nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,732
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Post by nisidhe on Mar 2, 2019 13:50:33 GMT -5
the premature deaths added a lot to the stigma On the contrary - if anything, the media focus on premature deaths in pro wrestling brought about a new, if grudging, respect for the sacrifices wrestlers make for the craft and a broader mainstream appreciation for wrestling as an art form. I don't know, though - the article seemed to rub me the wrong way, as if anyone out there needed to be instructed about what pro wrestling is and why this thing of ours is a thing, a full ten years after Aronofsky's _The Wrestler_ came out and we were still wringing our collective hands after the Benoit tragedy and its aftermath. Pesky kids, sitting on my lawn.
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Post by Hit Girl on Mar 2, 2019 15:50:36 GMT -5
Promoters make it easy for wrestling to be seen as low brow shit by booking low brow shit,
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Post by Prince Petty on Mar 3, 2019 4:53:13 GMT -5
Wrestling just doesn't fit into any accepted niches, for a lot of people.
If it's treated as a serious sport, then a lot of people sneer that it's fake. If it's treated as pure entertainment, then a lot of people sneer that it's trying to be a sport. We all like to put things in boxes, so we can clearly identify 'oh, this belongs there, with those things', and wrestling just doesn't really fit any of them.
The fighting is fake, the athleticism is real, the acting and plots are generally pretty bad. Unless people are prepared to take wrestling as a thing, in and of itself, then a lot of them will always reject it out of hand.
Sure, kayfabe has never helped matters, and plays into the (often valid) view that the business is sleazy and dishonest. The Attitude Era still plays large in the minds of a lot of people, who think it's about car crash, shock TV - Violence and sex (though to be honest, it's usually not the violence that people object to) and cheap, tawdry storylines that exploit real life events.
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Post by Tea & Crumpets on Mar 3, 2019 6:08:04 GMT -5
The Guardian loves pushing the classism argument on things, amusing considering it is itself a very 'liberal metropolitan elite' newspaper. But to be fair I'm not entirely convinced it's wrong here- I'm not working class myself but I think wrestling at least in the UK does still sit in that "Weekend at Butlins" sort of perception of being lowbrow, corny, circus sideshow, for children, or whatever other negative perceptions you want to throw at it. The only wrestling to be on a main UK network in the last 30 years was the horribly campy World of Sport reboot which SCREAMED Butlins, screamed produced by someone who has never watched wrestling in their lives but has heard about it. Other than that, it was Celebrity Wrestling, which was so unspeakably bad it makes a compelling argument for USSR-style media revisionism.
I can't speak for the USA but as an outsider the vibe I've always gotten is that wrestling is seen in a patronising 'you know it's fake right?' way over there as well and that wrestling fans are similarly looked down on, albeit perhaps more as an intellectual/artistic snobbery thing than cultural snobbery.
I don't think staying 100% in character in chatshows etc. is smart, you can get away with some level of keeping character if you did some meta-PR stunt to hype a PPV but even then it would probably come off as carny to outsiders- but then again Conor McGregor and Tyson Fury and others in boxing and MMA get away with those sorts of stupid stunts all the time. But the more hokey gimmicks, yeah forget that. But I don't think abandoning kayfabe entirely and having wrestlers openly discuss how they stage matches or stories coming up is smart either, because wrestling ISN'T the same as any other TV show either. Actors in plays may not do interviews as their stage character but they also don't come out during the interval breaking character or start talking to the audience during the performance, while wrestling is and has always been FAR more interactive with the live-crowd. And keeping the conceit of reality, maintaining the illusion, is also a huge part of keeping investment- There's a reason Russo's "That's fake bro but this is real bro" stuff kils interest, there's a reason The Elite's weird "3 levels of kayfabe breaking" style alienates a lot of people, there's a reason Ronda's current twitter game is tanking WWE's hottest feud.
Wrestling isn't the same as another TV show, or theatre, or sports, it's 100% its own unique beast and genre unto itself which is why you can get so many varieties OF wrestling from Lucha Underground's supernatural telenovela style to NJPW's live-action sports anime to DDT's comedy wrestling to Bar's edgy-ironic-hipster wrestling to CHIKARA's live action comic-book to WWE's mishmash of sports, soap opera, and occasionally pantomime. It's part improv theatre, part choreographed gymnastics, and part magic show, it's entirely it's own genre and I've personally found that people outside the wrestling bubble cannot accept wrestling unless and until they get this. You can't watch it like you would any of the constituent elements it draws on because it is entirely its own thing. But I definitely think that in the UK, even if the mainstream media is slow in recognising it, wrestling is shifting massively more into the public eye, but more from the British indy boom than from Paige. Its pushing up from the bottom not being pulled up from the top, and it is so much more mainstream acceptable to be a wrestling fan here now than it was 10-15 years ago. And films like The Wrestler, or Fighting, will definitely help those outside the bubble to understand why those of us in it love it, because wrestling fans sure can suck at selling wrestling as fun given how much we complain.
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Bo Rida
Fry's dog Seymour
Pulled one over on everyone. Got away with it, this time.
Posts: 23,664
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Post by Bo Rida on Mar 4, 2019 3:06:56 GMT -5
When it does get coverage there's usually a good chunk of the word count wasted on references to spandex, steroids or Big Daddy. Or explaining how real/fake wrestling is.
Using their Olivia Colman comparison it would be like saying she's playing dress up and isn't really a queen and then remembering the time Judi Dench won an oscar in every article.
Yes I just compared Big Daddy to Judi Dench.
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Post by honsou on Mar 4, 2019 3:18:56 GMT -5
Eh I think wrestling has positioned itself as a part of geek culture.
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