Yes, the WWE culture of violence is to blame. That's why we constantly hear about wrestlers murdering their wives and children and then committing suicide. From memory, I'd say that happens once or twice a week.

Violence and conflict attracts viewers. Which media outlet is going to suddenly announce peace, love, understanding, and the brotherhood of man is breaking out?

Lurid ratings means more advertising dollars, etc, etc.

You get the picture.

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht BGS, PDP, CFP

Commander in Chief

2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden(Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)

Frankenstein Battalion

Knecht Rupprecht Division

Hans Corps

1st Saint Nicolaas Army

Army Group “True North”

Yeah but the left likes faceless theft from nameless people.

In your face wrestlers are way, way too personal, plus they've been known to slap journalists silly, all the while laughing as they do it.

Naw, faceless mobsters is better.

Um, anybody care to provide some actual examples of this apparent "double standard"? Seems to me that the focus is on Benoit's mental health and possible steroid abuse.

Here's a double standard: the media tongue bath Quentin Tarantino gets for his craptastic movies like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill versus the pussification of our national game of hockey by the NHL poobahs because apparently the US audience (and Toronto sportcasters) abhor fighting and violence.

muttsrus, as you present it, the blame for the "pussification of our national game of hockey by the NHL poobahs" logically falls to "the US audience (and Toronto sportcasters)," and not to the media writ large. Besides, isn't yours just an example of the wonderous free market in action, in which the producers ("NHL poobahs") are simply responding to the demands of the consumers ("US audience")? Doesn't it suck when capitalists, in the pursuit of larger markets and higher profits, decide that your particular views and wishes are irrelevant to their interests?

Oh, and your example is in any case unrelated to this thread. Care to provide an example in which the media specifically "denounces pro wrestling's glorification of violence" in light of the Benoit incident?

"the media tongue bath ..." I like that. Not having watched the Sopranos I cannot comment directly but I can say that like just about everything else, people are hypocrits and the left seem to be the worst. As far as "entertainment" and MSM news, it is always the lowest common denominator that will bring in the viewers. Sex and violence sells, period. Which of these two possible news items would lead tomorrow's newscast: " Tainted Meat Recall Nationwide" or " Paris Hilton Sees God While DWI Again".

The media/entertainment industry does not want any connection to be drawn between violence in their television and movie productions and real violence in the real world. Hense, it's blinders in position! Full steam backwards!!

Could someone please explain what wrestling has to do with violence? Come on, you've all been conned.

Thus the function of the wrestler is not to win: it is to go exactly through the motions which are expected of him. It is said that judo contains a hidden symbolic aspect; even in the midst of efficiency, its gestures are measured, precise but restricted, drawn accurately but by a stroke without volume. Wrestling, on the contrary, offers excessive gestures, exploited to the limit of their meaning. In judo, a man who is down is hardly down at all, he rolls over, he draws back, he eludes defeat, or, if the latter is obvious, he immediately disappears; in wrestling, a man who is down is exaggeratedly so, and completely fills the eyes of the spectators with the intolerable spectacle of his powerlessness.

--Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling"

As they understand it, the Sopranos is fake, and wrestling is real.

"Care to provide an example in which the media specifically "denounces pro wrestling's glorification of violence" in light of the Benoit incident?"

I took in about three hours of it on talk radio while driving home from Montana.

Kate, surely you're not lumping in the mainstream press together with talk radio?

The day the "nattering" media class loses its schizophrenic standards, is the day they lose legitimacy with the schizophrenic culture that dotes on their every word.

We need more media commentary like Penn and Teller's BullSXXT series...best example of linerar application of standards I've seen on modern issues.

The problem of wrestling lies in the fact that the leadership has unrealistic demands of the employees.

Wrestlers, at the top level, are on the road nearly 300 days a year, forced to take steroids to stay in shape and bigger than life, and in constant pain. Therefore, they have to take painkillers, which dulls the senses, and then uppers to perform.

The result? Serious addictions, with mental health problems piling up as the brain's chemistry is serious toyed with. I'm surprised there's not MORE deaths/murders/suicides. Although, 60-odd deaths in 20 years amongst the top tier of wrestlers is pretty creepy.

Acting? Not so much.

There are plenty of valid criticisms that can be leveled at modern Pro Wrestling, but it's a real stretch to say that it glorifies violence. I doubt that anyone over the age of 10 believes that it is anything other that an acrobatic soap opera. The violence is cartoonish - just as Wile E. Coyote falls off a cliff, then accordions off to his next diabolical plan, the hero of the moment is carted off in an ambulance on Sunday and returns for bloody vengeance the following Monday.

Wrestling is low art, it pretends to be nothing other than entertainment aimed at the lowest common denomitator. The fact that the stars of wrestling are talented improvisational actors makes wrestling a threat to those that value their highbrow self images because they keep catching themselves watching.

The more interesting double standard, of course, is the way Benoit is being treated as opposed to the way his wife would have been portrayed if she had been the one to kill her family.

Are you seriously saying that wrestling compares to a show like Sopranos qua artistic expression and exploration of the human psyche, or the human experience? Surely you aren't suggesting that they are matched in terms of e.g., the depth of exploration of character or the subtle insight into day to day human drama.

In other words, the fact that you accept a false analogy in the comparison of these two widely disparate forms of 'art' suggests that you haven't spent more than a partisan moment contemplating the issue.

What a retarded way to make a point about the left-right dichotomy.

Are you seriously saying that wrestling compares to a show like Sopranos qua artistic expression and exploration of the human psyche, or the human experience? Surely you aren't suggesting that they are matched in terms of e.g., the depth of exploration of character or the subtle insight into day to day human drama.

In other words, the fact that you accept a false comparison (based entirely on a single common aspect) between these two widely disparate forms of 'art' suggests that you haven't spent more than a partisan moment contemplating the issue.

What a retarded way to make a point about the left-right dichotomy.

(posted again with corrections)

Uh, anon at 1:07, I don't think Kate's point was to compare "the artistic expression and exploration of the human psyche" (yecch!) of wrestling and Sopranos.

Read the post again.

Actually I was never impressed with the Sopranos.
First time I watched them, I said to my wife, hey its just like talking to my brothers.