You could say World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., or WWE is all about professional wrestling or you could say that it’s all about entertainment. Doing business as WWE, is an American sports entertainment and integrated Media Company that creates high-octane fight scenes peopled with colourful personalities and exaggerated rivalries. It is well known that it is all scripted, but this doesn’t prevent people from ardently following WWE personalities and devotedly watching the matches.
In the dim and distant past, people assumed that it was all real and spontaneous. But then the personalities got too dramatic, their rivalries larger-than-life and the events altogether too unbelievable.
Staged events, rivalries, and competitions shown as being true or real and spontaneous are referred to as Kayfabe. The term is also used as a code word to maintain the illusion of reality and to keep the knowledge of premeditation and scripting from the viewing public.
It is altogether over the top – snarling, diving, flailing, falling, crying, supposedly bleeding and cracking limbs. There are those however who are dogged in their determination to believe that it is all real!
Well John Cena has picked up a guy here; presumably to toss him contemptuously away. Someone who enjoys a good, violent spectacle will enjoy this – real or fake may become immaterial when one is entertained.
So in one sense, ‘fake’ may be an inaccurate descriptor for WWE events; 'scripted' would be more accurate. Considering how we watch carefully-scripted, painstakingly-directed and edit feature films, TV programs (including so called ‘reality’ shows), this is not really different.
Most adults who follow WWE know it is entertainment and not competitive sport. They watch it in much the same way we watch a Govinda movie; without using the brains much.
I have never been able to watch WWE; but then I can abide neither reality TV nor the execrable saas-bahu serials that they churn out with unceasing regularity. But then if someone enjoys watching WWE, I say hey, whatever floats your boat – even if you're an adult with otherwise normal intelligence.
The ancient Romans had their gladiators where men fought to their death and circuses where starving animals ate humans – that was sport then. WWE is a legal spectacle people watch today. If they get really lucky, someone will actually break a bone and bleed real blood – because you can learn how to fall, but accidents do happen.
It is a testament to how popular WWE is, that Dwayne Johnson AKA The Rock is a hugely successful movie star and producer!
Do you have something interesting you would like to share? Write to us at [email protected]
