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| Domestic Disturbance |
Matt Barnes |
For men, life in the wrestling business is hard. But it is NOTHING compared to what the women have to endure…
You think it’s hard for the men to make it in the wrestling industry? Try your salary being dependant on your breast size. Try having to get down on all fours in public and bark like a dog. Try living with a man twice your size who takes copious amounts of drugs, flies into rages and then beats the life out of you just for being there. Try showing up for work having been beaten by your husband, only for your employer to conceal your wounds to protect its “superstar” and parody your plight on international TV. And try living with the fact that, when you attempt to break the chain of abuse and stand up for the women of wrestling everywhere, the industry calls you a liar and an attention seeker.
Nancy
Just the words “Nancy Benoit” are enough to send chills down the spine of any wrestling fan in 2007. A loved and respected performer, she was strangled and killed by her husband, Chris, after repeatedly attempting to speak out against the domestic abuse she was suffering. Nobody listened. After the Benoit double-murder-suicide Debra Marshall, former wife of Steve Austin (who was convicted for assaulting her), spoke out on national television about the abusive nature of the wrestlers she had lived with. Nobody listened. Six years ago Diana Hart, former wife of Davey Boy Smith, wrote a book claiming that Smith thought it was perfectly normal to drug and rape her. Nobody listened.
Incredibly, not two months after the Benoit tragedy occurred, TNA actually ran an angle with Kurt Angle’s wife and five-year-old daughter that hinted at domestic abuse. Over in WWE, Vince McMahon (who has been at the centre of numerous sexual harassment accusations) has been parading around talking about his thousands of sexual encounters and the necessity for magnum-sized condoms. So why does wrestling think that not only can it cover up the violent and sexual indiscretions perpetrated by its employees against women but, worse still, exploit those indiscretions as thinly veiled storylines, belittling the staggering gravity of what has actually been going on?
And worst of all, why doesn’t anybody, anywhere, take these things seriously and investigate the near-habitual cycle of degradation and abuse that women are suffering in this business? Women in wrestling are treated with total contempt on-screen and many are living a troubled, dangerous existence off it. Surely it’s time that somebody, somewhere in the wrestling industry or beyond actually sits up and begins looking for some answers.
Breast is best
Let’s start with one of the most immediate issues when discussing women as performers: image. With so many WWE Divas getting breast implants, you would be forgiven for thinking that large breasts are a requirement of the job. And, in actuality, they are – in the same way that there is huge pressure on male performers to look like Greek Gods, there is pressure on the females to look like stunning glamour models. Why else are there Hawaiian Tropic Girls and Miami Heat cheerleaders on WWE TV while the super-talented but non-Diva-compatible ODB languishes in OVW?
Employment with the group seems to have nothing to do with wrestling or acting ability and everything to do with breast size and looks. Indeed, how many Playboy pinups, swimsuit models and softcore porn stars has WWE hired recently, yet how many talented female athletes are plying their trade in ChickFight and Shimmer, unable to bag a spot in the big time because they are unwilling to take their clothes off or install a set of airbags? Sure, WWE doesn’t force the girls at gunpoint to get bigger breasts or strip down to their underwear. But when even the boss’ daughter is willing to do exactly that, what room does that leave female performers to refuse?
Certainly, the McMahons would never ask their employees to do anything that they wouldn’t do themselves. But when their own moral standards are so rotten to the core, where does it end? We already see the girls wrestling in next to nothing, so what next – Divas wrestling in nothing at all? Don’t think that Vince – who already booked a “live sex show”, gets his ass out at every opportunity and wanted to be the storyline father of Stephanie’s child – wouldn’t love to book naked wrestling featuring impossibly beautiful women with unattainable (and unmaintainable) looks.
Of course, these aesthetic pressures on women do not exist solely within wrestling – the greater entertainment and media industries, with their warped projections of body image and beauty, are the biggest cause of anorexia and bulimia in young women around the world. Every time another stick-thin, size zero actress/model/singer is lauded as the next big superstar, the problem is perpetuated, more lives are ruined and the body ideals get even more distorted. Keira Knightly is a shocking example of this, as a woman who is constantly being told that she is “too big”, despite looking absolutely incredible in everything she does.
Where on earth do we draw the line in the sand as a global community and protect young women from the evils of image-obsessed industries fixated on size? At least other fields have some measure of self awareness; when two sibling models died after starving themselves thin, Baroness Kingsmill led a major health enquiry that directly impacted the fashion industry – wrestling, meanwhile, can’t even admit that its performers use steroids. While we may not have any say in what the other industries can do to solve their female image problems, we damn sure have a few thoughts about changing it in the wrestling world.
Got wood?
A crucial aspect when looking at the role of women in wrestling involves looking at storyline violence against them – a detail that involves women, again, playing second fiddle to the men on the roster, and one that also implies that it is okay for men to hit women. Let us categorically clarify, once and for all, that it is not okay for men to hit women. So exactly what was there to gain from The Dudley Boys’ spate of putting women through tables? Is violence against innocent people ever entertainment? Or was it about presenting “equality”, as WWE writers may argue?
Of course it wasn’t. It was solely about shock value, controversy and car crash television – and it sucked. For once, however, WWE wasn’t the original perpetrator of this heinous crime; the ‘women through tables’ routine originated over in ECW with Francine, who also took all manner of other punishment (including Singapore cane shots, piledrivers and brutal finishers) from her male counterparts, desperate to make a name for themselves as being “extreme”. Once again, the women are battered and pay the forgotten cost to further the careers of the men.
Even if there could somehow be a crazy, skewed justification for wrestling confrontations between men and women, what could possibly be gained from Vince McMahon treating Trish Stratus with such utter contempt, making her bark like a dog, on her knees, on Raw? What was gained by Nicole Bass being the butt of Shawn Michaels’ shemale jokes? What was gained by calling Nora “Molly” Greenwald a fatass? These women are real people with real feelings, whatever the WWE establishment may think, and this kind of treatment is totally unacceptable.
The guys are dropping dead left, right and centre due to road-wear, drug abuse and the chemical pressures of looking like a model. How long before the list of women stacks up, too? Elizabeth and Sherri are already dead, the former definitely being drug-related, the latter likely to be. Chyna famously popped a breast implant during a match, Tammy “Sunny” Sytch had personal issues a mile long and there are too many eating disorders among the Divas to even mention. If WWE can’t even face its male mortality rate, how many women must die of bulimia, implant problems, drugs and alcohol abuse before the industry opens its eyes to yet another problem that it is blindly causing?
Another brick in the wall
The situation is exacerbated by groups like Women’s Erotic Wrestling and the (Carmen Electra-endorsed) Nude Women’s Wrestling League, which perpetuate the idea that women are only good as pieces of meat. How many naked soccer leagues do you see? How about naked tennis leagues? Exactly. And the reason? If such leagues were promoted, there would be outcry over women’s rights. But at least these grappling groups don’t pretend to be anything else; everyone knows what they're there to do and the women have the choice whether or not to be there.
It's the demands of wrestling fans are at the very heart of the matter, and they often become unwittingly entwined with wrestling’s own misogynist agenda. Take WWE's Maria; despite all her efforts to learn and the fact that the fans love her, can you ever see WWE allowing her to expand beyond her current gimmick? Her entire character is a joke and every time the fans laugh it just compounds the idiotic, self-righteous belief among the creative staff that this kind of drivel is what the fans want to see.
But surely the fans themselves can’t be to blame – surely, like so many other ills in wrestling, we can’t be co-conspirators in this whole sordid affair, right? Wrong. While none of us finds the tales of behind the scenes abuse and victimisation fun to listen to, every time fans chant “We-want-pup-pies!” or “She’s-got-herp-es!” or “She’s-a-crack-whore!” that wall just gets higher and higher. But, as noted, it isn’t just on-screen that women are being disgraced in the wrestling industry…
Sunny days
One of the (many) reasons that Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels so spectacularly fell out in the Nineties was a shoot comment by HBK, insinuating that Bret had been intimate with Tammy Sytch while on the road. More than just a spiteful jab, Shawn’s comment hinted at the sinister culture that sees wrestling’s women treated as playthings for the boys who are then discarded when the hotter, younger models appear. Indeed, Sytch went from a massively popular performer and a cornerstone of WWE programming to being a messed-up junkie posing for low-rent websites.
The sad thing is that, when fans see former female sports entertainers like Sunny in bad porn shots looking out of shape, they just think, “What a mess.” They don’t feel ashamed that the business these women gave everything to just chewed them up and spat them out again – after all, what use is a pudgy Diva with saggy tits, right? If WWE had promoted women as more than mere playthings, attitudes might be so very different. Instead, it promoted pudding matches, bikini contests and Diva Searches – and, after Debra Marshall’s abuse allegations, WWE actually booked an angle where Marianna Komlos was pretending to be beaten up by her wrestler boyfriend (Charles “Chaz/Beaver Cleavage” Warrington) to get attention.
The exploitation is so brazen and blatant that it’s not even funny. Every wrestling fan should ask themselves how they would feel if their wife/partner/sister/mother worked for a company that portrayed her as completely subservient to men, paraded her in thongs, made her bark like a dog while her chest expanded to conform to the Diva "ideal". But WWE is clever in its manipulation; women with individuality are disappear from TV, so fans don't believe that such women actually exist in the wrestling world. Because, hey, what use is a woman with a mind of her own to the wrestling industry?
How dare Ariel stand up to Batista and have an opinion! She deserved to be fired. How dare referee Rita Chatterson feel sexually harassed by WWE officials! Surely it was part of the job. How dare the Diva Search contestants think they deserve respect! They’re only there to give the boys something to do on the road, pose for Playboy and make sexy DVDs. How dare Amy Dumas decide to start a relationship with Edge! She thoroughly deserved to be portrayed as a whore and jeered out of the building when she retired under the pressure, despite giving six years of loyal service and working through career-threatening injuries.
The cesspool of the world
Wrestlers live hard, chaotic lives on the road, often drifting into drink and drugs both as an escape from reality and a way to survive it. But drink and drugs are statistically proven to be major contributing factors in domestic abuse cases and, while we can’t speak for every woman married to a wrestler, we can mention those who had the guts to speak out – like Nancy Benoit, Diana Hart, Debra Marshall and Jeannie Williams. The latter two, both ex-wives of Steve Austin, claimed that they aren’t the only women to be abused; that domestic abuse runs through the wrestling business and is accepted as something that is commonplace. Words can’t even describe how wrong that is.
This is about so much more than Christy Hemme being booed for standing up to Kip James or Rena Mero balking at “accidental” nudity; wrestling isn’t the only industry to hire sexy valets for performers, nor is it the only industry to favour big boobs over talent or to push strong-willed women out of the spotlight. But this is about the seedy, sordid underbelly of a business geared purely towards making money at any cost. About attitudes indoctrinated into male wrestlers at an early age that it is somehow okay to treat women like shit, to beat them and then, at the end of the day, drug rape them for fun.
This is about drawing a line in the sand. Nancy Benoit just died for this cause and still wrestling shrugs off the claims, pretends that abuse isn’t happening both on and off the screen and denies that there are problems. But it is happening and it’s a major problem. And beyond the physical abuse there’s the bullying and the pressure to conform to impossible standards. If the job isn’t hard enough because of the constant fear of Randy Orton shitting in your bag, it's made even more difficult by the fact that you could be called on to simulate sex in the ring, to expose your bare breasts, to wrestle in mud, to pretend to be a lesbian or – in what is the very definition of sexual harassment – to have to allow your boss to put his tongue in your mouth…
For the rest of this feature, check out issue 19 of FSM – available at WH Smith and all good retailers. (For US readers we are now carried at Borders, so check for local availability or click here to subscribe.)
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