{"id":2182,"date":"2016-04-29T15:49:26","date_gmt":"2016-04-29T15:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/openhumanitiespress.org\/feedback\/?p=2182"},"modified":"2016-04-29T15:50:25","modified_gmt":"2016-04-29T15:50:25","slug":"truth-trump-wrestling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openhumanitiespress.org\/feedback\/theory\/truth-trump-wrestling\/","title":{"rendered":"Truth, Trump, and the Poetics of Professional Wrestling"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/h5>\n
\"Carlito_in_August_2012-1\"<\/a>

Carlito (Carly Col\u00f3n) executing a dropkick against Eric Cairn. Photo by Tabercil. CC-BY-SA-3.0<\/p><\/div>\n

Key terms.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Work: 1) An event meant to perpetuate a story line.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 2) To make someone believe something.<\/p>\n

Shoot: An event that presents a truth that seems to challenge or resist a story line.<\/p>\n

Kayfabe: 1) The totality of story lines in wrestling.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02) Practices and conventions meant to keep pro wrestling\u2019s secrets confidential.<\/p>\n

Pop: Positive emotional intensity or crowd reaction.<\/p>\n

Heat: Negative emotional intensity or negative crowd reaction.<\/p>\n

Blow-off: Cathartic climax of a series of pop and heat events that closes a particular story line.<\/p>\n

Getting Over: Achieving popularity with the crowd.<\/p>\n

Heel: A wrestler that gets over\u00a0by angering the crowd and generating heat.<\/p>\n

Face: A wrestler that gets over\u00a0by pleasing the crowd and making it pop.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both Donald Trump and pro wrestling tell fantastical stories which are often difficult to reconcile with our everyday understanding of truth. From in-ring appearances to behind-the-scenes funding, Donald Trump also has a long and storied history with the professional wrestling business. It should not be surprising, then, that American politics increasingly resembles pro wrestling. But while our current political reality is actively converted into a stream of spectacularly marketable falsehoods and half-truths, pro wrestling fashions real truths out of apparent falsehoods and theatrical conceits. Now, it may be objected that while pro wrestling is fake, the consequences of the rise to power of a populist demagogue like Donald Trump could be catastrophically real.\u00a0 However, such an objection misses the point of pro wrestling.\u00a0 Even if pro wrestling isn\u2019t real<\/em>, what matters is that pro wrestling can be<\/em> true<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A Google search will show that comparisons of Trump\u2019s political campaign to pro wrestling are nothing new.[1]<\/a> \u00a0However, they almost uniformly fail to take pro wrestling seriously enough to account for its narrative complexity.\u00a0 As an example, a recent article concluded that calling Donald Trump an \u201centertainer\u201d in no way undermines his political legitimacy because, \u201cthis is as effective [as] running into the middle of the ring during WrestleMania and yelling: \u2018This is all fake!\u2019 You are correct, but you will not be received well.\u201d[2]<\/a> This article\u2019s conclusion is right but for the wrong reasons. It betrays an oversimplified understanding of the truth conditions unique to the narrative logics deployed and refined in the practice of pro wrestling.\u00a0 Such a reductive understanding of pro wrestling actually invites<\/em> the hostility that it warns against and obscures what wrestling teaches us about how stories can construct a relationship to truth.<\/p>\n

The wrestling audience is traversed by very different understandings of what truth looks like and where to find it.\u00a0 Just as some people really believe that Donald Trump would be the best presidential candidate, many people at any given wrestling match also believe that the struggle in the ring \u2013or at least many aspects of it\u2013 is indeed real.\u00a0 Pro wrestling fandom is divided by a relationship to truth: some fans, known as \u201csmart-marks,\u201d are aware of possible narrative manipulation, while others, \u201cmarks,\u201d are so fascinated by the sheer immediacy of the spectacle that they either don\u2019t know or simply don\u2019t care if what they see is \u201creally\u201d happening. Unlike na\u00efve marks, smart-marks embrace pro wrestling\u2019s basic conceit and derive enjoyment or advantage from their own knowing contribution to shaping and perpetuating the story being told (Ben Carson, who endorsed Trump shortly after dropping out of the race despite his previous, vehement opposition to Trump\u2019s rhetoric, is following the opportunistic logic of the smart-mark).\u00a0 Marks, smart-marks, and non-fans alike all look for the truth of pro wrestling in different places, and wrestling is at its best when its narrative manages to fascinate all of these different gazes at once.<\/p>\n

As evidenced by its vocabulary, the truth of pro wrestling depends on who tells the story and how it is told.\u00a0 There are three basic ways to describe an event in wrestling: \u201cwork,\u201d \u201cshoot,\u201d and \u201cworked shoot.\u201d Rather than directly reflecting the truth of an event, dividing the truth of wrestling into a \u201cwork\u201d or a \u201dshoot\u201d instead posits a specific sort of relationship between an event and the dominant narrative meant to explain it.\u00a0 A \u201cwork\u201d is an event coordinated with a dominant story line and decided upon in advance to ensure that a match or set of matches credibly arrives at a desired conclusion.\u00a0 A comparable version of this logic is also present in political pandering, especially when mannerisms and opinions are feigned in order to ensure a political advantage.\u00a0 Whenever Hillary Clinton adopts an ill-fitting southern accent to parrot Rev. James Cleveland, it is probably safe to assume that this is a work.\u00a0 These \u201cworked\u201d actions are the building blocks of the poetics of wrestling, and together they constitute the all-encompassing narrative totality known as \u201ckayfabe\u201d (from \u201cconfabulation\u201d) or \u201cthe<\/em> work.\u201d\u00a0 A \u201cshoot,\u201d by contrast, is an action which seems to break with, defy, or threaten what kayfabe represents as the truth. \u00a0A shoot event can be something as banal as making an inopportune insider reference on camera or being overheard discussing how to improvise the match by a poorly-placed ringside microphone.\u00a0 But shoots can also provoke a rupture with the narrative by being too real and causing a shock to the spectator.\u00a0 A broken nose or rib from a purposeful and ill-intentioned blow can ruin a story line and a wrestler\u2019s career just as quickly as bad writing and unconvincing characters.\u00a0 And while it might seem easy to determine which events are \u201cworked\u201d in pro wrestling, figuring out just what might have been a shoot is far more difficult.\u00a0 This leads to a third, hybrid configuration of truth in wrestling: the \u201cworked shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWorked shoots\u201d problematize the very notion of truth by capitalizing on the plurality of gazes constitutive of pro wrestling spectatorship.\u00a0 In a worked shoot, an event first appears to break the rules of kayfabe by challenging kayfabe\u2019s narrative of a specific truth.\u00a0 Then, with the speed of a judo hip toss, it redirects the spectator\u2019s interrogation by calling into question the gaps in the way kayfabe tells all of its truths.\u00a0 The worked shoot forces the aporetic realization that the apparent defiance of the story line might have been anticipated by kayfabe all along. This gives rise to an interesting paradox: the fundamental lesson of professional wrestling is that, to the extent that spectators of pro wrestling try to determine what \u201creally\u201d happened, everyone gets<\/em> \u201cworked<\/em>.\u201d Marks miss the symbolic contest between the subtleties and slippages in reality and the limitations of kayfabe, which limits their ability to appreciate the physical and narratological finesse demanded by pro wrestling practice (although it may in no way detract from their enjoyment).\u00a0 Smart-marks become captivated by the greater narrative of kayfabe and get suckered in by the promise of totally seeing through the illusion to a truth beyond the deformation of mediation and spectacle.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the non-fans and casual commentators get \u201cworked\u201d most of all, because they fail to grasp that wrestling, like truth, is not less meaningful because it is structured like a fiction.\u00a0 And this Lacanian insight cannot help but recall another: \u201cLes non-dupes errent<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the politics of neoliberalism, Donald Trump functions as a wrestler because he has succeeded largely by exploiting the logics of pro wrestling far better than he ever did inside the ring.\u00a0 Fans from a broad audience have always given his pro wrestling cameos a fairly tepid reception. The formal structure of pro wrestling is a unique and contradictory amalgamation of theater clothed in the conceits and conventions of spectator sport, so it is not coincidental that Donald Trump qua<\/em> professional wrestler endlessly espouses his own personal dominance and uniqueness.\u00a0 Similarly, Trump the political<\/em> wrestler insistently portrays himself as \u201cthe best\u201d because the poetics of pro wrestling respond to the same basic question that Roland Barthes successfully uncovers in his phenomenology of sport: \u201cWhat is sport? Sport answers this question by another question: who is best?\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 The singular aim of pro wrestling is to tell a thrilling, credible, and lucrative story in response to this question.<\/p>\n

Professional wrestling tells a story that is larger than life by sidestepping the question of what really happened<\/em> and instead asking questions about a greater truth regarding the nature of justice and what should<\/em> have happened<\/em>.\u00a0 The truth produced by the poetics of pro wrestling is encoded as a conflict between two types of characters: wrestlers are generally either \u201cfaces\u201d (\u201cbabyfaces\u201d) or \u201cheels.\u201d The opposition between faces and heels is commonly understood as the same as that between \u201cgood guys\u201d and \u201cbad guys,\u201d and the ring is the primary site of combat where justice will be delivered or denied. Nevertheless, this understanding of faces and heels is too reductive because being a paragon of virtue or evil is not in itself what makes a wrestler a successful face or heel.\u00a0 Instead, the audience\u2019s reception of each character largely determines their success or failure.\u00a0 Indeed, the actions of faces and heels are sometimes indiscernible because the narrative logics that sustains both character types have the same aim: to \u201cpop\u201d or “get heat with” an audience by fascinating it and causing the spectators to performatively indicate their acceptance or rejection of each wrestler.\u00a0 This performance on the part of the audience then influences how the spectacle will play out in the future. The truth of wrestling is made manifest to and through its spectators, who function like Barthesian sports enthusiasts: \u201c[\u2026] Whereas in the theater the spectator is only a voyeur, in sport he is a participant, an actor.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0When the audience pops with chants and cheers or sizzles with the heat of boos and jeers, a heady brew of positive and negative emotional intensity is generated by the spectacle and can reach a climactic point. \u00a0Kayfabe\u2019s narrative needs crowd reaction to survive. In pro-wrestling, popularity with the spectators is the ultimate virtue.<\/p>\n

A big enough pop or enough heat from the crowd can change a wrestler\u2019s status as a face or a heel at any moment: one night\u2019s rejected hero may become the next night\u2019s villain you love to hate. From a formal standpoint, faces and heels are just two different ways to use character to tell a story. Rather than being moral positions, faces and heels are forms of character that play off each other as foils to engage the audience\u2019s emotions and canalize them toward a \u201cblow-off,\u201d or closure of a story line.\u00a0 The blow-off should cause a maximally cathartic pop. In pro wrestling, heels and faces succeed in different ways.\u00a0 Heels get heat and \u201cget over\u201d (achieve popularity) with the audience by defying kayfabe\u2019s norms, rules, and sensibilities, thereby flaunting the ideal of justice represented by the narrative.\u00a0 Faces get a pop and get over by reestablishing and confirming that same idea of justice and serving as a heroic point of identification.<\/p>\n

This understanding of the dynamic nature of character in pro wrestling shows why calling Donald Trump a heel only tells part of the story.\u00a0 For one thing, many of Trump\u2019s supporters are presumably marks, and for them he is a face, not a heel. His misogyny and race-baiting echo the truth that these marks have been \u201cworked\u201d to believe: namely, that Mexicans, Muslims, and a socialist Kenyan are ruining the USA.\u00a0 In this case, even Trump\u2019s continued attempts at \u201cshooting\u201d against the establishment remain a work, because they perpetuate the story of Trump as a political outsider who \u201csays what everyone is thinking.\u201d Marks are blind to the difference between work and shoot, but smart-marks think they are in on the game. Trump\u2019s smart-mark supporters believe that his attacks are actually a form of worked shoot. \u00a0From this angle, Trump\u2019s more hateful and violent outbursts are at once true (inasmuch as he is \u201csaying what he really thinks\u201d against the grain of established political discourses and \u201cpolitical correctness\u201d) and false (since his supporters will argue that their validity or truth has been distorted and misreported by insider political elites and the \u201cliberal media\u201d).\u00a0 When Trump speaks, his wrestling repertoire and ability to generate heat engage his potential supporters from a variety of angles at once.\u00a0 The only problem is that, as polls continue to show, the same brash, loudmouth character that keeps Trump\u2019s most ardent supporters coming back for more is a heel, not a face, in the eyes of a general electorate. And it can be exceedingly hard to make a heel into a hero: just ask Ted Cruz.<\/p>\n

Unless Trump can miraculously transform himself into a face for a general election audience, he is bound to learn the true meaning of \u201cheel heat.\u201d\u00a0 As legendary heel CM Punk puts it: “That’s my job: to get people to want to see somebody beat the hell out of me. A lot of the time they themselves want to beat the hell out of me.”[5]<\/a>\u00a0 This is why Trump\u2019s success as a heel in the political arena will ultimately also be his political undoing.\u00a0 Like a worked shoot, the absurdities of his campaign may have called the very meaning of truth in politics into question, but they have also totally destroyed the possibility of Trump gaining credibility as a babyface with an audience broader than that of his hardcore base supporters.<\/p>\n

Trump may be a wrestler, but wrestling reveals the limits of Trump.\u00a0 The poetics of pro wrestling classify heels and faces by the way they emotionally engage an audience, not by their moral fiber or mastery of technical performance.\u00a0 If we only focus on character and ignore its relation to kayfabe and audience reaction, we lose sight of the way the spectacular whole enforces its justice on the meaning of every character and every match to keep fans coming back for more.\u00a0 Appreciating the poetics of pro wrestling on its own terms provides new insight into its unique narrative logics. And it might also allow us to tell a more alluring story about the victory of the people, one that doesn\u2019t end with Donald Trump wearing the championship belt.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> For excellent recent treatments on the subject, see particularly O’Sullivan, Dan. “Money in the Bank.”\u00a0Jacobin<\/em>. 11 Aug. 2014. Web. 23 Apr. 2016. https:\/\/www.jacobinmag.com\/2014\/08\/money-in-the-bank\/, Willis, Oliver. “How Professional Wrestling Explains American Politics (Especially Donald Trump).” Medium. 2016. Web. 23 Apr. 2016. https:\/\/medium.com\/@owillis\/how-professional-wrestling-explains-american-politics-especially-donald-trump-5449df1db9de#.f25wf5u26, and DeVega, Chancey. “Donald Trump Is a Professional Wrestler: How the Billionaire Body-slammed GOP Politics.”\u00a0Salon<\/em>. 17 Aug. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.\u00a0<\/strong>http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/zpr6764<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Legum, Judd. “This French Philosopher Is The Only One Who Can Explain The Donald Trump Phenomenon.”\u00a0ThinkProgress<\/em>. 14 Sept. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2016. <http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/politics\/2015\/09\/14\/3701084\/donald-trump\/>. I am also tempted to suggest that a more apt metaphor than that of WrestleMania might include declaring that \u201cSanta is a lie!\u201d in a crowd of holiday shoppers or shouting \u201cGod is dead!\u201d during a packed church worship service.\u00a0 The point is that the question of truth is central to all of these metaphors, but there are still meaningful differences in the way that \u201ctruth\u201d should be defined in each case.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Barthes, Roland.\u00a0What Is Sport?<\/em>\u00a0Trans. Richard Howard. 63. New Haven: Yale UP, 2007. Print.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid <\/em>59.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> “WTF with Marc Maron Podcast Episode 444 – CM Punk.” Interview. Audio blog post.\u00a0WTF with Marc Maron<\/em>. 18 Nov. 2013. Web. 23 Apr. 2016. http:\/\/www.wtfpod.com\/podcast\/episodes\/episode_444_-_cm_punk.<\/p>\n

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