Body slamming in the political arena

Pulling the Wool
    By Ben McGrath

Arecent New York Times article quoted a Manhattan teenager as saying that "wrestling is the last pure sport...everything they do is for the fans." "Pure" might not be the best word to describe a sport in which winners are decided before the matches begin, but change "fans" to "voters" and it's not hard to see why Minnesota elected former World Wrestling Federation (WWF) star Jesse "The Body" Ventura as governor on Tues., Nov. 3.

Pro wrestling has taken the inconvenient dramas that plague other sports—like contract disputes and feuds with management—and incorporated them as part of its appeal. The NBA is not the only major sports league to cancel games because of labor troubles; both the NHL and Major League Baseball leagues have had similar conflicts in the last half-decade. WWF Chairman Vince McMahon, however, routinely inserts himself in the midst of televised fights and invites troubles of this sort. Just last month, McMahon fired Stone Cold Steve Austin in the middle of Monday Night Raw; nearly a full event was dedicated to Austin's enraged response (he kidnapped McMahon).

This strategy of turning politics and confrontation into showbiz seems to work. Two of the three most highly watched programs on basic cable are wrestling shows. For 18- to 34-year-old males (the primary advertising target of sports programming), the excitement caused by McMahon's feud with Austin helped make cable wrestling shows almost as popular as the Yankees-Padres World Series games airing at the same time. And this was supposed to be the best baseball season ever.

Unfortunately, the principles that govern these popular wrestling shows—posturing and showboating as means for settling conflict and placing show business before true competition—seem more and more to be those held by our government as well. In fact, our political scene today resembles wrestling quite a bit. Whether it's Sen. Trent Lott's (R-Tex.) public renunciation of homosexuality as something akin to alcoholism or kleptomania or Hillary Clinton's invocation of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" on The Today Show, you don't have to look very hard to find the kind of political chest-pounding and partisan muscle flexing that would make the Ultimate Warrior proud.

I'll admit (or brag, depending on whom I'm talking to) that I don't watch much wrestling, but when I do catch a glimpse, there seems to be a healthy amount of sideshow theatrics and hype and not much time spent settling matters in the ring. The same can be said of our political culture, where blue cocktail dresses and cigars are what keep us tuned in while more substantive matters are largely forgotten. Can you name a single real issue that drove the recent election?

Over the course of the past campaign, in fact, it was often hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. New York's bitter senate race saw Chuck Schumer and Al D'Amato trade personal insults for nearly three months leading up to election day, and by the end the two candidates seemed virtually indistinguishable from each other. Not surprisingly, wrestling has seen a similar blurring of identities. Good guys don't necessarily remain faithful to the cause (Hulk Hogan, good guy champ of years past, has become bad guy Hollywood Hogan), and it's not always clear that anything other than momentary popularity determines the sides in the first place.

In many ways, the wrestlers we see on television are musclebound caricatures of our politicians. If Sting delivers a dramatic speech in defense of his ally Diamond Dallas Page on Monday Nitro, he might as well be New Jersey Congressman Mike Pappas singing "Twinkle Twinkle Kenneth Starr" on the floor of Congress. The thinly veiled trash-talking that goes on between the different wrestling leagues is little different from that between leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties these days. The wrestlers just fit the part a little better.

We shouldn't be surprised by Mr. Ventura's victory. His past experience as a pro wrestler, television commentator, and radio shock jock make him more than qualified to fit into a political culture increasingly dominated by bluster and self-aggrandizement. Chairman McMahon told Kate Couric last week that he hoped Ventura would "continue being Jesse and not go legitimate" after taking office. Wrestling is fake; why should politics be any different? McMahon added that he hoped Ventura's victory would show that "it really doesn't matter who we elect to office." Because it's all show business, right?

Well, we certainly get what we deserve. Hulk Hogan recently announced that he plans on running for president in the year 2000.

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