WWE Wrestling: helping us feel good about humiliation
WWE is well known for its stage matches, contrived rivalries, and sensational storylines. But Chris Benoit murdering has family and then committing suicide forced WWE to go easy on the melodrama for a week. It also gives some clear insight into the psychology of why such chest-beating, body-slamming, rage-filled theatrics are so popular.
Just before Benoit’s murder-suicide, WWE had been airing a storyline in which “Mr. McMahon,” the owner of WWE, had been burned to death when his limousine exploded. This was, of course, just play theatrics; there was nothing on the news about him really dying. This storyline was officially broken off after the Benoit tragedy when Vince McMahon himself appeared on TV to clear things up.
This shows how even for people who watch shows with a violent premise, there is a line we don’t like crossing. After all, WWE isn’t just fake wrestling; there’s a lot more drama added. The make-believe stunts—wrestlers punching and slamming each other, smashing chairs over each other’s heads, even murder stunts like “Mr. McMahon” being blown up—are tolerable, because in reality nobody gets hurt. Our souls can rest assured that what we watch on WWE is safe, and that we are not delighting in someone else’s suffering.
That’s why WWE wrestling and other violent media (like the popular video game Grand Theft Auto, for example) are so popular; we can drop our guilt and freely get enjoyment out of colossally bloody drama. We’re free of our conscience.
Am I calling for censorship? No. But I am saying that I don’t believe this is a very sound way to enjoy oneself. Instead of looking for things to enjoy that involve no guilt at all, watching simulated violence actually is a dangerous recipe for desensitization, in my opinion. After all, when somebody is brutally assaulted or murdered on WWE or Grand Theft Auto, we don’t have to deal with the children who just lost a parent, the grieving friends and siblings of the victim, the lawsuits over the person’s possessions, the social repercussions caused by the loss of the person. We lose respect for the harm even a simple insult can cause, let alone a violent assault.
It may only be a matter of time before simulated rape is in vogue in the mainstream (without necessarily showing the offending parts). It’s already pretty common in pornography, which is pretty easy to obtain these days. And we wonder why kids are getting vulgar at ever-earlier ages? Deep down we know. That’s why when Janet Jackson’s costume accidentally came loose at the Superbowl in 2004 and revealed a bare breast, the media went nuts. Of course, a 5 second slip of a bare breast must be way more corrupting than an hour of RAW…right? Please. Most of us want to solve this problem, but we’re looking in the wrong places.
The answer is obvious to me: don’t glorify things that cause real misery and destruction, even if it’s make-believe. Because it really isn’t make-believe.
Netscape
StumbleUpon
BlinkList
Furl
ma.gnolia
Netvouz
Newsvine
RawSugar
Spurl
Squidoo
