Hot Chip - Wrestlers
I got stuck on the concept of wrestling after hearing the new song Wrestlers by Hot Chip. The band have always had a propulsive interest in wrestling. The comedy, drama, and energy of wrestling can be heard in Hot Chip's music. A couple of the guys from the band have a side DJ project Greco-Roman International Sonic Wrestling, which is terrific fun, btw.
But wrestling has long been the stomping ground of academics. Great for when one wants to go slumming in the loaded metaphorical battleground of popular sport and spectacle. And why not? Wrestling is loaded with history, and what other low culture event gathers such an enthusiastic, un-self-conscious proletarian audience? Roland Barthes got the wrestling dissection rolling with his article The World of Wrestling. Here, the roguish Barthes introduces the idea of wrestling as a staged theater of grandiloquence, a forum for heroes, villains, torture, argument, and justice. The audience is in on the gag - they call for the "image of passion, not passion itself." These lines of thought, spectacle and entertainment as symbols for reality, are continued in good contemporary articles like this one by David Haecker. There's even a course at MIT on wrestling - plenty to read at their blog - Comparitive Media Studies: Pro Wrestling.
I'll be pursuing the topic in further posts with some looks at comic artist Jaime Hernandez's obsession with female wrestling and Lucha Libre, and also a peek into the consistent popularity of Japanese women's wrestling.
31.1.08
WRESTLING
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2 comments:
May I also recommend Camel Wrestling? From Wikipedia, "A camel can win a wrestling match in three ways: By making the other camel retreat, scream, or fall."
We met a girl while in Turkey who said it was the most exciting thing she had ever seen.
Wow. I can only imagine. And even then....wow. I think I would much rather see a camel retreat than actually hear a camel scream. They can scream?Thanks for the wild info.
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