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Not that I'm surprised, but it's interesting to me that Cena making gay jokes about the Rock is being praised as a really great serious promo response.

 

Considering the focus put on teen suicide and bullying the past few months, that just felt stupid to me. It's 2011. Cena's better than that.

 

It's possible to be edgy without that stuff.

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Not that I'm surprised, but it's interesting to me that Cena making gay jokes about the Rock is being praised as a really great serious promo response.

 

Considering the focus put on teen suicide and bullying the past few months, that just felt stupid to me. It's 2011. Cena's better than that.

 

It's possible to be edgy without that stuff.

It sure made the crowd happy. There's something to knowing your audience and giving them something they want. I mean, this is pro wrestling. When has it ever taken the high ground about anything at all? Forget Cena. WRESTLING isn't better than that. And hey, those are news stories had nothing to do with wrestling or Linda. I doubt the insulated WWE's higher ups even know anything about them.

 

In general I do think that Cena was better off focusing on the fact that Rock left for greener pastures though. He had enough material there without going for the lowest common denominator. I also think that if anyone in the company should be a role model, yeah, it should be the guy who has all the fans under 12 and does the charity work.

 

That said, I do think the crowd actually responded far, far better to making fun of Rock's movies and the gay stuff. They seemed a little wary when Cena was talking about Rock abandoning them.

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If it made the crowd happy to call Rock a half breed, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We would just know that it was wrong, regardless of whether there was a pop for it or not. :)

I'm not entirely sure what sort of discussion there is to have, to be honest. Yes, it's wrong. Yes, no one's surprised, including you and myself.

 

I guess a line of discussion would be this: Would it be alright for him to have done it in any other form of entertainment? If he was a football player making such insinuations even in a joking way... but then that's real and this isn't. A sitcom wouldn't have the sort of adversarial nature that we deal with here.

 

There really isn't anything that we can compare to wrestling (except for Madonna of course), so I guess that's not a line of discussion either.

 

So sure, I am quite happy to shake my head with you and say, shame on them and hope that in ten years or some other logically derived amount of time, it will be so socially unacceptable to say such things that even pro wrestling, and Vince's pro wrestling which is specifically always either ten years behind the curve or utterly unaware of what they have (see: Zach Ryder/Usos), will refrain.

 

But in the here and now it popped the crowd and put Cena back into fight, as it was, with the audience that matters to WWE. That he had to stoop to that level to do so either says something about his talent or the audience or both, I guess, but I don't think it's anything we didn't already know.

 

Where's the discussion here?

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If it made the crowd happy to call Rock a half breed, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We would just know that it was wrong, regardless of whether there was a pop for it or not. :)

That's not true. When Scott Steiner referred to Samoa Joe as a fat half breed the promos were widely praised.

 

Wrestling is innately anti-pc. There are things about that fact that I like, things about that fact that I hate, and things that I am indifferent too.

 

I'd like to think that I'm not homophobic but I had no real problem with the promo largely because I am so used to homophobia, ethnic stereotyping, horrible portrayals of women, et in pro wrestling that it has to be something unusually offensive for me to cringe.

 

I do wish that "u r gay!" wasn't the first response of virtually every top edgy WWE babyface in recent years (see DX and Cena) but at this point it is basically an assumed part of the product and I don't believe for a second that a program built on ritualistic violence is a good place to deal with the "anti-bullying" stuff in the first place.

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It's funny that "PG" WWE may be more harmful to children (in my opinion) than Attitude era stuff. I mean, Attitude era had stuff like lesbian angles, light cursing, and "shocking" situations (Undertaker "crucifying" Austin, Foley's bumps/chairshots, etc). Most of that stuff was so far out there, that I doubt it really had any kind of lingering effect on kids.

 

In the last few years, WWE has had their top face consistently insinuate that his rivals may be gay, and that there IS something wrong with that. Also, the whole normal-looking girls are fat thing has gotten out of control. Yes, I get that Vicki is a super-over heel. That doesn't make it ok when I'd be willing to wager that most girls watching wrestling are closer to her build than say, Michelle McCool.

 

It just strikes me as odd that we've had all this talk about WWE "toning down" their product for kids when it's arguably doing more harm now.

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To be clear, my point was not necessarily to bash WWE, even though I did criticize them in my post. I agree that wrestling plays to the lowest common denominator. My criticism was more aimed at people who respond as if doing so is a good thing (which also, to be clear, is not what I took from your response, Matt). The discussion point is not "Why does WWE continue to do this?" as much as it is "Why do people respond positively when they do?"

 

I don't recall the half-breed promos done on Samoa Joe, Dylan, but if they were praised, that's not really great either, although the big difference there is that he was a heel saying something heelish. Babyfaces making racist or homophobic jokes is different because it's suggesting that the audience should agree.

 

The problem is way bigger than wrestling, and homophobia will exist among people who watch WWE whether they play into it or not. But I can't point to anything else that promotes homophobia to children outside of religious cartoons.

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Well, to be fair, I'll admit that over at DVDVR I lauded Cena for mounting a comeback, ANY sort of comeback that made this into a less one-sided affair, if only because I had my doubts he'd be able to pull it off at all. And I'm probably a little bit guilty of shrugging the negative connotations off as "just the way WWE is." There were tools that he could have used as a WWE SUPERSTAR and, good or ill, that's one of the tools and he used it pretty effectively. So I was looking at things from, I don't know, a business sense? Or with a sense of the business, if that's not too slight a distinction.

 

I realize that wrestling is a pretty scummy business, and the biggest heroes are very often the worst scumbags, but I always get the impression that Cena is a pretty good guy and a relatively caring one. I wonder if it's just a case that no one's called him to his face on this stuff in any meaningful way. Maybe that's way too naive of me. It sure sounds naive. Cena seems pretty isolated to me in general. I think back to some of his ridiculous company line media appearances and he comes off as an earnest and clueless schmuck on this sort of thing.

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It's funny that "PG" WWE may be more harmful to children (in my opinion) than Attitude era stuff. I mean, Attitude era had stuff like lesbian angles, light cursing, and "shocking" situations (Undertaker "crucifying" Austin, Foley's bumps/chairshots, etc). Most of that stuff was so far out there, that I doubt it really had any kind of lingering effect on kids.

 

In the last few years, WWE has had their top face consistently insinuate that his rivals may be gay, and that there IS something wrong with that. Also, the whole normal-looking girls are fat thing has gotten out of control. Yes, I get that Vicki is a super-over heel. That doesn't make it ok when I'd be willing to wager that most girls watching wrestling are closer to her build than say, Michelle McCool.

 

It just strikes me as odd that we've had all this talk about WWE "toning down" their product for kids when it's arguably doing more harm now.

Great post and yes, I agree with this. I really don't want to villify WWE here. It's probably tough to present television based on conflict when you have to worry about not offending this group or that group. Gay jokes are easy heat. Fat jokes against women are easy heat. When they produce as much TV as they do, it makes sense that they sometimes choose expediency over decency.

 

I'm also a bit conflicted over this, because some of the wrestling I love from the past clearly plays this stuff up. Jim Cornette, my favorite manager ever, got over because they were constantly suggesting that he was gay to get heat.

 

Mistakes happen. Even the most well-meaning wrestling company is occasionally going to do something ignorant. I just wish they wouldn't repeat their mistakes, and that as a global, billion-dollar company, it's sometimes surprising that they're less in touch with the world around them than your $25 a night territory from the 80s.

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It should be noted, too, that Cena was reverting back to "rap-battle" Cena last night. I have yet to hear a rap battle (not that I've heard a ton) that did not contain a number of homophobic slams. I realize that Cena has not shied away from gay jokes since ditching the rap character, but this is still something.

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I saw the Cena promo becaue I wanted to see how he responded to the Rock. I had predicted that he would revert somewhat back to his past and start dissing the Rock part of which would include gay insults. I was right. I was also right that they would get looked over because of people getting excited over Thuganomics and people's attitudes toward gay people. I found the comments pretty disheartning myself.

 

To get his old self over right out of the gate and show that he was serious, Cena had to go for shock value (which seems to be what a lot of rap does) and go for the throat against the Rock.

 

The discussion point is not "Why does WWE continue to do this?" as much as it is "Why do people respond positively when they do?"

Like it or not, being called gay to a straight man is a primal insult that a lot of guys hate wether they're homophobic or not. It's an insult to their manhood. I dislike how it would hurt gay men watchign the show but I understand why they did it. It works. Emotion beats out logic every time. Even on this site here, you will see this. I do know of one prominent poster on this board who will call people out on being anti gay in wrestling turn around and use gay to insult the fanbase of a particular company and wrestling style he doesn't like.

The same holds true for fat women. Calling a woman fat is one of the two (no wait 3) biggest general insults you can call a woman to tear her down. It's an insult to her womanhood. The thing that really bothers me though is that the WWE has an incorrect perception of what fat is calling ladies fat when they clearly aren't. There is a thing as being too skinny for a woman and if the WWE's model of what an an ideal attractive woman is off.

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Not that I'm surprised, but it's interesting to me that Cena making gay jokes about the Rock is being praised as a really great serious promo response.

There is the irony that when Cena jokingly insinuates that certain members of Nexus are male escorts, strippers and lead alternative lifestyles he's being smarmy, obnoxious and even lame, but do it in the form of an aggressive rap against The Rock and it's cool. :)

 

I think I'd be more offended by how creatively bankrupt this exposes WWE to be, than their babyfaces using gay jokes again which is par for the course. That the only response they could come up with is Cena cutting a promo like it's 2003 again. Like most nostalgia it'll work for a short while, but the novelty will wear off pretty quickly.

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I don't recall the half-breed promos done on Samoa Joe, Dylan, but if they were praised, that's not really great either, although the big difference there is that he was a heel saying something heelish. Babyfaces making racist or homophobic jokes is different because it's suggesting that the audience should agree.

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I think we are kind of confusing two things:

 

A one-off rap dissing the Rock and the promo material frequently used and written by Cena and Brian Gewirtz.

 

On the rap this week you can kind of give Cena a stylistic pass as homophobia/emasculating your target is an established aspect/trope.

 

While his John and Brian's cosplay Rock comedy stuff is the terrible and inexcusable stuff. Calling Justin Gabriel Justin GAYbriel and such like.

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I'm also a bit conflicted over this, because some of the wrestling I love from the past clearly plays this stuff up. Jim Cornette, my favorite manager ever, got over because they were constantly suggesting that he was gay to get heat.

Yes, but it was in the 80's in southern USA. WWE is a worldwide public company. In 2011. Their Ace making fun out of his opponents by calling them "gay" is just wrong and retarded.

And Log made great points about all of this being more harmfull than anything happening during the Attitude Era. They tell little kids that the bad guys are "gay" and that a girl who doesn't look anorexic is "fat" ? Really, fuck PC, it's just stupid.

I dream about some progressive wrestling where the heel calls the babyface gay, only for the babyface to respond that yeah, maybe he is, and that he would gladly do him after beating him into the dirt. And you'd get the crowd chanting "fuck his ass" during the match. I know, I'm being crass, but still.

Why "gay" jokes would be acceptable when "jew" ou "negro" jokes certainly wouldn't be ?

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They seriously need to reeducate the audience in what is acceptable, yes, just like they did with the in-ring work x amount of years ago. From a business sense, however, the time to do that is not right before a Mania. Cena needed any tool at his disposal just to keep his head above water after what Rocky did to him last week and these are normative tools in the WWE UNIVERSE.

 

I guess a valid worry is that Cena is going to get more over if he keeps going down this path and they will notice and push further in that direction. (that said, he reiterated a few times last night that it was a one-off deal and he just had to get past it).

 

Of course, Linda was just talking about running again in 2012, but then I have no idea how the CT republican base might feel about this sort of thing.

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Maybe, just maybe, they should have thought things out a little better before having Rock just obliterate their current top star. I think we had the discussion a while ago that completely burying someone is counterproductive for business, since if you bury someone then beat them all you did was beat a jabroni. My wife was a big fan during the attitude era and she was nodding in agreement when Rock was talking about how WWE went from Austin and Rock to "you can't see me". She even mentioned that's why she doesn't watch wrestling anymore. Even before his rap response they made Cena look like he was honored and grateful to have the Rock slaughter him and it really made him look like more of a chump than the Rock's promo did. Compare it to Miz, who not only pointed out how lame Rock's putdown of him was he turned it around to put himself over even more as a heel. It just was so odd that apparently Miz gets more protected by the writers than John Cena (at least on this occasion).

 

 

 

Also:

 

Of course, Linda was just talking about running again in 2012, but then I have no idea how the CT republican base might feel about this sort of thing

Not to get too POLITIXXXX here, but I'd wager of all the things going on in WWE they probably are upset about the homophobic stuff the least.

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Cena needed any tool at his disposal just to keep his head above water after what Rocky did to him last week and these are normative tools in the WWE UNIVERSE.

You really think a bunch a third grade gay jokes kept Cena's head out of the water ? Rocky killed him dead last week, and this makes him look as lame as he's been depicted to be.

 

This brings my question for today : is John Cena the lamest big babyface of all time ? My answer would be yes in a heartbeat, as he just looks like a dork compare to Hogan, Rocky, Austin, Sammartino, Lawler. Some may argue Backlund was a lot dorkier, but it was during another era, and Backlund was a lot more goofy and bizarre than lame. Cena's character is just appalling if you're past 10.

 

Of course, Linda was just talking about running again in 2012, but then I have no idea how the CT republican base might feel about this sort of thing.

No shit ? Yay, more money wasting.

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They really need to get Cena back to 2007 Cena and fighting monsters. Sheamus could of worked if they did not make him look like a chump so many times.

 

I don't know why he needed to resort to gay jokes with Rock. The guy's movie career has made him an easy target. Cena really isn't that creative. I think if a guy is not fat or short or ugly he has no idea how to put them down. So he goes to the gay well.

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Cena needed any tool at his disposal just to keep his head above water after what Rocky did to him last week and these are normative tools in the WWE UNIVERSE.

You really think a bunch a third grade gay jokes kept Cena's head out of the water ? Rocky killed him dead last week, and this makes him look as lame as he's been depicted to be.

 

 

He was getting a noticeable reaction from a crowd that had been skeptical at the beginning of the promo. That counts for something.
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I should also say that for whatever else you want to say about WWE and the people running it, I don't think most of the people in power are homophobes, at least not to a point that they would aggressively take out personal frustrations with gay people on the air. Linda McMahon went about as far left as a Republican candidate possibly could on the issue of gay marriage (leave it to the states) in her campaign. It's also a company where gay people have succeeded in the past and had power. Their history and television portrayal doesn't match that, but the inner workings of the company, or at least what we know about it, don't make it seem like they would be outwardly hostile toward gay people.

 

I do think the portrayal of women is tied to some psychological problems Vince has, and in the end, I think that's far more harmful and offensive than the gay jokes. The reason I made a thread about this and not that is because people are usually quick to point that out, and here, it seemed like it was flying a bit under the radar.

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I don't think most of the people in power are homophobes, at least not to a point that they would aggressively take out personal frustrations with gay people on the air.

Do you not remember Undertaker hitting Kanyon while dressed as Boy George on the head with an excessively stiff chairshot?

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