Wrestling in France?! February 4, 2007

Barthes’ article is an interesting one. Especially since my boyfriend and I were having a romantic dinner at a restaurant the other day only to become distracted from each other by the TV in the corner blaring WWE clips. A conversation about homophobia and models of maleness ensued. Barthes article caught me off guard simply because… Wrestling was like that even back in 1957?! And it was popular up till or into the 90s? Wow, that is one long-enduring form of entertainment.
Personally I hate wrestling. Probably because when I watched it as a little kid it was pretty scary. And then when I got older I thought it was cool but only boys were allowed to be into it (I got into Backstreet Boys instead) so I gradually did not watching it anymore. Barthes highlights the one thing I do wrong when I watch it these days and recoil with complete disgust: I forget that it is a “spectacle”, a performance, and actually expect everyone to play fair.
However, perhaps mainstream wrestling has eroded since Barthes took a look at it. Maybe now the small spectacles don’t do it anymore and people have to become more grotesque to be the “model bastard”. Even so, I think Barthes was right on about the “make him pay” justice mentality. I mean, why ever else would Austin 3:16 be so popular for laying the smack down (the Bible verse reference is a clear give-away). (Is it just me or does Austin seem to be lacking underwear in this poster? Maybe he’s just wearing a belt! Hence the theorizing about wrestling’s love/hate relationship with homoerotica and homophobia)
Alright, so Barthes explains wrestling pretty well, as far as I am concerned. But how about when he talks about characters as archetypes, like that “Thauvin” guy being the complete symbol of a bastard, is that not rampantly present in TV shows? Like the “Merchants of Cool” talked about, such archetypes like the “moog” (was it moog?) and the “midriff” symbolize the typical MTV style teenagers. Homer Simpson symbolizes the all-American dad, or maybe now it’s Peter from the Family Guy. Julie Cooper from the O.C. is the model of a conniving bitch (hey, if Barthes can say bastard, I can say bitch). And, just like in wrestling, TV shows take short cuts through giving the characters specific appearances to get these points across, such as too much make-up or a jiggly beer belly.
Perhaps the grandiosity and unreservedness of wrestling in the 50s led the way for television to introduce more extreme characters for the sake of entertainment. Who knows? I have a pet theory about reality TV leading the way for some of the fictional television trends we are seeing now but I will divulge it later and then all of you can steal my masters thesis idea.
Well, I was going to glean you all a gory clip of WWE off Youtube but I searched “French wrestling” and came up with these much more entertaining teens (and I think they are better than some of the creepy wrestlers):

It’s a long video though so I’d only watch it for a few minutes, gets repetitive.