Raw is War of the Roses
(or: the frustrations of being a middle-class wrestling fan)

by Wolfang, June 14, 1999

It's 9:00 on a Monday night and here I am, sitting locked in my room
typing an angry essay instead of watching the one show I set aside time
for on the TV each week. Why? Because my bratty little sisters (Jessica,
aged 17 and Pam, 19) are downstairs monopolizing the TV to watch Brady
Bunch reruns. Their reasoning: We had the TV first! Well, no shit you had
the TV first; you've had it on ALL DAY!

But fine; fine. I'll set the VCR to record it and watch it in two hours.
I'm a little pissed because I know the only reason they're pretending to
watch the Brady Bunch is to get under my skin, but I can deal with it. I
go up to my room, turn on the mp3 player, figure I'll sit on the Internet
and chat for a couple hours while I wait. But it can't just stop at that,
can it? No - soon enough, I hear Pam's mocking voice (over the mp3 player,
mind you): "Oooh, Raw is WAR! Oooh, it's soooo cool!"

Can you really blame me for going downstairs and punching her repeatedly?

Mom was pretty pissed when she came inside and told us to stop screaming
at each other because she could hear the cursing from across the yard. She
finally took some semblance of my side and told Pam to quit acting like
such a self-righteous little brat, and I came back upstairs to write.

This may be a rather extreme example of my frustrations, but when crap
like this happens, I can't just let it lie. Why should I be ostracized and
made fun of for enjoying ONE SHOW a week, while the rest of my family sits
and watches sitcoms three hours a night, the golf channel during the day,
and whatever else happens to be on when their favorite shows aren't? I
don't make fun of them for being TV-aholics.

"It's so FAKE!" is the sneer that's always getting tossed at me across the
dinner table. Mom at least has the decency to stay out of it; she doesn't
understand my hobbies, but she doesn't make fun of them either. Dad, on
the other hand, belittles me right along with my sisters. News flash,
guys:

NO FUCKING SHIT IT'S FAKE!

It's a god damn TV SHOW, for Christ's sake. It's not a sport. Anyone who
thinks it's real is either 12 or has an IQ roughly equivalent to their
shoe size. People who think that we watch it because WE think it's real go
right in that same category. What right have YOU to dictate that what I
want to watch is stupid and unworthwhile when a) YOU spend your evenings
watching Brady Bunch reruns, and b) you've never bothered to sit through
an episode of Raw in the first place? As the old saying goes: "Don't knock
what you haven't tried."

I'll freely admit I used to think pro wrestling was pretty dumb and
pointless, but that's before one of my best friends insisted that I sit
down and watch an episode with him, while he explained the characters and
backgrounds and stuff. Since then, I've been hooked.

The key to the show, you see, is not the wrestling. This is not to say
that I don't admire the athleticism and sheer abuse-taking abilities of
the actors - but they are actors, not real competitors. The real appeal of
the show is the story and the interactions of the surprisingly realistic
characters within. Gone are the days of "Hulkamania," where the good guys
beat the bad guys and told little kids to drink their milk and take their
vitamins. The good guys today are flawed. No one's perfect. By the same
token, no bad guy can be totally evil. Personality has become more
important than archetypes. Frankly, I think the "heroic" image of Stone
Cold Steve Austin flipping off his opponents and hosing them down with
beer is a hell of a lot more entertaining than drinking my milk.

I didn't write this essay to discuss the evolution of professional
wrestling, though. The point I'm trying to get across is that I have a
RIGHT to enjoy what I want to, and it's none of your god damn business if
that's Monday Night Raw or Mad About You. If I don't like what you watch,
I won't watch it. I don't make fun of you for it. So please, Mister "I'm
So Cultured Because I Don't Watch Professional Wrestling," try to show a
little common fucking courtesy and act your age - not your IQ.