postmodernism
n. a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts and architecture, which represents a departure from modernism and has at its heart a general distrust of theories and ideologies as well as a problematical relationship with the notion of 'art'.
- The Concise Oxford English Dictionary
It’s perfectly plausible for an intelligent human being to read that definition and still have little to no idea of what postmodernism is. Truth be told, postmodernism is one of those abstract nouns which survives on defying easy definition. Like all abstract nouns, it’s a word that sounds good but which means something different to each and every person. Words and phrases like “liberty,” “equality,” “justice,” “the pursuit of happiness” and “democracy” can all be interpreted in different ways, often contradictory to one another. Perhaps nothing shows this up better than Isaiah Berlin’s concept of positive and negative liberty. It is fitting therefore that postmodernism, a concept which argues against fixed notions of genre, is, itself, so hard to define. Simply put, postmodernism is about the idea that there is never really black and white; there are just different shades of great. Truth, evil and art all matters of interpretation.
So, how does this all relate to wrestling you’re probably asking yourself, or at least those of you who are left reading after that introduction. The answer is: it should (maybe), but it doesn’t (maybe). I doubt that last sentence cleared things up but try to stay with me, it’ll be worth it (maybe). If you took Osama Bin Laden and placed him in front of a group of western Europeans he would garner muchos heel heat, without even needing to insult the members of the home city. However, if you placed him front of a group of radical Muslims he would become a bigger babyface than Hulk Hogan, the epitome of the underdog taking on the big evil bully. Due to the fact that different people have different interpretations of his actions and the terms good and evil are not universally agreed upon, the same person committing the same actions can legitimately receive two starkly different responses. The same concept prevails when looking at a football (or soccer, if you’re that way inclined) player rather than an international terrorist. When a player – we’ll call him, randomly, Robbie Savage – lunges in at an opponent with two feet and studs showing, one set of supporters, his, will hail it at as a glorious, fair tackle whilst another, the opposition’s, will lambaste it and bay for his blood. Again, one person, one set of actions, multiple legitimate reactions. Wrestling would be better off if it could induce a similar sort of thing. If, instead of having good guys and bad guys, it just had guys whom some saw as good and others saw as bad, things would be so much more interesting.
The closest that a major wrestling company has ever got to this in recent times, I feel, is when Bret Hart was doing his Canadian schtick. In America he was hated, in Canada he was loved. Without a doubt it added an extra layer to his character and made him far more interesting. However, with Hart, fans were divided merely along geographical and tribal lines. It’s a lot like the football example – loved by his own hated by others. It’s an effective trick, but a cheap one and cheap tricks can only achieve so much. What hasn’t been tried is an attempt to separate fans intellectually. If wrestling companies can achieve the same things as a Civil War – split families in their opinions - then we’ll be getting somewhere. It is when similar people from similar backgrounds have contrasting thoughts that you know that you have an explosive set of circumstances. Bret Hart never achieved that. Someone like Simon Cowell has. Different members from the same family will either love or hate the way he conducts himself and that fact makes him an interesting person. It doesn’t just have to be a serious issue in order for the effect to work – it can also be an arrogant twat who wears his trousers far too high.
Making members of the same family disagree isn’t really a postmodern concept but the next logical step on from it is. In wrestling, if it’s not conclusive whether the crowd should boo or cheer than you have the break down of the face/heel genres. The age-old idea that there exists a good and an evil is also destroyed, instead you find an appreciation for a much more complex, realistic set of characters. I believe that if wrestling can achieve that then the industry will be onto a winner. When you watch an ordinary television show, one where the stars aren’t over grown and wearing latex, you tend to find yourself presented with people who aren’t purely good or bad. Instead these people are typical of what you’d find in real life – a mixture. If those shows can work, and they are far bigger than wrestling, then the idea has been proven to succeed, so why shouldn’t wrestling adopt it? Why not have wrestlers develop as real characters that the audience can empathise with, whom the audience can have different attitudes towards?
There are possibly a number of reasons why that wouldn’t work or shouldn’t be implemented. Firstly, it can be argued that it’s already happened/is happening. Tweeners have been around in wrestling for donkey’s years and they are neither good nor evil. However, not only are tweeners rarely used, though when they are it is usually successful, but they are not truly breaking down the face/heel boundaries. Often tweeners are those who attack both faces and heels – that doesn’t make them a complicated, multi-dimensional character, it just makes them not a face or a heel. What I’m proposing is the idea that a wrestler should have a developed personality and character. With any developed personality and character some will see it as good and others won’t.
Other objections to my theory would be that wrestling should be an escape from real life, people like to relax and know whom they should cheer and whom they should boo. That’s a fair point. No one goes to watch a James Bond film in order to wonder whether they should cheer on the nasty Russian’s due to Bond’s misogynistic ways. I can’t really dispute that except to say that that’s only one form of entertainment and I tend to prefer the other form where more complex issues are used.
For me, the biggest problem with my idea is a geographical one. Wrestling is, largely, based in America and America is not ready to embrace postmodern ideas. Europe has moved on from Modernism and towards Postmodernism but America hasn’t, at least not to such an extent. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just a thing. America is still a religious country and religion and postmodernism are pretty much incompatible considering that religion is based on a meta-narrative as well as the notion of right and wrong. Ironically, for a country that so formally separates Church and State, religion plays a much bigger role in politics than almost any other developed country. America, the powerhouse of wrestling, is probably the wrong place to start a postmodern revolution.
If you’re still reading, then this next bit should hopefully condense the jumpy, incoherent mess of the last seven paragraphs, although I can’t promise. I’d love to see wrestling embrace a culture where there are no distinct face/heel boundaries and instead individuals are left free to cheer/boo who they want. It’d be difficult, it’d require more time spent on developing more rounded characters, but it is possible. Perhaps though it wouldn’t work. Wrestling is all about light entertainment where we know who is good and who is bad. Why try to add some pseudo-intellectual nonsense where it is not needed? Especially when the host country is not conducive to it. The more I think about it, the less I think it’d work. I certainly would be reluctant to risk everything in pursuit of something not only new and ambitious, but also likely to fail. It’s an experiment I’d like to see; not one I’d do. I’m just throwing the idea out there.
"Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs." - Isaiah Berlin
As always feedback is appreciated and can be sent to ianweinstein@hotmail.com
