World Wrestling Entertainment - The Hypocrisy Fueling The PG Era of WWE
Hypocrisy - Noun - a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.
I hate hypocrites. I loathe those who save one thing and do another; the people who preach one value and do the exact thing they are preaching against. I hate hypocrites because they generally believe in their own position and then do what they preach against so blindly that they are too stupid to see their own hypocrisy. It is infuriating to be around a hypocrite. There is no larger group of hypocrites in the entertainment world than those running World Wrestling Entertainment into the ground on a weekly basis.
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| Brian Jossie - formerly Abraham Washington in WWE |
This is Brian Jossie. For over four years, Jossie worked for WWE as Abraham Washington. His career was uneventful. He hosted a talk show called The Abraham Washington Show on ECW in 2010. He wrestled briefly in Florida Championship Wrestling in 2011. Then, under the shortened moniker of AW, Jossie started managing the tag team of Darren Young and Titus O’Neil in 2012. Jossie’s uneventful career reached a new peak on July 30th, 2012 during a match between Kofi Kingston and Titus O’Neil. Wearing a live microphone, Jossie said the following about O’Neil, “Titus O’Neil is like Kobe Bryant at a hotel in Colorado. He’s unstoppable!”
On August 10th, World Wrestling Entertainment fired Jossie because of his inappropriate comment on television. WWE stated how they are a “PG company” and reiterated that comments of that nature were no longer a part of their programming. In the aftermath of this, Jossie took to Twitter to vent his frustrations with the hypocrisy of World Wrestling Entertainment. He also addressed how the PG initiative of WWE is solely because of Linda McMahon’s desire to become a senator in Connecticut. The political aspirations of WWE owner Vince McMahon’s wife have turned the company that once prided itself on Attitude into a three-hour commercial for toys, social media, and D-List celebrities every Monday night. There are no more controversial moments or colorful language that could be deemed as harassment and bullying because the WWE’s association with fellow PG entity The Creative Coalition. Instead of promoting that behavior, WWE requests viewers “Be A Star.”
While that ad is wonderful and I am positive that the Be A Star campaign is a wonderful campaign, their association with World Wrestling Entertainment makes it a joke because World Wrestling Entertainment is fueled by bullying and harassment. In their current PG-mode, World Wrestling Entertainment runs on hypocrisy. While I could write a book about the various examples of harassment and bullying on WWE television that would give Tolstoy’s War and Peace a run for its money in terms of length, I am going to limit the examples here to three. These examples of harassment occurred on Monday Night RAW in 2012 and all involved WWE management, Hollywood actors, or WWE Superstars with more power in WWE than Jossie.
On March 12th, Hollywood actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made jokes about John Cena menstruating, having lady parts, wanting a rectal exam, and being “fruity” repeatedly in a segment on RAW. While a dated Kobe Bryant joke is a fire-able offense, WWE is perfectly fine with a Hollywood star referring to the face of the company as a woman or a homosexual. That is perfectly fine with WWE and their PG initiative. Wait. It is not fine. It is disgusting and inappropriate, especially if you continue to preach the idea of “being a star” with an anti-bullying campaign.
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| WWE Diva & resident fat joke subject Vickie Guerrero |
I guess the most warped of WWE sycophant can justify WWE allowing those homophobic remarks by saying that “It was The Rock” or, more accurately, “It wuz Da Rock!!!” However, how can the remarks by Jerry Lawler, John Cena, and countless others about Vickie Guerrero be justified? On a weekly basis, WWE talents belittle Guerrero about her weight despite Guerrero losing over 60 pounds since her career in WWE started in 2007. Guerrero is not a large woman at all. While she is not my cup of tea facially, her body is something to enjoy. Yet, she must be ridiculed because she is large in comparison to the anorexic Divas of WWE who walk (or skip) around backstage. This same company while in the midst of their PG initiative in 2009 and 2010, referred to 125-pound Mickie James as Piggy James. Weight jokes and harassment about appearance must be perfectly acceptable though because WWE would never stoop to the level of a bully. Again, wrong. This is another example of WWE and the hypocritical nature they conduct themselves.
Using WWE’s mindset, homophobic remarks and harassing remarks about body image are fine though. That means mocking the disabled is also perfectly acceptable behavior. On the June 11th episode of Monday Night RAW, Vince McMahon continued his abuse of announcer Jim Ross with a less-than-flattering impression of Ross. Take note of McMahon completing his Ross impression by contorting his face to capture the facial paralysis Ross suffers because of Bell’s palsy. Jim Ross, a victim of Bell’s palsy, has had his facial paralysis mocked on WWE television by Vince McMahon multiple times with each one more tasteless than the previous. Mocking someone’s appearance and physical defect is definitely an act that falls in the PG initiative of WWE. It is clearly the act of someone following the morals preached by the Be A Star campaign so relentlessly promoted on WWE television. Right? No, this act is the act of a man who is a bully and a hypocrite.
World Wrestling Entertainment hides behind the Be A Star campaign in hopes that voters will look at their company as a family-friendly company when her Democratic opposition in Connecticut mentions Linda McMahon’s association to the company. They hide behind the Be A Star campaign when promoting their product to advertisers as the company scratches out another lucrative deal. The WWE hides behind a façade of political correctness and anti-bullying campaigns because the truth is that World Wrestling Entertainment is a company of bullies. From mocking talents on-screen to having their current champion CM Punk use Twitter to take shots at other companies (calling TNA an Indy promotion) and other sports (belittling Nike for their endorsement deal with UFC star Jon Jones), WWE preaches the virtues of treating everyone fairly while committing the sins they preach against through ruthless and merciless mockery and bullying.
International Wrestling Podcast - Justice for A.W.
I leave you with this audio clip from Gerald Murphy. Gerald is a young man from Ireland who, alongside Brian McNail, hosts the International Wrestling Podcast (visit them here). While I do not listen to every one because I am not a podcast guy, I do enjoy their work from time to time. On Tuesday, Gerald posted a phone call he made to World Wrestling Entertainment regarding the termination of Brian Jossie a.k.a. Abraham Washington. That call was the motivation for this blog entry. That phone call showed that the hypocrisy, which fuels World Wrestling Entertainment, does not merely fuel the television side of things; it fuels every aspect of the company. Everyone from the biggest star on television to the smallest employee hiding behind a headset in a call center in Stamford, Connecticut promote the idea of anti-bullying while conducting himself or herself as a bully. The excuses made by this WWE employee, as well as the avoidance of addressing Vince McMahon’s actions, are glowing examples of the hypocrisy which fuel World Wrestling Entertainment. This employee might as well told Gerald “I can do what I want. Be A Star and watch WWE or you are a fat, ugly, boy with lady parts” because that is the WWE way. There is nothing - I repeat NOTHING - about World Wrestling Entertainment that is family-friendly because of the constant cloud of hypocrisy hovering overhead. Until WWE stops lying to viewers and eliminates the hypocrisy, the company will reek of the same stench of evil, heartless lies as that coming from WWE chairman of the board / ultimate hypocrite: Vincent Kennedy McMahon.
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