Calling all wrestling fans! This week, we are joined by playwright, Chicano history and theater professor, and self-professed smark Beto O’Byrne to talk MASKulinity in wrestling. Not your Olympics wrestling—it’s WWE, baby!
- Is wrestling fake? How dare you ask that?! Beto sets the record straight.
- Wrestling is simultaneously sport and theater. This scripted performance produces an over-the-top MASKulinity for its audience of mostly men to thoroughly enjoy. What are the implications for MASKulinity? We discuss.
- Beto walks us through what that has looked like in the ring over time.
- Beto and Remoy share their mutual love of wrestling as youngsters and nerd out on their favorite moves.
- Moonsault anyone? What’s a hangman? Get your Google out—lots of terms in this one.
- Beto walks us through wrestling history and its connections to theater performances.
- Many sports often have that flavor of homoerotism in many ways, and wrestling is no different.
- How did wrestling evolve from its carnival roots to the WWE we know and love?
- Wrestlers meld their in-ring persona with their real-world persona.
- Colorful characters Stone Cold Steve Austins and The Rocks bled into American pop culture with their larger-than-life personas informing MASKulinity in their own ways.
- Listen for the best quote on professional wrestling you’ve ever heard in your life from Vince McMahon’s unauthorized biography.
- Beto highlights the different “characters” in wrestling storytelling:
- You’ve got your heel, your monster heel, your babyface—all different facets of MASKulinity in the ring.
- We’ve gotta know! Which archetype do you love?
- Samantha gets to guess who The Man is, and if your wrestling knowledge is as limited as hers, you may be surprised to find out who it is…
- Women wrestle too, but it wasn’t always that way…
- Models used to be recruited to get in the ring?! How did we go from hyperfemininity in this MASKuline world to Chyna and Jade Cargill?
- Beto gives us a portrait of the evolution of women wrestlers in the McMahon machine.
- In our UnMASKed Interview segment, we get a snapshot of luchador culture and performance and its impact on American wrestling.
- We reflect on the ways that wrestling lets men watch other men be close…something they’re way less allowed to do in real life.
- Is it cathartic?
- Beto reflects on his Southern culture around MASKulinity and the vicarious experience that the WWE offers.
- We go further in the theatricality of the WWE and what that looks like when performing for tens of thousands of people.
Referenced in this episode:
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