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The 7 - Pro Wrestling - Wrestling and Hyper-Masculinity
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DMC
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#1 Posted on 30.6.03 1443.05
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1443.58
"Wrestling and Hyper-Masculinity


Patrice A. Oppliger


ISBN: 0-7864-1692-0
[184]pp. photographs and illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index $35 softcover 2003


Professional wrestling revels in its exaggeration of masculinity, which is then enforced by media. This hyper-masculinity is evident in the physical appearance of wrestlers, the sexuality-charged and violent moves used in and out of the ring, the role assigned to women and the extensive use of weapons such as chains, barbed wire and steel folding chairs. This study explores the link between watching televised wrestling matches and developing a culture of bullies in the United States. Increases in verbal aggression, rebellion and propensity toward violence and retaliation are measured against the media consumption of particularly professional wrestling.

The book begins with a brief history of professional wrestling, a summary of the criticisms of the sport, and a discussion of the author’s research methods. One chapter discusses how gender socialization plays a part in the effects of wrestling on its viewers, arguing that wrestling goes beyond the image of physically violent acts to models of interpersonal behavior. The expansion of wrestling into storylines outside the ring includes problem situations involving class, race, homophobia and nationality, to which violence is often presented as a solution. The book concludes with an investigation of the attractiveness of wrestling and its ability to lure fans back year after year.

Patrice A. Oppliger is a communication professor at La Salle University. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."


You've gotta love pop-culture studies.

DMC
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ScreamingHeadGuy
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#2 Posted on 30.6.03 1454.40
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1454.45
It's all a matter of art imitating life. Some people just don't realize that.

'Cuz once life starts imitating art, then we're all righteously fucked.
Matt Tracker
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#3 Posted on 30.6.03 1501.33
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1503.05
She just needs some LATINO HEAT!
Chico Santana
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#4 Posted on 30.6.03 1516.52
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1518.57
Is this book about Naked Mideon?

Ummmm, gotta go......my balls' are telling me to go out and hit random people with a steel chair while wearing colorful underwear type trunks. If only my parental units told me that wrestling was fake, oh wait they did!

I have to take a look at this book, though it kind of sounds like every other book or report about how wrestling spawns evil young males upon the innocent and unknowing culture.
Big Bad
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#5 Posted on 30.6.03 1534.33
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1535.53
At the risk of sounding too PC, is this study really wrong? I'm not saying that wrestling should be blamed for some idiot kid trying to cripple his little brother with a brainbuster, but there can be no argument that WWE can be sexist, homophobic and at times flagrantly racist.

The onus, as usual, is on the parents to decide if their kids are mature or smart enough to "get it."
Chico Santana
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#6 Posted on 30.6.03 1610.06
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1610.20
I'm sure the book makes alot of good points, and that's why I have an intrest in looking at it next time I'm in the area of a bookstore. But, it sounds like they want to blame the Wrestling for everything that goes wrong with this country. Parents should explain things to their children better or not have any at all. Parents don't take the blame for not raising their kids well, why should they if they can blame it on Mcdonald's, The WWE, Marilyn Manson, Eminem, and Jerry Springer. There is alot of crap out there that parents can't block the kids from, they should at least try to explain things better and be there for them sometimes. Why is responsibility such a bad word now? If your kid learns about women from Jerry "The King" Lalwer, it's your fault for not explaining things.
darkmatcher
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#7 Posted on 30.6.03 1644.12
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1647.17

    Originally posted by DMC
    the role assigned to women...


Uh, then what about the women who wrestle?

And how could these same arguments not be used against movies, television, music and such? Wrestling is a little bit entertainment and a little bit sport, both of which individually are already available to the public. Sure, I'll agree there's times when it goes too far(even for me), but how is different from anything else that goes too far? When there are things in the media I'd prefer not to observe, I simply turn away.

And as far as the kids go, well, I just don't buy into the argument that watching this stuff will take what is normally a good kid and suddenly turn him into a miscreant. But if that is a concern for anyone, then that's what parents are for. Kids who are able to buy under that kind of influence are already troubled to begin with..which may in itself likely be a result of a parent not properly doing their job.

Notorious F.A.B.
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#8 Posted on 30.6.03 1741.50
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1745.46
(On women in wrestling, check out Rituals and Religious Imagery in Pro Wrestling at the DVDVR site. Click Here (deathvalleydriver.com))

This book sounds a lot like a book I tried to read once called "Pro Wrestling: The Sport and the Spectacle." It was a needlessly heady review of the sport in general.

According to Amazon, the actual title of the book is "Wrestling and Masculinity: Nurturing a Culture of Bullies in the United States"

Click Here (amazon.com)
Nag
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Y!:
#9 Posted on 30.6.03 1830.10
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1836.33
I'd tell you, it's ivory tower, bleeding heart "intellectuals" like these that make me loath the "college experience."

But I guess eight years stuck in a library gives you the right to disprove what nature has given our kind for 4,000,000 years. "Exaggeration of masculinity" heh, I'm sure that exaggeration can be counteracted by back to back episodes of Everybody Love Raymond, right?

"A culture of bullies" whooooa, yeah, that's an aspect of grade school education exclusive to the era of pro wrestling on national TV. Maybe if these self righteous feminists tought their pussy kids how to clinch a fist they wouldn't have these problems.

Oh, but that would be contributing to the problem huh? So people like this women will just go about stigmatizing everything masculine untill we are all forced to nit sweaters over a dish of Tofu Pasta. Oh, It especially helps when you make the connection between backwood rednecks and masculinity, since simple rednecks can't read these intellectual breakthroughs; the rest of us can, and all strive to be more post modern, yeah. Just for the sake of politically correctness, forget making the connection between intercity violence and masculinity/simpleness, because we all know their all victims of societies greed.

I would love to rant longer, but I'd get banned. So On a side note, have they ever done a study on how Violent mass media, with the fat testosterone driven male moguls who ran it, contributed to violence of ancient Rome, Egypt or Greek times?
DMC
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#10 Posted on 30.6.03 1843.13
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1845.52
This may be a place to start looking:

http://btobsearch.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=violence+in+ancient+Rome&userid=37TQ1WG98V

DMC
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#11 Posted on 30.6.03 1921.25
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1921.42
I remember the analogy from the A&E special "The Unreal Story of Pro Wrestling" that compared wrestling matches to gladiator fights in ancient Rome. The similarities would seem to prove, if anything, that demand for such entertainment have been around for a very long time. The show did mention that we should, perhaps, be heartened by the fact that nowadays we prefer our violence to be simulated, rather than real.
HMD
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#12 Posted on 30.6.03 1947.42
Reposted on: 30.6.10 1947.50
    Originally posted by ScreamingHeadGuy
    It's all a matter of art imitating life. Some people just don't realize that.

    'Cuz once life starts imitating art, then we're all righteously fucked.



I dunno about this one, ScreamingHead. If life imitated art, heck, we might all be better off. There'd be happy endings to things, there would be starts and finishes to all of life's issues instead of abitrary intangibles that never reach resolution. People who create problems would create problems, which would then be solved, and then those people would just go away and never return. Every guy and every girl would get the person of his/her dreams, regardless of their appearance. Sounds pretty kick-ass to me.

Impossible, though.

All the same, I think we ought to just put our blinders up for this one and not get too sensitive. This is just the latest in a barrage of half-assed attempts to blame wrestling for the ills of society. Even if this person's research is recent and well-founded, the study is two years too late to have any kind of significant impact. You don't take pieces out of a phenomena when its popularity is waning, you do it when the phenomena in question is at its peak.

I do find it funny how we sit here every week and pick apart what sucks about wrestling but when someone else does it, we get sore at them.




(edited by Hogan's My Dad on 30.6.03 1749)
fuelinjected
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#13 Posted on 30.6.03 2250.43
Reposted on: 30.6.10 2255.09
We pick it apart because we want it to be better. They pick it apart because they want it to be gone. :)
SKLOKAZOID
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#14 Posted on 30.6.03 2334.08
Reposted on: 30.6.10 2335.33
If life imitated art, there'd be no more art. Or, at least, it would be really boring and crappy art.
Big Bad
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#15 Posted on 1.7.03 0148.30
Reposted on: 1.7.10 0149.51


    If life imitated art, heck, we might all be better off. There'd be happy endings to things, there would be starts and finishes to all of life's issues instead of arbitrary intangibles that never reach resolution. People who create problems would create problems, which would then be solved, and then those people would just go away and never return.


Or, if life imitated WWE.....then we'd have nothing but arbitrary intangibles that never reach resolution. And the bad people who create the problems would never go away, but instead win every single time.
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