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Post by darbus alan on Oct 30, 2019 22:24:42 GMT -5
The comparison of WWE to Harriet Beecher Stowe is... hilariously wrong-headed and completely ignorant of history at best.
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Post by BlackoutCreature on Oct 30, 2019 22:27:55 GMT -5
what vince mcmahon needs to do is shut the business down and live in a trash can in Idaho ... Why Idaho?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2019 23:08:47 GMT -5
i'm confused about what you'd want to happen here. you'd rather...they didn't have women wrestling on the show? I don't think anyone's suggesting wwe has "fixed" all the problems in the world, but they've taken a small, first step to normalising something that those of us in the western world take for granted. Sure, it's a tiny tiny step in the right direction, but it's the right direction. wwe should be celebrating this. wwe should be telling everyone about this. that's how big changes eventual happen, with millions of small changes. Because it's not normalizing it. Women perform in Saudi Arabia plenty, the same initiative bringing WWE to the country has also brought female musicians. That isn't what's going on here. WWE is going to brag about breaking down barriers, but it's not barriers; the women who are going to be able to do this are not Saudi citizens, and this isn't likely to change the way Saudi women are treated. WWE hasn't made a step, they've been allowed to make an exception, and it is an exception that comes in around so many other problems. Saudi Arabia isn't at a point where "women can do a scripted fight too" is even on the shortlist of demands. There are major rights and freedoms that people need, and when two non-Saudi women are allowed to put on a wrestling match, that's not helping women get those freedoms. That's not challenging social norms; they're a passing-through entertainment act, it'll come and it'll go, and after the show, life goes on. Is anyone in a position of power going to watch Lacey Evans vs. Natalia Neidhart and be so moved by what they do that they start to re-evaluate their views on women? The majority of major social change in the 20th century didn't come from lots of little steps and minor gestures. It came from actual pressure and conflict and from people fighting. Women getting the "right" to drive in Saudi Arabia came from women pushing and fighting, and the activisits who fought for that are still in prison, while the state pays WWE to talk about how progressive KSA is for letting women drive. WWE celebrating this like they're rocking the boat and fighting for major change is a joke, they've made this push for their own gain and that's as far as it's going to go, and I think looking at this like it's a big deal is missing a lot of perspective on the issue as a whole and not jsut within wrestling, because for the actual gravity of this situation, this match means less than dirt. What WWE should be doing is not doing state propaganda shows in the f***ing first place and not trying being complicit in a campaign designed expressly to improve the image of a dangerous regime so they can open up to more tourist money. That's what I want to happen. It's beautiful.
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Post by The 1Watcher Experience on Oct 30, 2019 23:10:23 GMT -5
what vince mcmahon needs to do is shut the business down and live in a trash can in Idaho ... Why Idaho? Is that where Sesame Street is? 😆
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2019 23:14:32 GMT -5
I'll count this one as a win. Regardless of reasoning, and there's a lot to say about it, at the end at least it's better than not having the women wrestle. I'd actually argue it would be better if no one wrestled on this show at all.
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Post by Final Countdown Jones on Oct 30, 2019 23:33:22 GMT -5
I just realized they're going to make some kind of pun off of Lacey's finisher being called The Woman's Right by saying she's bringing women's rights to Saudi Arabia and I just threw up in my mouth so hard I don't want a mouth anymore.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Oct 31, 2019 4:16:13 GMT -5
And to think, all it took for this progress to happen is a tyrannical regime needing to distract people from the fact it had one of it's citizens captured, tortured, brutally murdered and disposed of inside an embassy by a government death squad. The WWE should be so proud.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2019 6:57:28 GMT -5
They're running state-funded propaganda shows, it feels like people keep dancing around the way that they are complicit here in a massive international PR push. Letterman wasn't getting shady money from the Taliban, Stowe didn't own a plantation full of slaves while she wrote her works. WWE is profiting from Saudi Arabia's desire to have western media companies legitimize them, and amid everyone else pulling out and even canceling ownership stakes of their companies after the Khashoggi murder last year, WWE has stayed the course and continued to run shows. They have tried to get a match to put on so that they can pad their PR resumes while getting bigger-than-Wrestlemania influxes of dirty money to help make Saudi Arabia seem like a good place to go on vacation. They aren't trying to change things from the inside, and they are very much in bed with the worst elements of this for their own financial gain. The pushback is because WWE is going to take soemthing that benefits the women of WWE and portray it like some kind of global good, while happily talking about how great it is that the Saudis are finally 'letting' women drive. Taking 50+ million dollars a show to run tourism ads is not a noble cause and unless they're pulling some kind of Canadian Caper-esque covert mission to get in there and smuggle people safely out of the country, nothing they're doing on Saudi soil is somehow clean or has any kind of net good. This whole show is tainted and this match is the emptiest of gestures. Is it partially pr? Yes. Is wwe making a ton of money off it? Yes. Is Saudi Arabia A crappy country? Yes. I don't think any of that changes the fact this is the right move, and a move that possibly will spark other changes.. You are giving WWE WAY too much credit here, boy. I've said countless times that even in their own world, WWE is a reactionary company, not a proactive company, meaning that they don't set trends, but rather respond to them and often are dragged into doing so. The "Women's Revolution" was done largely as other companies had made the effort to give females a chance to show they are capable of legitimate wrestling, as opposed to "Divas" often in various states of undress slap-fighting in Bra & Panties matches. However, WWE retconned their own history and has ignored all those years of having pushed workers like Miss Kitty and Torrie Wilson at the top due to their looks for more than just "it's the PG Era". And in the case of Saudi Arabia, this isn't them defying the will of the kingdom and putting on a match whether they want it or not. This was a carefully done plan designed to make both parties look good without actually having to follow through on anything in the future, which is win/win for regressive entities. The Saudi regime can look like they're being socially progressive about undoing decades old laws about women entertaining without following through, and WWE can pat themselves on the back for years to come by going "See? We had women wrestle in Saudi Arabia! We are SO forward thinking! Quit hating!" You can believe this all you want, or think that this will help spark other movements, but in doing so, I got some killer investment deals in the wonderful world of indoor soccer you'd be interested in.
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Abdullah
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Post by Abdullah on Oct 31, 2019 8:33:32 GMT -5
WWE has been running shows in Saudi Arabia, quietly, like any world tour, long before 2018. Sami Zayn was even allowed at those!
The difference, starting in 2018, is that these shows went from being organised by private companies — as again, unfussy house shows for fans – to government-sponsored PPVs that aired video packages about how great Saudi is.
Okay. Fine. Except the fans got really crappy seats and the princes got front row couches to stare at their phones.
Okay. Fine. Except that Saudi wants the good PR while also jailing women and causing members of the LGBTQ+ community to live in constant fear for their lives.
Okay, fine. That was always true. Except the want for good PR, the two-faced nature, of the current leadership is new.
The leadership that likely chopped up a critic, the leadership that jails the women it claims to support, the leadership that is directly paying for these shows…
They’re paying for a clean image. And WWE is happy to play along. I don’t really blame WWE, in the sense they’re just another terrible corporation and this is another example. But it is absolutely valid to point out just how different, and corrupt, these shows are from others.
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Post by HMARK Center on Oct 31, 2019 9:19:54 GMT -5
No, sorry, not giving anyone any credit whatsoever in any of this outside of the wrestlers themselves. Even then, I wish more of them would refuse to go, but I get it and I don't place the blame on their shoulders for these circumstances. Many of the women who led the fight to get the right to drive in Saudi Arabia are still in prison; recent human rights reports say they've been victims of torture. There's no excusing any of this, and for a promotion with a history of awful business practices, this one still takes the shit-smeared cake. Nothing about this will improve anything in Saudi Arabia; the royal family will continue to make tiny little changes around the margins to attract more tourism and investment dollars while not allowing any fundamental progress toward a just, equitable society. It's disgusting, and anyone with WWE stock should sell it in protest. And yes, it should be driven home: the way women are treated in Saudi Arabia is a recent, modern development.This isn't to say things have ever been perfect for women there and only recently became bad, but the practice of covering them up, banning them from all sorts of public place, etc.? No, those are recent, as in "within your parents' lifetimes" recent. This isn't anything undoing millenia of government practices, it's a way to say "Hey, look, the God awful murderous autocratic regime is doing the barest freaking minimum to be less cartoonishly evil", while WWE gets to crow "We're an agent of positive social change!" all while empowering the very authorities that have created the authoritarian nightmare in the first place. There's no making anything positive out of this, and barring major social revolution in Saudi Arabia during WWE's deal there, there never will be. I think some people have a myopic view of what the catalyst of change can be. Yes protests , laws , and activist cause change, but also things we may view as insignificant can also make a difference. One of the leading causes of people rejecting extremism in Afghanistan was the David Letterman show. Abraham Lincoln credited author Harriet Beecher Stowe for inspiring people to fight for freedom in the civil war, and all she did was write a fictional story portraying slaves as real people. Wwe is not signing legislation or organizing a giant march, but they are doing something that can only be seen as a positive nonetheless. I'm a teacher of US history and civics, subjects I study for a living, and I'm sorry, but this is highly ahistorical; the impact of TV shows, books, etc. is what's usually falsely played up in history books as decisive moments, but they almost never are. They only have power because of pre-existing social movements that include people fighting, clawing, getting beaten, arrested, and dying for their cause. Stowe isn't the reason the Civil War happened; Uncle Tom's Cabin helped the cause of abolition, certainly, but the apocryphal "So you're the lady who started this war" quote has never been treated seriously. And as said above, this strips all context from the situation: David Letterman was never paid by the Afghani government to make their country a more appealing financial and tourist destination; WWE is actually in bed with the regime.
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Tiiulicious
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Post by Tiiulicious on Oct 31, 2019 9:36:04 GMT -5
I'm sure the women the Saudi government beheaded for witchcraft are super proud of this monumental moment that was all thanks to our Supreme leader Vince McMahon. Same way the women enprisoned and tortured for activism will see this as major change for them.
Anyone buying into this as some sort of magnificent change for women's rights is fooling themselves at best and at worst, is willfully ignorant.
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Post by joeiscool on Oct 31, 2019 12:36:21 GMT -5
No, sorry, not giving anyone any credit whatsoever in any of this outside of the wrestlers themselves. Even then, I wish more of them would refuse to go, but I get it and I don't place the blame on their shoulders for these circumstances. Many of the women who led the fight to get the right to drive in Saudi Arabia are still in prison; recent human rights reports say they've been victims of torture. There's no excusing any of this, and for a promotion with a history of awful business practices, this one still takes the shit-smeared cake. Nothing about this will improve anything in Saudi Arabia; the royal family will continue to make tiny little changes around the margins to attract more tourism and investment dollars while not allowing any fundamental progress toward a just, equitable society. It's disgusting, and anyone with WWE stock should sell it in protest. And yes, it should be driven home: the way women are treated in Saudi Arabia is a recent, modern development.This isn't to say things have ever been perfect for women there and only recently became bad, but the practice of covering them up, banning them from all sorts of public place, etc.? No, those are recent, as in "within your parents' lifetimes" recent. This isn't anything undoing millenia of government practices, it's a way to say "Hey, look, the God awful murderous autocratic regime is doing the barest freaking minimum to be less cartoonishly evil", while WWE gets to crow "We're an agent of positive social change!" all while empowering the very authorities that have created the authoritarian nightmare in the first place. There's no making anything positive out of this, and barring major social revolution in Saudi Arabia during WWE's deal there, there never will be. I think some people have a myopic view of what the catalyst of change can be. Yes protests , laws , and activist cause change, but also things we may view as insignificant can also make a difference. One of the leading causes of people rejecting extremism in Afghanistan was the David Letterman show. Abraham Lincoln credited author Harriet Beecher Stowe for inspiring people to fight for freedom in the civil war, and all she did was write a fictional story portraying slaves as real people. Wwe is not signing legislation or organizing a giant march, but they are doing something that can only be seen as a positive nonetheless. I'm a teacher of US history and civics, subjects I study for a living, and I'm sorry, but this is highly ahistorical; the impact of TV shows, books, etc. is what's usually falsely played up in history books as decisive moments, but they almost never are. They only have power because of pre-existing social movements that include people fighting, clawing, getting beaten, arrested, and dying for their cause. Stowe isn't the reason the Civil War happened; Uncle Tom's Cabin helped the cause of abolition, certainly, but the apocryphal "So you're the lady who started this war" quote has never been treated seriously. I don't think we're saying different things here... I never said Rowe is the reason for the civil war, I did say she inspired people to fight for freedom... Most notably General James Baird Weaver who said it was a reason he joined the movement. My whole point was things like this are inspirational to people, and even though it's just 2 people fake fighting, and not an overthrow of the government, Does not mean seeing 2 women fight on the same stage as men won't inspire, add fuel, or convince people to take part in the movements that do change the government. Now should wwe be there in the first place is a whole other issue...
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Post by darbus alan on Oct 31, 2019 13:05:53 GMT -5
Stowe was also an abolitionist that fought against slavery her entire adult life. She used Uncle Tom's Cabin to further a cause that she fought for. WWE is only doing these Saudi shows because the check is fat, cynically having these two women wrestle in Saudi Arabia for its own selfish benefits. Unless you mean to tell me that Vince McMahon has somehow been a lifelong feminist and did a damn good job of hiding it during HLA, Bra & Panties matches, and making Trish Stratus strip and bark like a dog.
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Spider2024
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Post by Spider2024 on Oct 31, 2019 13:21:03 GMT -5
Stowe was also an abolitionist that fought against slavery her entire adult life. She used Uncle Tom's Cabin to further a cause that she fought for. WWE is only doing these Saudi shows because the check is fat, cynically having these two women wrestle in Saudi Arabia for its own selfish benefits. Unless you mean to tell me that Vince McMahon has somehow been a lifelong feminist and did a damn good job of hiding it during HLA, Bra & Panties matches, and making Trish Stratus strip and bark like a dog. Whose cabin?
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Post by Shy Guy on Oct 31, 2019 15:28:52 GMT -5
I gotta say, I am pretty impressed with how quickly WWE made this happen. Show 4 out of a possible 20 is pretty sweet
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