Glenn Beck vs. Wrestling: A Match Made in AWESOME

Oh, wrestling.  Sometimes you're stupid, sometimes you're tragic, and sometimes you're just dumb fun.  This is one of the dumb fun moments.

First, a little background so you know my perspective.  I was never into wrestling as a kid.  Sure, I knew who Hulk Hogan and the Undertaker were through cultural osmosis, but I never watched the TV shows.  Then, in my sophomore year of college, I lived with a roommate who watched it fairly religiously, and so I had my first real exposure.  I was skeptical at first, but was quickly drawn in.  Let's face it - as they say, it's a soap opera for males (and some ladies).  Everything about it is over the top, and taken lightly, it can be rather exciting entertainment for its intended audience.  The storylines can be amusing if cliched, some of the humor is actually funny, and the hard work of the wrestlers should be appreciated - no matter how "fake" it is, it does require talent, and some of them are genuinely great athletes.  It has its fair share of tragic real-life stories and wrestlers dying young, but what field of sports or entertainment doesn't?  I was an ardent WWE fan for about three years.  Then I lived in Germany for a year, and found it hard to pick back up when I returned.  The storylines seemed to have cycled through again, and I didn't find the crop of wrestlers circa 2004 to be as interesting.  I moved on to other pursuits.

But I don't begrudge those who still enjoy their rasslin'.  Some holier-than-thou liberals who have obviously never seen a wrestling show buy into the stereotype that all wrestling fans are hillbilly redneck "marks" who believe it's real.  Sure, there's some of that, but there are also a lot of wrestling fans who appreciate it at a "higher" level for the reasons I stated above.  And even they are naturally going to cheer for the heroes and boo the villains at a show.  It's part of the fun.  And believe it or not, many of these fans are progressive-minded.  The face of wrestling changes with the face of America, and that's quite apparently in the latest "controversy."

The WWE is no stranger to the political and social issues of the day.  They are often played up elaborately to elicit fan reactions and higher TV ratings.  It's a business, after all.  In the past, this has been generally been done by making the "heels" (bad guys) portray some aspect of anti-Americanism or a trait that goes against good old-fashioned American values.  Thus Sgt. Slaughter, a huge "face" (good guy) in his day, turned traitor and became a Saddam sympathizer in Gulf War One.  Later there was Billy and Chuck, two flamboyantly gay heels.  And after 9/11 there was a shifty Muslim heel named Hassan.  Portrayals of women are sadly often fairly misogynistic, though there have been some great lady wrestlers.   So yeah, the WWE generally hasn't been at the forefront of social change, and while some people admittedly take these portrayals too seriously, others recognize it as over-the-top entertainment.  WWE's values may be about to change along with the changing demographics of its fan base, however.

Latinos make up a large and growing segment of WWE's fans, which should come as no surprise given the traditional popularity of lucha libre wrestling in Mexico and elsewhere.  There have certainly been Latino wrestlers in the WWE before, but their portrayal hasn't always been stellar (even as a good guy, Eddie Guerrero's motto was "lie, cheat, and steal").  The time has come, however, for the WWE to make a big push, and it's come in the "face" of hero Alberto Del Rio.

Now, every good face needs a heel to feud with, and so the WWE's story wizards have come up with the character of Jack Swagger, an immigrant-hating, Tea Party-loving Real American.  He and his manager Zeb Coulter (which has to be a take on conservative firebrand Ann Coulter) have started a major feud with Del Rio, declaring that all illegal immigrants should be sent home.  Of course, that feud will come to a head in their match at WrestleMania in April.

The Beck says, "Know your role and shut your mouth!"

 

Interestingly, this situation isn't that far different from a feud that the heel John Bradshaw Layfield had with Guerrero in the mid-2000s.  Conservatives' skins must've been thicker back then, though, because now their heads are exploding.  They are led by Glenn Beck, who has railed repeatedly against this "racist" portrayal of a Tea Party American by "stupid wrestling people."  His outrage was enough to cause Swagger and Coulter to step out of character, recording a YouTube video in which they basically say "Dude, it's entertainment.  He's the hero.  We're the villains.  Deal with it and grow up."  They even invited Beck to appear live on Raw, WWE's flagship show.  So far, Beck has refused.  Either way, it's making for good ratings.  It has me contemplating tuning in for the first time in years, just to see how it plays out.

Of course, the irony in all this is that the owners of WWE, Vince and Linda McMahon, are big Republicans.  Linda twice tried to run for the Senate from Connecticut, trying to pass herself off as a moderate (the only way a Republican could win a statewide race in CT).  It didn't work.  They may be failed politicians, but no one ever accused the McMahons of being bad business owners.  While their political and social tropes of the past have favored the red state audience that is admittedly their core, they can tell the tide is turning.  It's now good business to be anti-Tea Party, even if their portrayal is a hyperbolic version of such.  As a result, millions of Real American wrestling fans are now booing a self-proclaimed Real American.  Furthermore, in the process we have another example of the tensions currently tearing at the conservative foundation between ideologues like Beck and the establishment McMahons.  Somebody pass the popcorn - this could get good.

Lastly, I would be amiss not to mention the possibility that Beck is in on the whole thing.  Such feuds with real-life personalities are not unknown to the WWE, with the most famous example probably being comedian Andy Kaufman's battle with Jerry "the King" Lawler as depicted in the movie Man in the Moon.  Beck seems way too self-serious to be drawn into something like that, however.  But who knows - I could be proven wrong.  The political leanings of the McMahons suggest it's not completely outside the realm of the possible.  With better ratings for everyone involved, what's to lose?  After all, Beck hosts Ted Nugent on his show and fears that the UN will destroy the American way of life.  His standards aren't exactly high.