And, to tell the truth, I appreciate it more on the level of thinking about how it's crafted than the story itself. Oh, sure, I wanna know if the Rock gets his vengeance on the Undertaker, but I'm more interested in thinking about why the writers are building the story the way they are. It's a blast trying to out think them and guess what we'll see next. It's probably even more fun bitching about it when you think they get it wrong.
Behind the writing, of course, lurks the politics. I follow the backstage stuff as assiduously as I do the stuff we see on TV, at least as much as I can. Hm, my favorite wrestler is getting buried for no good reason... but that meshes with the story I read on the Internet last week! Neat. The behind the scenes soap opera is just as interesting as the stuff they put on TV.
But in the end, for me, it comes back to the endless drama of two men interacting in the ring. When it all comes down to the bottom line, you have two men putting their bodies on the line to entertain people. You have ten, twenty, thirty minutes of competition at the most primal level. When I'm watching the good stuff, I do forget that I'm watching something that's scripted, and I'm as cynical as anyone I know. I don't know of any better way to explain it than that.
The best wrestlers believe that what they do is an art, and I don't think I'm in any position to tell them that they are not artists.
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Art
Date: 2002-02-01 08:13 am (UTC)--
Carl
no subject
Date: 2002-02-02 10:17 pm (UTC)Think about that, guys, next time you laugh at women watching soap operas. ;)
no subject
Date: 2002-02-02 10:33 pm (UTC)Yeah, I guess soap operas. Except with the addition of back stage real world politics, and the athletic element, and the completely different style of acting, and the live audiences, and without the daily shows, and without the same quality of storylines...
You know, I think that's probably not a fair comparison for soap operas or wrestling.