Vickie Guerrero and Humiliation in WWE
I wrote this originally as a reply on the Figure Four / Wrestling Observer message boards, in a thread that discussed the recent on-camera humiliations of Vickie Guerrero and WWE’s history of humiliating people on air. Some people think that it’s acceptable for WWE to do this as Vince McMahon has been humiliated on air himself, and he’s one of the majority company owners and leaders. Others think that humiliating Vickie based on her weight is acceptable because she’s “fat” — I don’t agree:
Vickie is fat? I don’t know how much she weighs, but if Vickie is fat on your barometer, then I think your barometer needs to be recalculated. Step out of the WWE diva bubble for a minute and go look at real people; Vicki is 41 and when she’s dressed well [hmm, you think WWE manipulates her outfits to get different reactions?] she looks really good. Compared to other WWE women? Yeah, Vickie is “fat.” In the real world, she’s totally normal.
Here’s the differences between how Vince has been humiliated and how he humiliates other people:
- When Vince gets humiliated, it’s as a comeuppance for something his character has done, and it’s the humiliation always directly relates to his character, not stereotypes or not his real life.
- When Vince humiliates someone else, it often has nothing to do with something they as a character have done, and it’s based around bad social stereotypes [a woman Vickie's size being fat and disgusting; gay people all being effeminate; having a neck smaller than Batista's means you're a pussy; not wanting to have sex with your 60-year-old married boss makes you a frigid bitch, etc], or it’s based around something personal in that person’s life that should be better left off television [Ric Flair's road rage incident, Jim Ross' colon surgery]
Do I expect better out of wrestling? No; but I wish I could. And obviously, before Vince and in other promotions, wrestling has been tasteless and stereotyping, but Vince _could_ change WWE’s direction towards that sort of thing if he wanted to, and over time it would make other American wrestling promotions change their tone, too — but he doesn’t want to.