This essay will demonstrate how the concerns of Althusser in his "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" can be applied to the cultural object of Wrestlemania XX to produce a reading of the "text" consistent with the views of Althusser that culture is an Ideological State Apparatus. Althusser's concern in "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses is to illustrate the mechanism by which the status quo is affirmed in capitalist society, which he calls interpellation. Interpellation is the act of constituting a subject within a pre-established framework whose characteristics affirm the status quo or, at the very least, affirm of the culture or person doing the interpellating. That is, an advertisement is not going to interpellate a subject in a way that negates its goal (creating desire where there once was none). That job will be done by a different interpellater (Adbusters, for example, attempts to lift the veil of false signification of advertisements, or at least to subvert advertising to the opposite end – not buying stuff). What an advertisement will do is rely on assumptions that affirm its status, that attempt to make the interpellated subject believe that the assumptions it takes for granted are taken for granted because they are true.

The arbitrariness of this signification is made clear at a specific point in Wrestlemania XX. In Wrestlemania XX, an evening gown match is scheduled between two women of wrestling chosen to appear on the cover of Playboy magazine and two women who dispute that choice, claiming that they, in fact, deserved to be chosen, or were more attractive, and should have therefore been chosen. The match will ostensibly decide if the choice of the first two was in fact justified. Unsurprisingly, the match devolves quickly (before it begins in fact) into a lingerie match, with the women de-clothing in important interpretive ways. The first woman is assisted by her partner, fulfilling the fantasy of girl-on-girl action lying visible beneath the surface of that which is "said." This, in the fantasy world, could only really be made better if a man were involved in some way, and the expectant viewer isn't made to wait very long: The second woman undresses with the assistance of the male referee, and thereafter (true to the form of the first three girls) takes a short, catwalk-esque walk to the front of the ring and back. Significantly, as she turns around, the camera angle changes, and the viewer at home gets a better shot of her bottom. The third girl is also assisted by her partner, and also takes her little turn on the catwalk. But the fourth girl refuses to undress. For her nonconformity, she is quickly brutalized by her two opponents and forcibly stripped. A reading of the interpellation here could be that it is dangerous for a woman to refuse to objectify herself in the name of "fun," or more precisely, the fantasy-fulfillment of the prurient public. Indeed, her refusal could quickly earn her that oft-thrown-around pejorative "feminist," the word no pop-culture lady would wish upon herself.

But aside from the interpellation of the role of women here attempted, the match is significant in its similarity to the male matches. Watched without sound, there is little to distinguish the "wrestling" of these women from that of the men. Here, then, we have a relatively objective reading, unguided by a specific interpellative framework. (It must be conceded that even on the level of pure images the framework is somewhat leading, containing as it does numerous crotch shots and homoerotic sexual positions, although the same is true of male matches.) The interpellation comes into play when we compare the way the matches are commented upon by the ringside announcers. When the women are wrestling, the interpretation of the event is (guided by the salivating announcers) wholly sexual. Even when they do something particularly athletic, or a move similar to the men, the women are highly eroticized. Male matches, while formally very similar, are commented upon in dramatically different ways, and thus the interpellative attempt by the ringside announcers aligns with hetero-normative male culture. Indeed, when the men do something overtly homoerotic, it is neither condemned (as one would perhaps expect in a culture none too fond of gay sexuality on display) nor eroticized, but praised as "athleticism" or "determination" or any number of catchphrases denoting values highly regarded in American, protestant-work-ethic-informed society.

Althusser's model of interpellation can therefore be applied to the text to make sense of the ways in which the structure of Wrestlemania lends itself to the affirmation of conservative ideology. It is possible, for example, that two nearly identical matches, differing only in the gender or ethnicity of the participating characters, can be interpreted, understood or given meaning in wholly different ways depending on the interpellation of the viewer offered by the ringside announcers. Furthermore, as will be demonstrated using further examples from Wrestlemania XX, the interpellations of wrestling are overwhelmingly conservative, and serve to rally support for American foreign and domestic policy, albeit in a way somewhat removed from the ways in which wrestling has functioned in the past.

As Althusser (and Marcuse and Adorno/Horkheimer) would argue, the reason that similar contexts can be judged differently has everything to do with the affirmative character of mass culture, or its tendency to move within well-worn grooves of association. Thus women are eroticized because women are erotic objects in the society that produces this interpellation; dichotomies are constructed along ethnic lines because they reflect tensions within that society between ethnic groups, and in that way appeal to some kind of "lived reality" to which people can relate (in whatever superficial or prejudiced way). For example, patriotism is cultivated because a country finds itself at war. In what follows, I will attempt to demonstrate the affirmative character of Wrestlemania as mass culture. As much sympathy as I have for Benjamin's project of instilling agency into the process of consumption of mass cultural objects, I have found little evidence thus far that the participation of individuals in the mass culture of Wrestlemania is anything other than the ritual-like affirmation of Wrestlemania's somewhat fascistic aura.

The popularity of professional wrestling rises and falls with the politics of the day. In times when political events either at home or abroad have fostered particularly isolationist or nationalistic sentiments, wrestling has experienced success by dividing the world into simplistic binary oppositions of good and evil, where good is an American "Us" or "I" and evil is a non-American "Other." Both of these terms have changed meaning in response to changes in context. Jeffrey Mondak refers to this simplistic binary as an "ethnic-based ethical system." This system draws on pre-existing social stereotypes, the "worn grooves of association" of Adorno, to create a clearly delineated Moral Order, with Good on one side and Evil on the other. This system is pleasurable because it requires little work on the part of the consumer to understand who is good and who is evil in the grand melodrama that is professional wrestling. All the associative work is done by the character's "mannerisms, tactics," and, most troublingly, "ethnicity" (Mondak 1989). During times when political events have created an atmosphere of isolationism or nationalism in the United States, it has generally been ethnicity, in this archipelago of characteristics that has been exploited. It is my concern here to briefly explore the ways in which this ethical system is exploited in Wrestlemania XX in order not only to make a high profit, but more subtly, to affirm the current foreign and domestic policy of the United States by interpellating, or constituting, the viewer at home within a conservative framework.

During the 1930s, as the United States struggled through the Great Depression, "Isolationist sentiments were of such strength ... that Americans exhibited hatred for all foreigners" (Mondak 144-45). Any ethnicity was in this context fair game. As a result, according to Mondak, "villains were characterized as representatives of a vast array of real and fictitious foreign nations" such as Russia, Hungary, Germany, East Prussia, and Kurdistan (145). In the early 1950s, the determining political context was the aftermath of World War II. As a result, characters wore the stereotypical outfits of Japanese or German ethnicities and bore names such as Hans Schmidt, Hans Herman, Hans Schwarz, and Ach Du Lieber Kurt von Poppenheim. During the early 1980s, in the context of the Cold War and the escalation of tensions in the Middle East (Iranian hostage crisis, accusation that Iran was promoting international terrorism, Beirut (Lebanon) hostage crisis, growing tension with Libya - Mondak, 1989), a "confrontational American foreign policy" is again discernible. It will come as no surprise, then, that the old ethnic stereotypes were once again brushed off and rolled out of the closet at that time and that wrestling again experienced a revival in popularity. During the first Gulf War, Vince McMahon, owner and promoter of the WWF and Wrestlemania, tried again to capitalize on that confrontational foreign policy, but were greeted with derision when they developed a plotline in which an American military sergeant, Sgt. Slaughter, turns Iraqi sympathizer, and Hulk Hogan (who originally won his title by defeating the Iron Sheik in 1984) is once again called on to defend America against this new threat. In the mid to late 1990s, Vince McMahon responded to the relative lull in (overt) military interventions abroad and tensions at home by exaggerating the essential elements of the spectacle. In short, he added more sex and violence. Integrating the newly popular antics of "Extreme Championship Wrestling" accounted for violence. This is not addressing the additional homoerotic undertones of scantily clad, well-oiled, and hyper-buff men putting one another in a variety of submission holds and other maneuvers. Also important is the the seeming avowal of the sado-masochistic elements in the character of Mick Foley, himself more M than S, sex was supplied in the form of the introduction of plot lines involving female wrestlers, and a female championship belt began changing hands.

Wrestlemania XX, "where it all began again" according to the tagline, has all of these things. It has a moral order determined by form and informed by current political and social events; it has sex and violence (and an obvious queering of identity); it even has, naturally, undertones of the homoerotic and the masochistic. What is unique about Wrestlemania XX is the ways in which it has, in the wake of the rather negative reaction to the casting of Sgt. Slaughter as Iraqi sympathizer in Wrestlemania VII, adapted to channel allegorical content into various matches, rather than, in the case of Wrestlemania VII, locating it almost exclusively in a single, highly charged match. The aim of the following is to link some of these concerns to what I feel is the allegorical main event of Wrestlemania XX: The match between the Undertaker and his (ostensible) half-brother Kane, and to show how this relates to the construction of an identity affirmative of an attitude deemed necessary at a time of "belligerent foreign policy."

This match serves as a site for the contestation of nationalism in the face of the War on Iraq. Here, the typing is no longer as overt as in Wrestlemania VII. Having learned his lesson, McMahon has become more subtle. Wrestlemania XX pits the Undertaker, risen from the dead after being buried alive, against his half-brother, Kane, infuriated that the Undertaker has betrayed himself and is no longer a monster. The ways that the Undertaker has invoked the wrath of Kane are by riding a Harley with a huge American flag protruding erectly from the rear, which he later kisses. The world is thus reduced to "Patriots," like the "new" Undertaker, resurrected from the dead to proudly defend his beliefs, and "Monsters," like Kane, denouncing the Undertaker for his patriotism, hating the Undertaker and what he stands for so much that he, in the plotline leading up to the event, has even gone so far as to bury the Undertaker alive under a heap of rubble. In the form of these binaries, a very complicated and nuanced conflict is reduced to a battle of good against evil, of patriot against monster. This oversimplification allows the viewer to feel that he or she can understand an event, but this is only the appearance of understanding. The truth, or an ideology closer to it, is that the world is far more complex than the binaries of good-evil or patriot-monster. Furthermore, such binaries only act to affirm the conservative status quo. That this binary would arise in such a way should prove unsurprising within our current political context, in which President Bush claims in campaign ads that a vote against him is a vote for terrorism. This too, is the creation of oversimplified divisions along nationalistic lines that see the world only in terms of patriot and monster.

But even this match fails to fly under the radar of social or political reference entirely. The entire match is in fact imbued with very subtle references to the iconography of the September 11 attacks, which make it subconsciously clear that it is nothing less than national identity that is at stake. The Undertaker has been "buried alive," attacked by a self-proclaimed Monster for displaying his love of his country. Crosscut with the vehement denunciations of Kane are pictures of the Undertaker riding on his Harley, or kissing the American flag, or a portrait of him (looking very much like the kind placed at roadside memorials or the graves of fallen soldiers) surrounded by candles. Through this iconography, it is clear that what Kane is attacking is not simply the Undertaker, but America itself. Like the terrorists that attacked on September 11, his goal is not merely to kill the Undertaker, but to destroy the fabric of American life. In addition, the match, the twentieth anniversary of the Wrestlemania phenomenon, takes place where the first occurred: Madison Square Garden, and we are constantly reminded that this is "where it will all begin again." The connections to September 11 are established in the opening sequence. Here, the Harlem Boys Choir sings "America the Beautiful" to the accompaniment of a montage of patriotic footage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, culminating with a photograph of the proposed new World Trade Center. In this context, the Undertaker ceases to be merely the Undertaker, as Kane's attack on him is no longer merely personal. Just as the World Trade Center will be erected again, on the same hallowed ground, the Undertaker rises up (from hallowed ground) to avenge his death at the hands of a fanatical Monster.

In keeping with the increasing subtlety of Wrestlemania since Wrestlemania VII, Kane's rhetoric is less an overt attack on American values, using the highly ambiguous "Monster" than Sgt. Slaughter's thirteen years ago, but what it has lost in overt reference, it has gained through the strength of its imagery.  Whereas the message of Sgt. Slaughter could be conveyed easily with words, and is easily understood as an attack, Kane's message slides into the realm of the symbolic and is appropriately conveyed with images. Kane, in spite of his increasing use of symbolism, has become the new Slaughter. While the political overtones, or the relationship to the cultural context, is here less overt, it is no less obvious that American identity, the American Way of Life (writ large), is at stake. The audience has been ideologically divided by the simplistic binary of the Kane-Undertaker match into those identifying with "good," and "America," and respect for God and country, and those (significantly fewer) who identify with "Monsters" seeking to destroy all that America stands for. Thus it remains merely for that same audience to be conquered through the inclusion of the more overtly political and social.

The moral order found in wrestling affirms the political and social context from which it is drawn. This is the essence of Althusser's argument: Ideology is constituted in the same moment that it is affirmed. The Undertaker-Kane match is the event that, in necessitating interpretation, forces us to interpret it on its terms. To do so, the viewer must make reference to the social and political context from which the binary opposition patriot-monster has been drawn. This context is however severely limited, and limiting, in its interpretive possibilities, thus we hardly have any choice but to interpret it as it asks to be interpreted.

The "main event" of the Undertaker-Kane match is therefore important for what it lacks; that is, overt reference to the social and political "referent system" or the ethnic-based ethical system so often created in the context of isolationist or belligerent domestic or foreign policy. As noted earlier, McMahon has become more subtle in his engagement with social and political themes, but Wrestlemania XX has not failed to include commentary on the social and political, and as such remains a vital component of the ISA, interpellating certain frameworks or ways of interpreting events affirmative of American foreign and domestic policy.

The match that provides a focal point for the anxieties of the social is the match between Kurt Angle and Eddie Guerrero. Kurt Angle stands on the side of "tradition" and "value" and is morally outraged that Eddie Guerrero, a "former drug addict" is disgracing the WWF as its champion. To that end, he has challenged Guerrero, a walking Hispanic stereotype, to a match to determine who "deserves" to represent the WWF. The outcome is that Eddie Guerrero wins, but does so only by cheating. The announcers make it a point to mention this, and cheating is generally a device employed by Heels, or "bad guys." Thus Guerrero wins the match, but only through using tactics that align him with cheaters and other "degenerates" that don't deserve to have anything. This narrative establishes Eddie Guerrero as a contested site. He is a source of identification for the emerging Hispanic population in the United States. This population itself is a contested demographic in the realm of politics, important because it as yet has no traditional party affiliation. The attempt to interpellate this audience through wrestling is illustrated by the fact that Wrestlemania XX marks the first time that a Wrestlemania has been broadcast simultaneously in Spanish. This simultaneous broadcast can in this context be seen less as a benevolent gesture in the interest of friendship and more as an attempt to bring this growing Hispanic population into the conservative fold. But the attempt ends up being contradictory, as, in an effort to interpellate as many audiences as possible, Wrestlemania must rely on Hispanic stereotypes, and as a result, Hispanic viewers are pushed in with one hand while being pushed away with the other by its blatant racism.

Another important match is the first of the four-way tag-team bouts. This match is significant because it features a tag-team called "La Resistance" which consists of a French person and a "French sympathizer." Here, the interpellation takes place on the level of both form and content. On the level of form, the interpellation is achieved through the use (or non-use) of cross-cutting. When "La Resistance" is introduced, their procession toward the stage is cross-cut with shots of the audience booing and holding American flags. This happens several times during their walk toward the ring. The introduction of the remaining three teams, and their subsequent walks to the ring, are accompanied by a minimum of cross-cutting. The walk of two of the teams is interrupted by a single cross-cut, and the walk of the remaining team is never cross-cut, and happens quite rapidly and with little fanfare (a sure sign that the team is not going to win). When the match gets underway, it is important to note the ratio of abuse received to abuse given. The French are quite often on the receiving end of punishment and only very rarely punishing anyone else. Important to note is the fact that, when they do land a punch, or inflict punishment of any kind, it is only the black people that they are successful in injuring. Finally, it is a member of "La Resistance" that is pinned to end the match.

Here the relation to the current political situation, or the situation surrounding the march to war in Iraq, is clear. Indeed, the scriptwriters capitalize on a term of some importance in French history and appropriate it to a very different context. No longer is "La Resistance" a group of patriots opposing German occupation during World War II; in its new context, "La Resistance" is seen as the resistance to the war on Iraq offered up by France in the buildup to that war. In the binary set up between "good" and "evil" by the Undertaker-Kane match following shortly thereafter, there is no room for the nuances of history. Instead, "La Resistance" is stripped of its rather democratic original meaning and recontextualized as an enemy of the American way of life. Benjamin would be proud, if he could ever stop throwing up. The political and social anxieties that do not make their way overtly into the Kane-Undertaker match can therefore be found appearing in other places, in more overtly political terms using the "ethnic-based ethical system," without having to rely nearly as much on the symbolism and allegory that informs that match.

In all this there is little room for the agency Benjamin hoped technological reproducibility would infuse into the consumptive process through the ability of the consumer to appropriate and decontextualize cultural products and recontextualize them on his or her own terms. And it is with good reason that so little agency exists in the spectacle of Wrestlemania: it is fascistic in the Benjaminian sense of the word. It is the cultivation of the aura, which can here be called the spectacle; it is the group affirmation of meaning, even if the meaning is merely frenzy, or desire, or dissolution of self.

This seems, unfortunately, to be the appeal of wrestling: it is a ritual affirmation of American foreign dominance, of American identity. By watching wrestling, we are partaking of America and affirming this particular meaning en masse. On the more visceral level, wrestling is appealing in a somewhat sexual way. It has the eroticism of Fascism or S&M. It is mythical in its battles because it simplifies these battles into simple good-evil binary oppositions, and in this it is supremely anti-intellectual, allowing none of the nuances of history or differently-experienced reality into its worldview. Benjamin's realm of hope is best found in the ability of all of us to compare lived reality to espoused ideology.

 

 

Works Cited

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Goffman, Erving. "Introduction." Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1974.

May, Vaughn. "Cultural Politics and Professional Wrestling." Studies in Popular Culture 21, no. 3 (1999 Apr): 79-94.

Migliore, Sam. "Professional Wrestling: Moral Commentary through Ritual Metaphor." Journal of Ritual Studies 7, no. 1 (1993 Winter): 65-84.

Mondak, J. J.  1989.  "The politics of professional wrestling."  Journal of Popular Culture 23 (Fall 1989): 139-149.

Sontag, Susan. "Fascinating Fascism." Under the Sign of Saturn. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.

Workman, Mark E. "Dramaturgical Aspects of Professional Wrestling Matches." Folklore Forum 10, (1977): 14-20.