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WrestleMania 35is this Sunday, and NBC is going whole hog on promoting it.
Its not like smell what the Rock is cooking is inherently menacing its how you sell it.
TheLast Week Tonightpiece was obviously about more than just how wrestling slaps, but wrestling slaps.
Its the best of soap operas, stunt work, and Mussolini-esque oration.
Wrestling is a highly refined art form.
It takes our basest emotions and zhuzhes them with blood, class consciousness, and mime.
And once you know how wrestling works, you start to see it everywhere.
For example, the Mueller report was wrestling.
Only rather than getting the finish, we got a screw job.
A screw job is when there is no clear winner.
Something fucked up happens, and the big rivalry thats been building over the weeks is left unresolved.
Barrs summary-not-summary of Muellers report is a screw job.
It delays catharsis and frustrates the fans.
A sidenote: Stephen Colbert also had the second deepest cut classical-studies joke on late night this week.
Classical studies is the opposite of pro wrestling.
Jimmy Kimmel is the second most wrestling-y late-night host.
Andy Cohen is the most wrestling-y, butWWHLis on hiatus this week.
But Kimmel is a walking worked shoot, when you pretend whats happening on camera is very real.
The space where product placement and personal narrative intersect thats wrestling, baby.
And just happen to have the booming voice of a working comedian?
I wasnt using my stage voice to try out jokes.
Its incredibly difficult to repeat your canned jokes when someone is telling you about their teen masturbatory habits.
Its an entire advanced-study class at UCB: How to Recover From Strangers Talking About Jerking Off.
Convincing the audience that wrestling is real is called kayfabe.
WWE has mostly abandoned kayfabe, but it still exists in the world of celebrity interviews.
The stars are not really like us, and when they insist that they are, thats kayfabe.
Jimmy Fallon doesnt break kayfabe; thats why he was picked to do the WWE promo.
Seth Meyers cant maintain kayfabe to save his life.
When kayfabe broke in the 90s, people thought it would destroy pro wrestling.
Why even watch these fights if everyone knows the winner is predetermined?
Instead, the sport flourished.
Not having to suspend disbelief gave the producers room to soar to the highest heights of dumb bullshit.
So what would breaking kayfabe do for politics, or for late-night TV?
Arguably, the push for financial transparency by the freshman Dems is a breaking of political kayfabe.
Were getting a peek into the gnarly way business is actually done in Congress.
But where does kayfabe even being on a talk show?
Yes, they are!
Heck, you got points for plugging it with grace and aplomb.
The researchers were acknowledged and the anecdotes were set up in an almost Brechtian manner.
