Last night, I watched part of the Kevin Owens 365 documentary on WWE Network. About five minutes in, I said to Julie “I can’t tell if this is kayfabe or not.” Upon watching more, I don’t think it was, but there were some interesting ways that Owens kept that doubt in my mind.
It made me think about an old argument I’ve had with some people about professional wrestling.
It’s not “real” in the sense that other competitive sports are. The stories are scripted.
But using that as a dividing line between real and fake does a disservice to how we understand reality. Pro wrestling is sort of a ballet with violence, a soap opera for dudes, something that calls for great athletic skill and the ability to play a character.
What confuses me is how people who aren’t fans can look at wrestling and treat the idea that it is “fake” with such disgust. Most things on television are fake, and unlike pro wrestling many of those things (“reality shows” like Survivor, news on the FOX network, etc.) pretend to be authentic. WWE has gone so far as to not call their athletes wrestlers but “superstars” and to call what they do “entertainment” (that’s the E in their name).
Wrestling, of course, has a bit of a carnival thing going for it. Wrestlers even speak a form of carnie (that’s where Kayfabe comes from — “Fabricated”). But the idea that the business, or its fans, are somehow idiots who can’t tell it’s scripted is a strange stereotype to hold onto.
No one thinks that Thor is real, right? If you see Chris Hemsworth, you don’t expect him to be the god of thunder, or for Mark Ruffalo to turn big and green and super-powered.
No one thought that the Sopranos was real. James Gandolfini– even though he vanished into the character– wasn’t actually mob boss Tony Soprano. Courtney Cox wasn’t Monica Chandler, though she did date Adam Duritz which is about a fantasy-real as a person can get.
I wonder how many people do themselves a disservice by writing off skilled performers as “just” wrestlers. If anything, I think the foolish stance is not the idea that people think wrestling is “real” but rather that in a world filled with simulations someone chooses to mock people because they are interested in a form of entertainment that is more like theater and less like standard television. It’s not high brow, but I’m not sure anything high brow is high brow anymore.
I think people might be silly to think that there exist fans who don’t get the nuance of fiction in pro wrestling.
Then again people think Dwayne Johnson IS the Rock.
So… hmmm.