Cinema has the capacity to stimulate and captivate the senses like few other things in this world. For over a century now, movies have provided humans with a vision of an alternate reality, where each of them is Superman and their Lois Lanes are Aphrodite’s distant cousins. These neatly compiled sequences of events give us temporary relief from our everyday, vanilla lives and teleport us into a magical world where aal izz well. It’s not surprising that some of the biggest celebrities of our times are actors and actresses, for they are people we look up to and idolize, and their fairytale, movie lives are what many of us strive to re-enact, in our own way. But I digress. This post is not about the charm of Celluloid.
This one is about a form of entertainment that we love to condescend, despite many of us growing up with fond memories of it. Let me save you any further brain-cell exercise. I’m talking about that much-maligned enterprise owned by Vince McMahon, WWE (or WWF, depending on when you found enlightenment and stopped watching it). Now, let’s put forward the most basic fact first. WWE is scripted (shock, horror). I apologize for bursting your bubble. The results are pre-decided and all that the wrestlers do is enact a charade comprising silly trash talk, glammed up women and some gravity-defying stunts. Yes, the truth is bitter.
WWE has a lineup of creative writers – some of them have worked with soap operas in the past – who churn out weekly scripts with some fairly convoluted story lines and some histrionic characters. These writers are responsible for dictating the events at each RAW, Smackdown and other shows. This might explain how Rey Mysterio managed to beat Batista once, as the writers decided to add a little spice into the mix and not to mention that Mysterio possesses one of the most spectacular moves in the business, the 619.
Scandalous, you say. Outright disgraceful. Don’t we already have enough ‘fixing’ in Cricket to be witness to this sham of a sport? However, we are overlooking an important fact here. Pro-wrestling (the umbrella term for WWE and other similar enterprises) is marketed as “sports entertainment” and the people in charge have never likened it to an actual sport. This distinction has been maintained since the early days of pro-wrestling, since the brains behind it didn’t want to be tied down by governing bodies and a given set of rules. The owners have long acknowledged that their venture is more about entertainment than actual sporting contests. More often than not, Vince McMahon uses the phrase “sports entertainment” instead of “wrestling” with reference to WWE.
Now, why am I telling you this? Because when it comes to WWE, a lot of people curiously seem to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude and start patronizing it, when it isn’t too different from an action movie sequence. Yes, WWE is driven by a script, but so are movies. Yes, wrestling “moves” are not always authentic but neither are punches thrown by the Bollywood hero to save the heroine from the badass villain and his army of goons, singlehandedly, at that. Pro wrestlers work very hard to make their moves look real, but inflict minimal damage. They practice their moves for years, to perfect the art of executing them safely while still making them look dangerous. It’s no secret that complex maneuvers are carefully choreographed and both wrestlers help execute the move. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson recounts in his autobiography (a recommended read for WWE fans), the offstage rehearsals with opponents, to be able to deliver the perfect Rock Bottom in the ring.
Agreed, the WWE could do without numerous things but a lot of people will have you believe that it’s the love child of Satan and Saddam Hussein (hat-tip to the creators of South Park). Is WWE “fake”, because it’s not an actual sporting contest? Yes. Did WWE break your heart by pretending to be real and then robbing your innocence, one fine day? Er, maybe yes. Are you still 10 years old? No. Get over it. The same “fake” logic can be applied to most of TV and Cinema. It’s hard to recollect the last time someone refused to watch a movie because the special effects were not “real”. The people that attend WWE events (barring kids, maybe), do so despite knowing that the action is all rehearsed. Most of them are there to witness a spectacle and they’re not disappointed too often.
I don’t know about you, but an unscheduled entry from a certain Stone Cold Steve Austin, glass a-shattering, people a-stunning, followed by a couple of beers is genuinely more exciting than a lot of the drivel on TV. Or Shawn Michaels, at the end of an energy-sapping 45 mins, summoning up enough strength to deliver his signature “Sweet Chin Music”, is the stuff heroes are made of (atleast on camera). The bloodshed is real (unlike a lot of Bollywood movies), bodies are put on the line, and months are spent mastering those spectacular finishing moves. The wrestlers know that they’re there to provide entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that we equate WWE to well-made Cinema. But, I’ll take a WWE PPV event over a Riteish Deshmukh movie, thank you very much. Oh, and then there’s the “I’m too old to watch wrestling” assertion. Let’s not kid ourselves. If you’re young enough to be watching Roadies and Splitsvilla, you’re perfectly fine watching WWE. After all, it’s no worse than reality television. If people like Sajid Khan, Tushar Kapoor and Raghu/Rajiv are allowed to ply their trade, I see no reason why John Cena can’t be STFU-ing people every Monday night. A friend of mine even had “ethical issues” with WWE, given that HHH is the damaad of the McMahon family and also a 13-time champion, a clear conflict of interest. However, I’m yet to find a person who shunned the IPL because Srini mama holds multiple conflicting positions in Indian Cricket.
All of us have had heroes while growing up. These people could fly through the air, crush pillars of steel with bare hands, or overpower an army of hundreds. Some of mine were known to stun people and give them the elbow. To each his own.
