I find myself thinking about wrestling lately. Not so much about Graeco-Roman wrestling, or wrestling as one would see it in the Olympics. Olympic style wrestling is probably as pure a form of athletic competition as there is, having the most highly conditioned athletes, pound for pound, displaying strength, stamina, strategy, courage and wiliness in a contest of dominance, a symbolic connection to Greek civilization and its ideals. Olympic wrestling can be incredibly dramatic, and sometimes controversial, and it does require some sophistication and understanding of the rules to fully appreciate. Lately, though, I’m not thinking about Olympic ideals; what I can’t stop thinking about is Pro Wrestling, or “Rasslin”, as it used to be called. When I was young I used to watch “rasslin” on television on Saturday evenings. Bruno Sammartino was the  regional champion, and he was “a good guy”. George “The Animal” Steele was one of several nemeses. George was not morally bad, just mostly animalistic, while others were morally questionable, even communist-leaning. When the referee would turn his back momentarily, the bad guy would bite, or gouge, or knee Bruno in the groin, or smash a chair over his head, or throw him out of the ring altogether, and Bruno would writhe in agony. As a kid I used to get pretty tense as I would watch Bruno appear to be succumbing to a “death grip” or “sleeper hold”, only to catch his wind and somehow manage to take advantage of some fundamental flaw or error by the bad guy ( possibly the bad guy’s arrogance, or gloating- signs of poor character and  bad sportsmanship) before finally jumping off the ropes  and bodyslamming the cheater into the mat for a three-count. As a child I sort of had the idea that this was different from other sports, was more of a drama acting like a sport, and might be staged or fake, much as it disturbed me to think about Bruno Sammartino being involved in any fakery. But I wanted to believe in it, because I enjoyed the drama, and I especially wanted to believe in Bruno, and so I left the possibility of fakery as an open question: a maybe. I thought the “rasslers” probably had known how to wrestle at one point, which lent a degree of credibility to it in my mind.

Nowdays, professional wrestling makes no pretense to be a sport. Vince M, one of the major promoters, will openly, refreshingly, refer to wrestling as entertainment, and himself as being “in the entertainment business”. Wrestlers have well-delineated characters and storylines with “personal narratives”; feuds and vendettas are common and sometimes multi-generational, having to do with apparent personal dislikes, lust for power and glory within the “rasslin” empire, slurs on character and conflicts over core values and beliefs, like: good and evil (as symbolized in choice of costume and hairstyle). Huge arenas have replaced the intimacy of the small television studio, and the huge crowds of people in the stands are real, rather than painted prop scenery beyond the first two rows, as was the case back in the day. Spectacle is the order of the day, with fireworks, rock "theme music", cage enclosures dropped from the ceiling for “death matches” and the like. The bodies of the wrestlers are enormous and steroid-enhanced (although they would deny this). Blood is often everywhere and the action is nonstop, often spilling into the stands. The stories are always variations on the same few themes and the “rasslin” itself is predictable, almost incidental. What are people really interested in? What is it? Certainly not a sport,  for it is a travesty of sport, and makes no pretense to be anything other than entertainment. Drama? Is there any drama in it really, since you know how it is going to end at the beginning? Blood? Even if it is fake? It must be comedy, buffoonery of a loud, spectacular and bloody sort. A distraction, an escape into fantasy. Yet it is a legitimate and serious business and quite profitable, apparently, requiring only the merest pretense of a connection to factual reality, a pretense of relating to something in the world, while clearly being a fantasy.  “Rasslin” is a world unto itself, like the real world, a parallel media-made universe. But, there is no mistaking “rasslers” for wrestlers. "Rasslers" are not athletes and not really actors (although some appear in movies), they are caricatures, grossly exaggerated clowns. We can enjoy them, laugh, cheer them on, but none of us really believe in the fantasy? Or do we? Perhaps a few children might these days, but I doubt it. Did "rasslin" exist before television? Is it a byproduct of television, showing the effect of television in distorting a sport, or any social phenomenon, which becomes "buffoonized" for mass entertainment? Does it reflect an escapist blood-lust of the public, a derivative of the gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome as offered through the filter of television? Can “rasslers” ever go back to being wrestlers? As a kid I used to wonder, but now I know better –why would they, after all? 

Another thought has to do with children’s fairy tales, and what makes them fairy tales: in fairy tales powerful forces, usually negative, dark, mean and ugly- looking have cast a spell, usually as a punishment, or to remove a threat to power. The unfortunate recipient is distorted, socially neutralized and turned into something non-human, like a frog, or made comatose. The spell is broken when a beautiful princess or protagonist takes a leap of faith and kisses the frog, either because she is told to or maybe because she thinks she loves it under the influence of a counter spell. Once the spell is broken the original form and virtuous qualities of the person are restored and evident to all. Is the restoration what makes it a fairy tale? I would be interested to hear about people’s views on the impact and causes ofmedia “spinfotainment” and "buffoonization" in the current political process and how this can be rendered less malignant, and more supportive of American ideals and democracy than it seems to be currently. Is anything other than propaganda and caricature truly possible, or permissible currently, or is the idea as far-fetched as a fairy tale? A Greek ideal from the irrelevant past? On the brighter side, I finally cancelled my Comcast subscription last month, and am enjoying being unplugged from the television.