Guest Editorials
EDITORIAL: TNA's sexist and disgustingly sexualized portrayal of women's division has turned it from a positive to a negative Oct 23, 2008 - 1:49:29 PM
Editor's Note: At PWTorch.com we strive for our content whenever possible and practical to be original and unique (i .e. not published on other sites), therefore Guest Editorials submitted to PWTorch. com should be submitted only to PWTorch. com. If you submit a Guest Editorial for consideration, please state at the top of your editorial that you submitted it only to PWTorch. com. For more details on submitting Guest Editorials, check out a detailed submissions guide following today's Guest Editorial below.
GUEST EDITORIAL
By Jared Brickey of Murfreesboro, Tenn.
PWTorch.com Reader
What else is new, right? But hear me out. I've wanted to say this for a few weeks now and I think a lot of you reading this may feel the same way. I have something of a story to tell here, so I hope you'll bear with.
I've been following the promotion since day one. I even live in Tennessee and before I graduated with my B.S. in Journalism earlier this year, I worked for TNA as an intern in 2007. I feel sort of guilty writing this since I personally worked with the people in the TNA offices - the people responsible for the product who are too scared to tell Jarrett, Dutch, and Vince that things don't make sense. Then again, I know from first-hand experience that those people in the office won't read Torch feedback because it's "too negative" and doesn't provide "positive feedback on the product," so I guess I don't really have anything to worry about.
I'm a wrestling fan. I love professional wrestling. However, the night that Kurt Angle ended Joe's streak is when I stopped watching TNA. When I was with TNA in late 2007, things hadn't changed much... with one exception: the Women's Division.
Now, call me crazy, but I'm one of those weird wrestling fans that likes women's wrestling when the women can wrestle and the match isn't just about lesbian innuendo and gratuitous crotch and cleavage shots. When I saw Awesome Kong for the first time, I "marked out." When Gail Kim won the TNA "Knockout" Title at BFG, I "marked out." Heck, I even thought Roxxi's stupid Voodoo Queen gimmick was fun and, if nothing else, different. Angel Williams wasn't bad, and neither was Talia Madison. I even liked ODB... when she had the shorts. When it was first constructed, TNA's women's division looked great and seemed to have one heck of a future ahead of it.
And here we are now. I'll admit, frustration drove me away from TNA after I left my internship there at the start of 2008 and I took a few months off of my TNA TV viewing. God help me, I started to watch again a few weeks ago.
Bimbo Brawl. Implant Buster. The increasingly sexualized tag team of the "Beautiful People" and that idiot "Cute Kip." (Okay, so Kip is a digression, but I couldn't help it, I can't stand seeing him on TV.) Where did things go wrong? Or rather, how did they go wrong so quickly? Why is ODB wearing a shirt with handprints on her breasts? Why is her lone wrestling outfit designed with the exclusive purpose of showing her underwear? Why does the camera actually ZOOM IN on Tali- I'm sorry... Velvet Sky's CROTCH when she climbs into the ring?
Why is every gimmick and every branding name that TNA gives to their women so disgustingly sexist and sexualized? I mean, Birdcage? We can't call it a cage match? The fact that it's a cage match with women means that we suddenly have to change the name of it to a slang term from, what, the 1950s? If they hadn't chosen "Bimbo Brawl" I'm sure they would have gone with "Broad Street Brawl" or something equally stupid for the sake of being cute.
Before Gail Kim left, her finishing move was called the Happy Ending. That's just great. Thanks, TNA. Now as a wrestling fan, I know that all Korean women who wrestle gave sexual favors when they, naturally, worked at a massage parlor. You know, because they're Korean. Thanks to TNA (and Mike Tenay who screams at the top of his lungs, "IMPLANT BUSTER!!"), I know that all female wrestlers have breast implants and that Awesome Kong's finisher is designed exclusively to destroy said breast implants and not inflict harm for a pinfall victory. Thanks to TNA and Traci Brooks, my sister knows that to be a successful business woman; she'll need huge, mostly-exposed breasts. Oh, and it's important for her to remember to hop up and down a lot to make sure they bounce, too.
It's bad enough that for months So Cal Val's only purpose in the promotion was to let a camera shoot between her legs. It's bad enough that Christie Hemme was a heel for becoming upset when Kip told her she had to "go down" to be successful. But to get away from that and start such a competitive, wrestling-oriented women's division, only to turn away from it for the sake of making it, like everything else TNA does, WWE Lite? To me, it's just repulsive.
I didn't expect this, but maybe I should have. I've seen Vinny Mac have on air "sex" with every single WWE Diva he ever signed a paycheck to. I've seen Trish act like a freaking dog and I've had plenty of time to visit the kitchen thanks to all of those ridiculous bra-and-panties matches. Since TNA makes a point to turn every single thing they do into a Dollar General offshoot of WWE's product, why should it surprise me that their women's division fell so far so fast?
Maybe since WWE's women's division is starting to be more respectful toward their women (okay, work with me, it's better now than when we had Dogese), TNA will get around to ripping THAT off, too. Maybe I'll be able to watch a wrestling match that isn't a bra-and-panties, lesbian innuendo loaded spotfest. Heck, maybe I'll even be treated to a zoom in on a submission hold instead of Velvet Sky's butt.
I'll concede that I may be reading too far into things, or that I'm too frustrated with little details. I'll concede that terms like "Bimbo Brawl," "Birdcage," and "Knockout" may just be branding and intended only to set TNA apart. I'll concede that this is largely just "how wrestling is."
Is it really the way that it has to be, though?
I don't like TNA's answer.
You are invited to submit a "Torch Guest Editorial" for possible publishing on this site in future days. For submission guidelines and the current email, click here.
INCREDIBLE BENEFITS! Over 50 full-length audio updates per month (iPod compatible)... New weekly award-winning Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter (text and printable pdf versions) with latest exclusive insider news, new Torch Talks, great columns, Keller's cover story, much more... Hundreds of full-length back issues of PWTorch Newsletter from late-'80s to today... Ad-free access to PWTorch.com's Main Listing... VIP Forum with interaction with other subscribers and Torch staff... Torch Talk Library with text and audio of hundreds of interview installments from last 20 years... Great layout... Deepest archives on pro wrestling history anywhere... Keller's PWTorch Today PDF Bulletins with email alerts... VIP Email reports on major PPVs and TV shows... Staff Roundtable Reviews (text and audio) followiing major events... The best staff of writers and world class reporting since 1987... We'd love for you to join us and experience the most entertaining, authoritative, experienced staff of professional reporters and commentators in the business... SIGN ME UP NOW!
