Fat Jokes and Ugly Jokes

[Kenny Powers]

As long as the crowd doesn't chant porker or fat ass to Vickie, I guess a few fat jokes here and there aren't bad. It does make Cena look like a bully calling Vickie fat. It makes it seem to children that idolize Cena that its okay to make fun of someone's weight that you don't like. Lets be honest though, we have heard fat jokes ten times worse on television and in the classroom before.

Vickie really isn't that fat considering how much she weighed years before. A few juvenile jokes here and there are fine, but I hope WWE doesn't make a habit of making fun of overweight people. At least Cena didn't dress up as Piggie James.

 

[Daniel.Wood]

Lets be honest , a fat joke is hardly the worst thing someone has done to someone else in the WWE .

Yes it probably is encouraging a bullying culture with our children. However surely it's no worse then seeing the Nexus gang up on someone and beat the living crap out of them surely that's provoking a bullying culture more with the children?

Yes it was probably unnecessary but it's not the worst thing ever !

 

[Tired0FthePeople]

But its a totally different think because Nexus are WRESTLERS and plus they are HEELS and no one idolizes Nexus! Plus Nexus beat down MEN and not women!!

 

[Eyebrows]

Vickie guerrero is fat thats why they made fun of her.

So, people should be made fun of because they're fat? Or because of any other aesthetic reasons? That reasoning is why bullying exists.

I don't think that Cena/Lawler was particularly bullying in a non-kayfabe sense and it's not really the point. Weight issues are a major issue for a large part of the demographic that WWE caters for (the early-mid teen market). Segments like that reinforce the view that you have to be stick-thin and drop dead gorgeous in life. I'm not naive and I know that the world can be like that at times but on a large scale that's just not true. Kids shouldn't be growing up with messages that it's ok to pick on people because they're overweight.

It's not the same as a heel doing the same thing. When a heel does it they get the point across that what the heel is doing is bad. The heel usually gets their comeuppance eventually. Nexus beating people down doesn't promote bullying because the point is made clear Nexus are the bad guys and because Nexus have been getting their ass kicked for the past month.

 

[OmegaWWE]

First off, I'll start by saying that it was somewhat entertaining, and I could see why WWE would put a segment like that on Raw. However, it was crude, and very offensive. Vickie has lost a lot of weight, and (personally) I feel that every face in WWE that crosses paths with Vickie (with the exception of The Undertaker) has poked some fun at her weight. I think it makes overweight people more self-conscious about their body image. WWE should be promoting (at least to the kids) to love your bodies the way they are. Just my opinion, though.

 

[Gregor_Samsa]

I usually don't post on the wrestling forums, though I do follow them. I had some thoughts on this segment. Now, I often bathe in tasteless humor. I've told my share of holocaust and 9/11 jokes.
While I didn't find last night's segment offensive, I did find it terribly hypocritical for several of the reasons already mentioned. Maybe I wouldn't be so annoyed if the jokes were funny and original. The sentiment behind them though was confusing. Why do a segment that makes Cena, your hero for the kiddies, look like a complete dick?
A performer like the Rock, who played that tweener role so well, probably could have pulled it off. But Cena is such a howdy-doody face character.
The message was laughingly hypocritical and the jokes were boring.

 

[sharmaq]

As I've said in another thread, I thought this was an embarrassment to the WWE and is an example of why I don't generally tell people I'm a wrestling fan. People have mentioned the hypocrisy of it all. How does WWE justify a segment like this on the one hand and then on the other hand proclaim itself to be a PG show which is all about families and promoting healthy values? If you're a normally built woman like Vickie Guerrero as opposed to being built like Michelle McCool you're somehow a beast who deserves to be ridiculed for it. What a great message to send out to your female viewers. My wife is regularly disgusted by the portrayal of women on WWE and I can see why - I felt uncomfortable watching the segment myself and can only imagine how the majority of female viewers felt. As has been mentioned, it's very strange to relentlessly poke someone at someone for their weight when just recently we've had a whole feud based around Sheamus being a "bully".

Fine, Vickie is an obnoxious character and does deserve to be made fun of, but is it really necessary to result to such low brow humour? She was getting quite enough heat by virtue of her personality with having to use such cheap insults. Sadly there are still some pretty prehistoric attitudes prevailing in the WWE's "humour" department - women, race, sexuality, toilet humour (which we don't need to elaborate on here). And the sad thing is that the major source of this material is the top babyface of the company, John Cena! It's amazing to me that he regularly makes borderline homophobic jokes and now picked apart a (normally built) woman for her weight. On the one hand he is supposed to be the one that the kids look up to, and the one who encourages everyone to stand up for themselves but then on the other hand rips people for having an "alternative lifestyle" or being "overweight". It's not an excuse that the people he rips on are heels. If I argue with a prick who happens to be overweight or gay, I don't resort to fat jokes or gay jokes, and nor should the top babyface of the company. A long rant I know, but WWE does so many thing s right, and it's really disappointing when they come out with crap like this.

 

[xTrevor]

I would agree. Cena has been a bad role model the past year and needs to stop. Vickie HAS lost weight and cena and jerry are just being douches and you know that the kids will make the same fat jokes and parents will complain and it will be a huge controversy.

 

[Layorz]

Really guys? The argument is that it's "crude and offensive". I'm inclined to believe thats only because it came out of Cena's mouth. Where's the thread trashing Cody Rhodes for doing the same thing to FANS a month or so ago on Smackdown? Where's the hate for Jericho and his constant berating of the audience for being "gelatinous tape worms"? It's not the first time a face, a top face, has poked fun at peoples size. HHH and HBK had their fair share of laughs at Big Shows expense during JeriShow/ShowMiz.

Seriously, it was a joke made to co-worker that she pretty obviously knew was coming and is quite clearly alright with. It wasn't made with malicious intent, which is exactly the way heels usually address the crowd with fat, stupid, lazy insults. And it's not like John Cena runs back and forth calling everyone out on their imperfections. It's mind boggling that people are taking offense to this and calling out the WWE for being hypocritical, when they're being hypocrites themselves. There's no need to let something so trivial get you riled up and angry at the E. If the person the joke was made about can laugh at it, why can't you?

 

[cm ben]

I'll throw my two cents in.

I'm with the OP on this one. The difference between Cody Rhodes making fun of 'ugly' fans and Cena making fun of Vickie is that Cena is sort of presented as 'the ultimate role model.' On the show, he's either protecting people (Evan Bourne, Bret Hart, Maria Kanellis), fighting against evil (the Nexus, Umaga), saluting the troops, whatever. Off the show, at least as far as WWE tells us, he is constantly doing charity work with the Make A Wish Foundation, and living a good wholesome life. For kids, who are a large portion of the WWE's target audience, and for whom the content of programming would have the most impact, Cena is presented as a hero and role model.

So yeah, I'm kind of disappointed that they would do this. Cena reinforced the idea that women are 'supposed' to be skinnier than Vickie, who, in my opinion, doesn't really look that bad. More than that, he showed that if a woman is Vickie's size, it's okay to berate her. Sure, Vickie is a bitch, so she invites derision upon herself. I see that and you see that. But do a lot of the kids watching at home see that? Probably not, and they might start making fun of chubby girls on the playground or something. Who knows.

The media pushes forth a lot of kind messed up ideas, and girls have it worse than guys, I think--they can't go to the grocery store without seeing the tabloids and being reminded what they're 'supposed' to look like. I think that WWE writers can come up with some other way to get heat for Vickie without bringing this issue up, especially from their #1 face.

Uh, all that being said, this is also the company that teaches kids that it's okay to resolve any and every problem with violence. So parents are/should be aware that WWE is going to be sending different messages than Blue's Clues or something.

 

[JM Punk]

I didn't care for it, but it was more because of my disdain for the gloating Cena character we tend to see when he is coming off of a big PPV win, his delivery telling jokes and the PG rating. To me, it was very similar to the Jericho skits where he would call Stephanie McMahon a ****. Only difference is that, as an adult, I preferred that material over the kiddie fat jokes and unlike Cena, Jericho is funny.