Racial stereotypes/stigma in wrestling.

[DCLXVI]

So lately this has come up a lot on the board, and more recently with Alberto Del Rio coming out and saying that racism is commonplace in the back at WWE. This is a loaded subject and probably goes beyond just wrestling... afterall, we have only had one non-white president in the history of our country and in a lot of our parents' lifetime there was segregation, etc. Let's face it, most of us are in a country where older white males are the vast majority in power.

A lot of people criticize WWE for sticking black guys into either a rapper, thug, or comedy gimmick... but there are similar stereotypes all over the board and there have been for years:


White guy - The Godwinns/random redneck gimmick (Stone Cold used it, Luke Harper's dirty trucker gimmick before), "rocker" (The Headbangers etc.,), the blue blood, biker (Taker and now Baron Corbin), etc.

Black guy - Rapper/dancer/gospel preacher gimmick (R-Truth, to what we've seen with Xavier Woods' latest repackage) to thug (New Jack, Cryme Tyme, etc.).

Latin guy - Luchador all the way to a Cholo style gimmick (Homicide - not in WWE but his finisher is called "The Gringo Killer", Konnan - who is actually calling out HHH and portrayed a stereotype gimmick himself for years).

Asian guy - Martial artist to Kai-en-Tai "We choppy off your pee pee".


How do you guys feel about this? Does it bother you? Do you just roll your eyes when they run these seemingly outdated gimmicks? Do you think stereotypes are just an easy way to identify a character or racist?

Thoughts?

 

[Reflection]

Racism exists everywhere. We can ignore it, we can deny it, but it's always there. It is worth pointing out that other popular shows in America like Big Bang Theory, Simpsons, Family Guy, Outsourced etc. have racial overtones. And people find it very enjoyable. You are in charge of WWE, you want people to enjoy the show more than they otherwise would, give them a stereotypical character. Most Americans are not knowledgeable or interested about anything happening outside their country, and they still think Indians are snake charmers, the Chinese only eat noodles, all Japanese have ninja/samurai training, the Russians still might nuke them, and so on... So you design your product based on what your target audience would enjoy; and for the common American man, racist jokes and stereotypes are hilarious. Thus, WWE is doing no wrong using this tactic too.
In their defence, we can be more kind towards the WWE in this matter because they need every character to be distinct from the other, and it's extremely difficult to keep doing it for decades without crossing the racist line. They can't have too many guys talking and acting the same way.

 

[Tyrant25]

If these stereotypes were never created or ignored in the first place, there would be no need for this. Not every Caucasian is a redneck and not every African-American is a thug. The fact that the world still adheres to these stereotypes is beyond me. There are a number of roles these wrestlers could portray that don't include these stupid stereotypes.

 

[enviousdominous]

Sadly, John Q public doesn't pay money to see a tv show respect his intelligence.

In the world of entertainment, the logic that is often used as a scapegoat is that everything that was presented was only meant to entertain and if you're offended then they're sorry that you're so sensitive.

As a white guy, who by his own standards is well off financially and professionally, I can't relate to the misery that's caused if someone makes an insensitive remark even if it's toward my own race. Therefore I choose not to fuck with people when it comes to those buttons, though some apparently find it amusing and empowering to use offensive remarks to belittle others.

This brings me to a worthless sack of shit named Jean Levesque. I know right; how dare I refer to a loving father and husband as a worthless sack of shit, especially after I declared that offensive remarks just aren't my thing. In the case of a worthless sack of shit known by his peers as HHH, I can't think of a nicer way to describe him and remain sincere in this post.

Remember Hung Lo the Chinese doctor? It was around the time of the heel DX thing, imposter Mankind was at the hospital and worthless sack of shit Jean Levesque wore slanted eye glasses and declared that he was "Hung Lo". Let that sink in a little. A worthless sack of shit who kissed ass and put himself in more undeserved main event matches than Cena thought it would be fun to make a dick joke and lampoon Asain culture. It's all good though, he has the common sense of a six year old so you can hardly blame the piece of shit for being ignorant. Moving on.

Racism that's presented as part of the show is there to attract a much more lucrative group of people, the fucking idiot crowd (which you fall into if you thought the Hung Lo thing was funny). If someone has a delusion based on a racist belief, they'd rather pay to have it validated, hence we get gimmicks like Crime Time and we get New Jack coming to the ring with fried chicken and watermelon. Then there's the fact that a white rapper gimmick was all it took to get a slow witted block head into the main card.

If tolerating racist bullshit like expecting a Hispanic performer to bus your dirty dishes is HHH's management style, then he apparently has no fucking clue of who makes up 80% of the audience when they have a show in Phoenix. There's putting on a show that sells tickets because it used a little bit of racism to entice the crowd, and then there's a fucking idiot named Jean Levesque whose racism exists just because he's a depraved botched abortion.