Baby Face

 

If you want to see a show that will educate you in the ways of America's current form of capitalism, politics and religion, I highly suggest watching the 6-part series on Netflix called, "Mr. McMahon."

The Vince McMahan, Jr. character encapsulates the mind of the predatory businessman, but his biggest capital is peddling human flesh.

Brought into a world of violence and child abuse, Vince Junior took over the professional wrestling business from his dad.  He proceeded to turn it into a powerhouse of the genre and eventually bought out the competition.

Vince started the pay-per-view presentations and his "Attitude era" in wrestling (1997-2002) ushered in a new mentality for his life-size characters--and a boatload of money!

To understand this era, Vince started it with a phrase uttered in front of an audience toward the wrestlers in the ring that surrounded him.  What he wanted from them was RUTHLESS AGGRESSION!

Interestingly enough, many of his wrestling characters took Vince's advice home with them.  This time was filled with the horror stories of wrestlers dying in various ways and none of them good.

Drug abuse ran rampant among the performers and "roid rage" contributed to many acts of violence both on and off camera.

It's an educational experience to see how these different wrestling characters developed their personas in front of the audience.  John Cena was going nowhere until he took on the "rapper" persona.  Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson never got over with the audience until after he became a heel (bad guy).

"Getting over" is about receiving a huge emotional response from the audience for portraying your character, whether you be loved as a "Baby Face" (good guy) or hated as a heel.  When this happens, Mr. McMahan rubs his fingers together knowing popularity means money.

He really does see them as his characters.  Any wrestlers that defected to the competition (before Vince bought them out) were not allowed to use his or her character's persona (gimmick).  

For Vince's greatest talent was to create storylines for his characters that mimicked modern day times.  And he often brought his own family members into it.  Here are a couple of examples:

Vince's wife has been in an accident and she's now in a wheelchair.  She doesn't speak and only looks straight ahead.  So Vince decides to cheat in front of her with one of his Divas.  

Another storyline of Vince's had to do with the Sargeant Slaughter character.  Sgt. Slaughter was the stereotypical lantern-jaw Drill Sargeant.  The patriotic fans loved him, especially when he was beating up other characters from enemy countries like Iran.  

But then McMahon gave the story a twist.  He had Sgt. Slaughter convert to Islam.  His fans responded in a way that the wrestling world calls "getting too much heat."  

He was getting death threats from the same fans that once loved him.  After the Gulf wars started heating up, the Sargeant Slaughter character just faded away.  

"Kill Pence, Kill Pence, Kill Pence!"  

Get the idea?  If you weren't a character that elicited a response, you were discarded.

They even decided to bring religion into it with a character named Steve Austin.  He mocked John 3:16 with Austin 3:16--"I just whipped your ass."  Probably not a good idea in the scheme of things although the crowd loved it. It was another line they crossed.

Now it appears that life imitates artifice as Mr. McMahon is struggling to regain control of his make-believe empire amongst several charges of sexual harassment and hush money allegations filed against him by his previous performers.  

But back on the first episode of the show, there is a video of a young Donald Trump standing on the front row applauding the bloody face of Hulk Hogan in the ring.  Years later, the wounded Trump with his miracle ear once again applauds Hogan at the podium of the Republican National Convention for putting him over to the audience.  The circle is complete.

Back in so-called reality, I don't know exactly who writes the storylines for the multiple ways they continue to dupe the non-player characters in the global audience to kill each other.  But whoever writes these narratives makes Vince McMahon, Jr. look like a Baby Face.