tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546665963755719151.post6893896956472660815..comments2023-07-15T07:17:49.535-04:00Comments on Professional Wrestling in U.S. Popular Culture: Mick Foley vs. 20/20Sam Fordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17233749268141980625noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546665963755719151.post-79232403439395774182014-11-03T16:10:07.367-04:002014-11-03T16:10:07.367-04:00Certainly the topicality of wrestling is one of th...Certainly the topicality of wrestling is one of the best reasons for studying it...In fact, we probably could ave built a whole semester's worth of study just around that...Sam Fordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17233749268141980625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546665963755719151.post-52239693104192369222014-11-02T22:14:54.506-04:002014-11-02T22:14:54.506-04:00I really believe that wrestling mirrors our societ...I really believe that wrestling mirrors our society to a large degree, though not as exaggerated and distorted a version as Sam said. I am thinking more into the parallelism aspects. I think this is especially true for wrestling's story-lines. To me, it is on a par with soap operas, both covering social topics and values of the times. Garyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12968260885055118833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546665963755719151.post-13119590404702349072014-10-27T12:43:33.159-04:002014-10-27T12:43:33.159-04:00I've referred to wrestling as a carnival mirro...I've referred to wrestling as a carnival mirror, showing an exaggerated and distorted version of society back to us. And there's something about its uneasy existence both using offensive stereotypes and simultaneously making them ridiculous or parodying them that makes wrestling just so hard to read...as we will discuss today in terms of wrestling's use of parody.Sam Fordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17233749268141980625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546665963755719151.post-65600222543865330022014-10-27T10:30:18.483-04:002014-10-27T10:30:18.483-04:00I get all my news from a VERY trustworthy source (...I get all my news from a VERY trustworthy source (that is, Dr. Rich's class on International Politics) so I don't know what you're talking about. But really, it is scary that the facts from respected news offices is so often skewed to offer a more interesting or better-selling story. In this way, wrestling is almost like an antihero figure in the real world: it is largely looked down upon or sometimes even hated, but it has guts enough to expose the underbelly of our culture, even when it's not very pretty and higher ups might not want it to be seen. Racism, sexism, and other prejudices make it to the squared circle and the people's responses are more genuine watching there than anywhere else. Nobody is going to go out on the street and say that they hate foreigners, but in wrestling it's okay, because the foreign wrestlers are just so hateable. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05347940786457522285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546665963755719151.post-86406395006612285502014-10-22T11:20:47.396-04:002014-10-22T11:20:47.396-04:00Well put, Katie. While "Have a Nice Day"...Well put, Katie. While "Have a Nice Day" is a fun biography about MIck's own story and his unlikely rise to the top of the wrestling business through a career that took him from the indies to WCW to death matches to ECW to the WWF...I think "Foley Is Good" is much more useful for our purposes, in how it concentrates on a single time period in a wrestler's career, weaves home life with on-screen development with backstage opinions...and makes quite a lot of commentary on the media industries at large, on the culture and craft of wrestling, on the physical realities of wrestling performance, on quite a lot of what we've been talking about and reading...and even on academic research, as you'll see later...Sam Fordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17233749268141980625noreply@blogger.com