Why on earth is the first big post-Mania story in women’s wrestling one where we encourage the audience to boo and hiss at a woman who leans into traditional expressions of femininity?
I thought that trying to suss out the pay gap between male and female wrestlers would be easier — they’re all doing the same job for the same company. It was not.
I think the real things to be said about this match have to wait for after WrestleMania. Right now it’s a lot of talk and hype, but how it’s handled in the heat of that “WrestleMania Moment” is what’s going to determine what it means to the trajectory of women’s wrestling.
Last week I talked about how the implicit “not like the other girls” trope sticks in my craw, and there’s an extension of the train of thought that actually interests me more: the notion of who is allowed to be pretty. I think about a lot because it hits personally for me — I spent
Wrestling is a narrative — it’s a tale told in dropkicks. Like with any narrative work, calling on tropes that the viewer recognizes is a shortcut in character growth.