Wrasslin' as High Art

I was thinking about this the other day.  Some reporter fella appeared on TV (as they annoyingly insist on doing), recapping the highlights of his interviewing career (a paean to himself, ain't that special).  Anyway, he showed a clip of himself getting unceremoniously slapped upside his punkin' 'haid for daring to remark that "Wrestling is fake" in front of a professional wrestler.  Or wrassler.  Or 'Entertainment Professional'.  Take yer pick.  He stood up, shaky and unsteady, and got hisself slapped again.  Then he ran away.  That was entertaining!

So.  Slapped down for saying what everyone already knows - professional wrestling is fake.  Staged.  Managed.  Not real.  Hmmm.

There is no denying that professional wrestlers (at least the ones we see on TV) are incredible physical specimens.  They're in great physical condition, they must work hard to maintain that level of fitness.  And they're limber, gymnastic, and daring.  Some of the high-flying moves they perform are extremely intricate, and they appear to collide with each other with a great deal of energy - these are not the beer-bellied truck drivers of my B&W "All Star Wrestling" youth, with Nick Bockwinkle and Scrap-Iron Kadasky and Wahoo MacDaniels.  These guys are nothing short of amazing.  And they have business acumen.  Stars like "The Rock" and "Hulk Hogan" have financial and business interests that extend way past their wrestling events.  The people eat it up - they sell out arenas, Pay-Per-View specials, and they're on network TV as well.

Is professional wrestling theatrical?  Of course it is.  Anyone who has watched with even casual interest is fully aware that there are many types of characters portrayed by the wrestlers - all overblown.  There are 'Good Guys' and 'Heels' (bad guys), some switch sides, some have internal angst, all have drive and determination.  The characters they portray are often composites of evil or good conceptions of people or professions in the USA.  Wrestlers have portrayed lawyers, undertakers, backwoods yokels, anti-Americans, commies, and so on.  There was even a professional wrestler who portrayed an IRS agent (surely the most hated and feared of professions)!  The characters mimic the news - topical to the point of being pedantic.  When the US is at war, or international situations are tense, some wrestler will appear, clothed in outlandish garb and behaving as an overblown caricature of a national of that nation or people.

Lowbrow entertainment?  Well, yes.

Entertainment for the masses?  Of course.

Not regarded as art?  Need you ask?

Now, William Shakespeare...

You remember this dude.  He wrote plays.  He's famous.  His plays are performed in theaters all over the world, with much pomp and circumstance.  An actor today is often held in high esteem if he is 'Shakespearean-trained' or if he has 'performed Shakespeare'.  And yet, in his time, Shakespeare was low-brow.  Entertainment for the masses.  Not well-regarded by the patrons of 'true art' of his time.

Was Billy Shakespeare talented?  Yes - his use of language was incredible - he could make a word or phrase twist and dance for his audience, sometimes having several meanings at the same time - all referentially correct unto themselves, often side-splittingly funny on several levels.  But he also didn't hesitate to dive into gutter humor as well.  His entertainment was presented to all and sundry, and was more often than not attended by yokels, who enjoyed the poopoo humor greatly.

Do you see the conclusion I'm driving towards here?

Given the common elements, I think the case can be made that professional wrestling, as it exists today, is not that different from the work of William Shakespeare in his own time.

It may be that hundreds of years from now, a new 'Gilded Age' will find and embrace the stored images of wrestlers and the thousands of hours of televised professional wrestling.  They'll make the connection that we cannot make now, and exclaim that the unknown and unsung authors of the broad brush strokes used to create characters, situations, and tensions in professional wrestling were geniuses - truly artists.

Could it be that Professional Wrestling is High Art?

Keep Sluggin',

Wiggy