What Culture blames men for the Women in WWE not drawing

[RammerJammer]

Why WWE’s Women Aren’t Drawing

Internalised sexism is a real thing. There is no escaping this.

Say Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Simon Pegg and Sean William Scott led the cast of the Ghostbusters reboot of 2016. This film doesn’t bomb at the box office. This film isn’t protested as a woke gimmick, as if male-led films should exist as the default. In 1994, Hole released the seminal album ‘Live Through This’. Drenched in fierce, feminine energy, it was a vital record, a defiant call-to-arms that could only have been written by a woman raging, passionately, at her place in the world. Only, Kurt Cobain apparently wrote it for her; this patently bullsh*t conspiracy theory gained traction because, to many, a woman couldn’t possibly have recorded such a masterpiece.

Pop culture is almost defined by misogyny.

This inherent misogyny doesn’t just exist; WWE for years massaged it, and WWE does to this day, involuntarily. Even without considering the stench accrued by bra and panties matches, two minute matches, and portrayals of bytchy, manipulative shrews, this internalised sexism is writ large on WWE television now. In 2017, during which the Revolution was in full swing, Alexa Bliss via the writing staff wrote off Mickie James as an “old lady”. She was 38 at the time. Younger than AJ Styles, but he was a man, of course, so Jinder Mahal was never going to use that for heat. In WWE, even in 2019, no matter what aggressive bullsh*t Stephanie McMahon screeches—and this desperate, anti-premium marketing does not help, incidentally—is guilty.

The company ages its women in what might as well be dog years.

This isn’t specific to WWE and its myopic male writing staff. It's a message the audience is very receptive to.

Here’s an exercise: look up any former Diva on YouTube, and scan the comments section. We’ll start with Sable. Type ‘Sable WWE’. The first result generated is ‘WWE SmackDown | Sable Invitational Bikini Contest’. Comment: “Torrie got the fat ass [three love eyes emojis].”

Now try Sunny. You’ll find ‘Sunny tribute. Amazing’. One commenter paid additional tribute to her by writing “She has such a beautiful face, very nice features and shape. But, beauty fades, for everyone, at some point”. A user named Desstrik wrote this, and we’re quite sure he didn’t mourn the Undertaker’s hairline on his tribute video.


Now try Torrie Wilson. Her Lingerie Showdown against Dawn Marie (2,198,677 views) yields the following: “Alexa couldn’t touch them if her ass was on fire,” and, less inexplicably, “Back when wrestling still hot!!!” Now we’re very lucky even Alexa shows some booty.”

Women are sexual objects to these people: Then. Now. Forever.

WWE’s official clip—‘Alexa Bliss is rudely interrupted in her dressing room, Jan. 14’—is currently on 6.5M views. It’s an eye-watering stat, but that’s not the body part WWE aims to lubricate, is it? In contrast, from the same show, 'Ronda Rousey & Sasha Banks Vs. Nia Jax & Tamina' has generated a mere 584,160 views. But Tamina is boring, you may protest. So is Baron Corbin, per consensus, and his segment drew 1,719,882. We can’t for the purposes of comparison bring up the data on ‘Baron Corbin hides from Braun Strowman in the shower’, because, obviously, such a segment does not exist. And if you don’t know why that Alexa Bliss segment didn’t carry over to the next week, it is because the people who watched it got what they needed in a matter of seconds.

“A Moment of Bliss”, indeed.

If some women are sex objects again, when they’re young and fresh and untainted by age, of course, what are these other women good for, exactly? We have the men for the actual wrestling, Christ. Give us a break with this PC bullsh*t, etc. etc. Of course, there are several mitigating factors at play—content fatigue, counterproductive writing, a general pattern of decline not quite exclusive to gender—but under WWE’s umbrella, there is no prestige attached to women’s wrestling, nor any nostalgia. There's no substance yet, no cachet.

Jim Ross spoke on Busted Open radio recently. He said “And you can quote me on this d*mn statement, if Ronda’s not on the roster, there’s not a chance in hell a female headlines WrestleMania and closes the show”.

You only need follow Ross on Twitter to realise what he thinks women are good for, and until WWE translates marketing into action, and don’t undermine the cause, we know what they think women are good for, too.

http://whatculture.com/wwe/why-wwe-s-women-aren-t-drawing?page=4

 

[Silkk]

What men in the WWE are "drawing" though?

 

[dbp]

Nobody's drawing.

Man or woman, if you walk into the WWE with the charisma of Stone Cold or The Rock, you'll draw. None of em' have it. Cena and Punk were the only ones who were remotely close.

 

[8WON6]

most of the men's side of things are trash right now too. And did it ever occur to the author of this op-ed that some women like being looked at as sexual objects or in more PC terms...they have no problem using their looks to get ahead. Part of wrestling is having a look. This is like when those women that were models for some kind of car racing event got fired because some feminist complained that they were being used as sexual objects, then the models got mad because they actually like the job and they lost money. . But it's our fault? On paper, the WWE has it's best collection of talent ever (arguably) up and down the roster and the product is trash. This whole article is a troll.

 

[True Blue Moon]

Dudes are showing more love to women’s wrestling than ever. This article is trying too hard

 

[Toe Jay Simpson]

Who presented for over a decade that women were nothing but sex symbols to the general populace? The title was a butterfly for crying out loud. The one day all of a sudden “hey, let’s be serious”. It don’t work that way.

 

[WhatsGoodTy]

What culture is trash.

 

[Notorious 1 E.Y.E.]

well...... men are in charge and the ones booking these dumb story lines

 

[prophecypro]

The biggest drop in viewership is with women viewers

 

[Homer Simpson]

what cacture showing again that they have no pulse on the business

 

[The Intergalactic Koala]

It's impossible for the E to draw when majority of the roster has the personality of the snail orgy. The wrestlers would rather play Rocket League and Tweet shyt, instead of trying to get over. Lazy sorry ass generation of wrestlers

 

[Prince Akeem]

The bottom line is women generally don't support women's athletics. It's the elephant in the room that NOBODY wants to talk about.

 

[ig88]

Women wrestling is fine for tv but it should NEVER be the focus of the promotion.

 

[MenacingMonk]

fukk those marks.

 

[Rell84shots]

The bottom line is women generally don't support women's athletics. It's the elephant in the room that NOBODY wants to talk about.

Exactly, Then they try to put the blame on men for not supporting them. The fact is that if it's not a women's promotion like Shimmer or WOW then you can't make women the main attraction.

well...... men are in charge and the ones booking these dumb story lines

They've done everything they can to get the women over, and in the process they've completely left the men hanging. The fact that they haven't built up the men and focused solely on the women is exactly why Wrestlemania has no buzz whatsoever.