Monday Night Raw 11th May 2015: WWE television programming and why it sucks

What I am about to say about WWE television programming has undoubtedly been said many times before, but after watching Monday Night Raw on 11th May 2015 I feel like it needs to be said again, as the message is evidentially not getting through.

On WWE’s two main flagship television shows (Raw and Smackdown) the wrestlers are portrayed not as tough independent fighters, but as employees of the McMahon family. Their role is to entertain, and the winning or losing of their matches is secondary. If they entertain the fans then they are kept on as employees, but if they fail to entertain then they are fired.

The employees

The WWE makes it very clear that their employees/wrestlers are expendable and lucky to have a job. If they fail to entertain the fans they will be fired, and if they fail to do exactly what the McMahon family tells them to do they will also be fired. Here is the message that is constantly reinforced on their television programming:

Our employees/wrestlers are utterly worthless and would be unable to make a living if they were fired from their jobs here at WWE. 

This attitude is very depressing, very insulting and very dehumanising. It makes the wrestlers look like fools. The WWE (McMahon family) sees people as commodities. If you make money for the McMahon family then you are valuable and respected, if you don’t then you are worthless. It’s all about the McMahon family you see, and this message is the one constant of the show.

All of this is played out on weekly television, by a cast of overly muscled young men who were not quite athletic enough to make it in legitimate sports, where the pay, health benefits, holidays and everything else are 100% better than what you get as a WWE ‘superstar.’

Emasculation time

WWE performers have no health benefits, no job security, no holidays, and no pensions. They are not even employees. The WWE uses the Orwellian legalise term, ‘Independent contractors’ in order to really screw them over. This term allows WWE to treat them not as employees (who need insurance and rights, and all of those other pesky things) but as expendable lumps of meat. You work until your body is broken, and if you don’t like the conditions, tough. There’s no unions, no representatives, no way for you to complain, no way for you to improve your working conditions. Oil up, and work, or oil down and get out, that’s the WWE way.

And what about the pretty young females who appear on their television shows? If you are a young bikini model prepared to do everything that you are told to do, then you might be lucky enough to have a short career with the corporation. Your role will be to wiggle your butt and to do some reality television ‘acting.’ No athletic ability will be needed.  As you get into your 30’s though you’ll need to look for another job. You might be one of the lucky few and get to date George Clooney or do some straight to DVD movies, but for the vast majority the long-term prospects are about as bright as the ex male employees of the WWE ‘family.’

I’m talking addiction, unemployment, jail, homelessness and death. I could do an entire article about the people who worked for the WWE and ended up prematurely dead, but we all know about those all too common tales, don’t we?

The Corporate champion

That’s how disgusting the WWE actually is. Nothing is hidden, everything is out there, it’s on display, and yet, who cares? It’s just pro wrestling, right? It doesn’t matter because it’s fake. Okay, so it’s fake, but the people on the show are not fake. They are real human beings that are being horrendously exploited by a corporate vulture, yet nobody cares.

Here is a television show, aimed at children, that is full to the brim with horrifically anti-human corporate poisons, and still nobody cares.

Look at what the show is saying to children. It’s telling them that they have to be shallow, ruthless, manipulative, greedy, selfish, vain and violent to get what they want in life, and that they can get away with this disgusting behaviour just as long as they work within a corporate structure.

The hero of the show is John Cena, a man who epitomises this corporate attitude of selfishness and oozes it from every pore of his cartoonishly bloated body. 'Hustle, loyalty and respect' is his catch phrase, but hustle, loyalty and respect to what?

To the corporation of course, everything is for the corporation. Be loyal to the corporation and you will become a bloated star who gets to salute the troops and send them off to the latest war. Humanity be damned, we have money to make.

The message is clear: Be ruthless, be evil, be greedy, be selfish, be vain, but do it all within the safety of a corporate structure. All is allowable here, just as long as you are loyal to the corporation. Corporations are people, but people without need of a conscience. There is no morality here. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

If you think that I’m being a bit harsh here just watch the first ten minutes of this week’s Monday Night Raw. Watch how McMahon family leader HHH emasculates his employees, referring to himself as the ‘Daddy’ as he disciplines his unruly children. These unruly children are grown men in their thirties and older by the way. Watch how he mocks two wrestlers for being shorter than himself, belittles a seven foot supposed monster, and talks down to the champion of the organisation like he’s a naughty little boy.

This isn’t about wrestling. It’s not even about entertainment. This is about the worshipping of corporate authority, of bowing to the awesome power of the McMahon family. The wrestling isn’t even important anymore, this is nothing more than one giant vanity project, and I don’t know how much longer it can continue if this is all it has to offer.

I used to enjoy pro wrestling, but how can I enjoy the WWE in 2015 when all of the wrestlers are portrayed as sad sack losers who are lucky to have a job?

I used to idolise wrestlers. They used to be real-life superheroes, substitute Gods for our atheist age, but not anymore. Today when I watch WWE television programming all I see is failed athletes who if not for the generosity of the McMahon family would be working at minimum wage neo-liberal McJobs. I look at the wrestlers on my television set and I don’t admire them. I feel sorry for them.

Loyalty, but only to the corporate brand

I don’t want to feel sorry for the wrestlers. I used to like wrestling, and I want to like it again. I don’t want to hear about drug overdoses, heart attacks, suicides and deaths, and I don’t want to see them being emasculated on my television set before their corporate overlords.

I want wrestlers to get unionised, to start standing up for themselves, to demand change in their working environment. They need to be the heroes that they are supposed to be. They need to stand up to the McMahon family. They need to get organised. They need to take a risk, to do something that needs to be done. They need to be strong and brave, not just in body, but in mind and deed as well.

I remember watching wrestling when I was a kid and the wrestlers were heroes, not employees. What kid watching WWE programming today wants to see a show where all of the wrestlers are portrayed as loser employees? It makes no sense to me, and as WWE continue to lose viewers and ratings go down the toilet somebody out there has to point out these flaws to them.

The McMahon family's real life adoration of morality free neo-liberal corporatism is bleeding through to their television programming and what is being produced is a near unwatchable show that is dripping with satanic corporate anti-human ideology.

They need to make the show about the wrestlers competing against each other to see who is the best. They need to start telling us that their wrestlers are the best athletes in the world, and that they can do things that other professional athletes cannot do. They need to make us believe that this is unique competition between the toughest men in the world, because that is what pro-wrestling is supposed to be.

What the WWE is doing at the moment is putting a group of emasculated losers on our television sets, telling us over and over again that they are interchangeable and lucky to have a job. It’s not working, and they need to change things whilst they still have the chance.

A critical dissection of the underlying themes and ideological assumptions in the opening segment of WWE Monday Night Raw (Monday 14th July 2014)

- The following article will attempt to critically analyse and evaluate the content of the most watched pro-wrestling television programme in 2014. It will look at the story lines, characters and underlying societal assumptions that are made within the programming. I am a long time pro wrestling fan, but this article will not be a typical pro wrestling article. There will be no match ratings, and no complaints about my favourite performers not being pushed. The article will look at portrayals of fake rebellion within the corporate slave plantation known as western capitalist democracy.

The show begins with the usual in ring talking segment. This time it’s the two biggest fan favourites in the company. John Cena- the old fan favourite who is nearing the time where he need to be replaced, and his replacement, Roman Reigns. Cena is a fake face of rebellion, in that he goes against the main villain group, a group called ‘The Authority’ who represent the companies owners, but on a closer analysis of why the authority group would dislike Cena there is very little reason for them to do so. After all, he is still very popular with women and children. Because of this he makes the company a lot of money. He never says anything ‘politically incorrect,’ he never criticises the company, he is clean living and never appears in the media doing something wrong, and he’s a loyal employee who always turns up for work, even when he’s badly injured. In other words, he’s the perfect corporate employee. He tells children to support the troops, to do what you are told, support cancer charities, never question anything and be loyal to your corporate employer. In WWE story line however they represent him as a ‘rebel’ to the authority figures. This is not at all believable, and thus John Cena is the perfect embodiment of fake rebellion within the corporate system. He’s safe, and he is easily controlled because he wants to be controlled. He even begins his talking segment by telling the fans to order the WWE network, an Internet only product that the WWE is hoping will be the future of their business. In every way possible John Cena is the perfect corporate yes man, and there is no reason whatsoever for the story-line villains to be against him and what he is doing. After all, he is perfect for them, and only wants to make them as much money as possible.

Roman Reigns

The young replacement for John Cena is a handsome, tattooed, long haired muscular man who has been given the name of Roman Reigns. Quite an appropriate name really for a man who lives in a country largely modelled on the old Roman Empire. Roman Reigns began his run with the company as a bad guy, beating up good guy wrestlers with a group of black clad thugs. The reasons for them doing so were revealed as being disingenuous and the group later aligned themselves with the corporate authority figures where once again they assaulted wrestlers, but this time because the authority figures ordered them to do so. That group of order following thugs became very popular with the fans, and so became fan favourites. This says a lot about the fans, that they would identify with order following thugs, simply because they looked ‘cool’ in black uniforms (like swat team members of the Police force) and further cements the impression that WWE fans are corporate statist slaves who love their own enslavement. Roman Reigns has very little individuality, personality, or character, but that doesn’t appear to matter to the fans. He looks cool, and he beats people up. That’s all the WWE fans appear to care about.

The opening segment is a popularity contest with the new young lion challenging the old lion. Who wins depends upon the reaction of the paying customers. In this segment the younger lion wins, probably because he’s fresh, and because of his good looks. This will inevitably lead to the old lion turning villain, as that is where the money is in pro wrestling. This will be built up over several months where it will be paid off in a big stadium, for as much money as is possible. The segment also includes a third man, a man called Dean Ambrose who is portrayed as slightly crazed and anti authority. This man also used to be a black clad order follower who worked for the authority figures, but who now wants to strike out on his own. Ambrose is then attacked by wrestlers working for the authority figures, and is beaten down in much the same way as he beat down people before him. This however will not be mentioned by the commentators. Ambrose is a good guy now, and his past order following actions are not to be mentioned, as are the past order following actions of Roman Reigns.

Dean Ambrose

The overall impression created from this opening segment is of two factions within the company. The first faction is the order following goons. They do what they are told, and they do not question. The second faction is of individuals who are individually fighting for power, but need to get together and work as a team to fight against the order following goons. This is a good message, telling the audience that authority figures divide and conquer their enemies, and that the best way to defeat them is to put aside your difference and team up with like minded individualistic people to fight them and their order following goons. The only problem with the WWE storyline however is that the individualistic heroes are only really fighting for themselves, not for any greater good or long-term change. Simply put, all they want is power, wealth and status. Not for any greater cause, but for themselves. They dislike the authority figures, but only because they themselves want to be the authority figures and enjoy the wealth and status that comes with that position. John Cena has been a long time corporate yes man, and both Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose are corporate thugs who have put down their uniforms for selfish, careerist reasons. They represent nothing but their own self-interests.

The 'Authority.' A group that represents the owners of the WWE. 

Conclusions: 

The WWE is sending out mixed messages here. It is telling it’s audience that blindly following orders is a bad thing, yet its top heroes are all men who blindly follow corporate orders. All three main heroes blindly follow corporate orders in their real lives, as not doing so would disqualify them from the positions they now hold in the WWE. To illustrate the point, just imagine what would happen to one of these wrestlers if he went onto twitter and criticised what Israel is doing to the civilians in Gaza right now? He would be suspended, forced to apologise and his career would be irreparably damaged. They know this, and that is why they will never do or say anything that is politically incorrect or controversial. They are on the corporate plantation, and that is where they are happy to stay. However, on television they are the faces of rebellion, telling fans that fighting for what is right is the way to live your life, even when in their own real lives they are fighting only for themselves and their self-interests. They are fake fighting on television so they can buy a bigger house, buy a bigger car, date a hotter girl and take care of their immediate families. Even on television their motivations are see-through. They all fight for power within the corporate system, but they do not challenge the system itself. They are house slaves, fighting for promotion within a system that they will not challenge. That is how WWE portrays both its authority figures and its wrestlers. The authority figures known as ‘The Authority’ constantly mention, over and over again, that they can fire any of the wrestlers at any time, and for any reason. If you don’t blindly follow their orders then you’ll lose your job. This story-line has been portrayed many times recently, with wrestlers sadly assaulting other wrestlers simply because they fear for their jobs. The only possible conclusion to be made by the audience is that everything that is being portrayed here is fake drama, pre-approved by the corporation/authority, for the slaves on the corporate slave plantation. The wrestlers are simply lucky slaves, picked off the plantation, much like in the Hunger Games movies. They get to fight each other for promotion, but they do not get to challenge the circus ringmaster who is setting them to fight against each other. What you are getting on WWE television programming is the perfect embodiment of false rebellion and resistance within the corporate paradigm. It’s a boxing match, with the only winner being the promoter. It is the blue party versus the red party, with the only winner being the corporate elite’s that own both parties. They say that pro-wrestling is fake, but there’s more fakery involved than the pretend fighting. The fakery also exists within the story-telling and ideological programming of the product itself. It’s the same fakery that exists in the mainstream media, financial system, politics and all other areas of fake fighting allowed upon the corporate slave plantation. A system where you can say and do whatever you want, as long as you don’t actually challenge the system itself.