Real Fake/Fake Real: Pro-Wrestling’s Kayfabe Conundrum

Matthew Wills at JSTOR Daily:

There can be few workplaces quite as zany as a wrestling ring,” writes sociologist Gregory Hollin in his study of “precarious workers, post-truth politics, and inauthentic activism” in the professional wrestling entertainment business.

While warfare is the preferred metaphor for boxing, labor is the actual metaphor of choice for pro-wrestling. Pro-wrestlers are “workers” who “sell” their performances and their responses to their co-workers’ performances, acting out rage or pain, etc.; the script or storyline of the performance is “a work”; second-string performers are “jobbers.”

In a neoliberal economy where everyone is supposed to be their own brand, an independent contractor at the mercy of corporate power, the actual labor of pro-wrestling leaves much to be desired. It’s as precarious as any in the gig-economy, with low wages and little protective regulation or union support. Payment for a match in northern England, the site of Hollin’s field work in 2019, was £20 (about $25 today), with wrestlers expected to volunteer several hours beforehand setting up the venue. One of Hollin’s subjects, a university graduate with a degree in theater, reported working forty-eight matches in twenty-six days traveling the “length and breadth of the British Isles.”

More here.

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