Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 19

Macho Man Meets the Million Dollar Man

11

The language of wrestling may be mythical, but the language
and images which wrestling has stolen to make its own metalanguage
are curiously resistant to the naturalization Barthes says should
occur.(6) The traces of the original language are often only too
apparent: wrestling's outdated mythos of male dominance, white
supremacy, and cultural chauvinism hemorrhages under the pressures
exerted by a culture self-consciously aware of gender, race, and class.
At first glance, sexism is rampant in the World Wrestling
Federation. The focus of the sexism is the only woman featured in the
Main Event, Queen Sherry, Macho Man's consort. We perhaps should
not be surprised about the comments directed at Sherry, given the
audience for televised pro-wrestling, determined here from the
advertising demographics which are a perfect representation of a
male, 18- to 25-year old audience. The sponsors are hawking beer, fast
food, soft drinks, cars, auto parts, movies, videotape, radio stations,
and the United States army. The one exception is Pacific Bell.
Announcer Jessie "the Body" Ventura, even though he is adamantly on
Macho King's side (or should that be because he is on Macho King’s
side), constantly slams the token woman allowed to participate—the
woman whose hand he had kissed only moments earlier (after
receiving Macho King's permission, of course). As Ventura says, "Look
at this now, the King snaps his fingers, the Queen responds—just as it
should be." Ventura's response to Vince McMann's complaint about
Sherry hanging on to Superfly Snuka's (Macho King's opponent's) leg
is "Hey, she's just a woman McMann, what can she do?" To which
McMann replies, "Oh, really. Well, Dugan...At one time Hacksaw
Jim Dugan, the former king, had said that if Sherry wants to act like
a man then people should treat her like a man." I think we can safely
assume that Dugan was not speaking about equal pay or opportunity.
But this overt sexism begins to crumble when you take a closer
look at what is happening in the match between Macho King and
Queen Sherry on the one side and Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka on the
other. In this match, Macho King, formerly Macho Man, Randy
Savage wins because of Sherry’s help, and wins with, of all things, a
purse. Sherry and Macho King doubleteam Snuka, just as later in the
event Zeus and the Million Dollar Man doubleteam Hulk Hogan and
Jimmy 'the Snake" Roberts. While Sherry is dressed in highheels
and a red-spangled evening gown, her attire is hardly more feminine
than the glitter and makeup worn by the wrestlers. S herry’s