Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 20

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The Popular Culture Review

costuming is just as functional, too, we realize as she kicks Snuka four
times in the chest with her heels. Despite Sherry's submission to the
snapping of Savage's fingers, Sherry is hardly demure or submissive
during the match. Sherry is acting as Savage's manager during the
match, and she screams out commands to him throughout it—yelling
"get him, get him." Sherry's active participation in the match only
begins with her highheels. Sherry chokes Snuka with her
pursestrap, unhooks Macho King from the ropes, gives him her purse
to hit Snuka in the back with, is choked by Snuka, and saves Macho
King from being flattened by Snuka’s jumping off the ropes on top of
him.
Most of this particular match is not about suffering, but about
double-entendres and ambiguous gender roles—this is the match of the
purse. Ventura cannot understand why the match continues after the
purse has been used and the purse has been won. Why does the match
continue as Ventura says bewildered, "He’s already won the purse,"-the prizemoney. In the incident where Sherry saves Macho King,
McMann says, "Snuka should leap on both of them. Leap! Leap!" To
which Ventura replies, "What courage by Queen Sherry, saving the
king, putting her body on the line for the King."
The Macho King/Snuka match is not the only one where
women or feminine attributes are degraded. However, such incidents
of female bashing, instead of separating gender roles more rigidly,
create an ambiguity about the wrestler's gender. Rowdy Roddy Piper,
always ready with a topical allusion, spends most of the time before
his fight with Haku, a member of the Henan family of wrestlers,
comparing his opponent to a woman. Piper starts out comparing Haku
to a woman whom only Leona Helmsley could compete with as 1989's
woman-the-public-most-loved-to-hate, "When I get through with
Haku...he's gonna be crying like Zsa Zsa Gabor in court, only her hair
looks prettier; she's probably smarter." Piper gets even more vicious
later—of course, Haku's manager, Bobby "the Brain" Henan, has
called him "that dumbbell in the dress." (Piper wears a kilt.) Piper's
plans for Haku do degrade women, but their main thrust is to
undermine Haku's masculinity: "You know where I come from what
they do with weasels when they got too many family members? We
get 'em fixed. Course they gain weight and you say, well what would
you do with Boobsie then? Well, that's okay cause people'd be
chasing ’em." Even the Bushwhacker brothers, Butch and Luther,