There has long been a debate over how much of a genius Vince McMahon is. Some have said that his foresight and risks in the 1980s coupled with later success prove that he is a business genius. Others have said he was simply the first to catch a trend and stumbled upon successes, his failures to them are indicative of the flash-in-the-pan nature of his achievements.
But on Thursday, July 7, 2005, many questions about McMahon’s perceived brilliance were answered. Not so much business acumen as personal judgment. I don’t pretend to know McMahon personally, but his decision and that of his company to run a pre-taped angle about jihad and martyrdom in the aftermath of an urban, rush hour, choreographed Al Qaeda attack was classless and inconsiderate.
The act of terrorism, which killed at least 37 and wounded on the order of 700, came days after an angle that would’ve otherwise seem harmless or dumb—but not on this night. WWE decided Thursday morning to remove the angle from a broadcast that aired in the United Kingdom (FOXTEL in Australia edited it out themselves), but it ran in the U.S., with a ticker disclaim that said “In light of today’s tragic events in London, parental discretion is advised when viewing tonight’s episode.”
WWE is not known for tact or thoughtfulness in its angles by any stretch. When on the June 13 episode of WWE RAW, Steve Austin began a segment with Muhammad Hassan and Daivari by saying “I see sand people,” a disguised reference to a less tame epithet for Arabs, it was not the first pandering and unapologetically racist or xenophobic act on a WWE broadcast. But there was something fundamentally different about last night’s angle with Hassan and Daivari than the usual note about Blacks, Latinos, and Asians.
When people die, an angle that didn’t even in the first place intend to address Hassan’s actions seriously seems even more tasteless. When people die, it’s a world event, not a UK event, and there was no reason for the angle to appear here but not in England. When people die, it’s not an issue that requires “parental discretion” as the note during Smackdown suggested, but a conscious and thoughtful reflection on what is and what is not appropriate when ordinary people are killed in the carrying out of their day.
Unlike when Owen Hart died during the May 1999 Over the Edge PPV and many felt it was in poor taste to continue the broadcast, this decision did not require emergency action from the sight of Hart’s fall, but a quick edit. WWE is quick to edit the Smackdown broadcast to make a horrible Heidenreich or John Cena match look like it was actually good, but in this case it was not worth it for a cheap angle.
Kevin Dunn, the director of both RAW and Smackdown, once said that WWE should be free to examine serious issues and events in the same way that programs like “Law and Order” are given such latitude. It is events like this that bring into question WWE’s credibility and discretion in taking real events into their creative purview. The comparison is clearly invalid.
WWE is always on the cutting edge. It’s the only television show that I know of where racial epithets, derogatory portrayals of women and minorities, and otherwise inappropriate events are commonplace and fly without criticism. It’s sophomore television presented by a man going on 60.
People who aren’t wrestling fans often scoff at it without knowing one thing about it. Wrestling fans, the reason goes, are ignorant and uneducated. However, by watching the programming, you can come to that conclusion nine times out of 10, because that’s who WWE is programmed to. It shouldn’t be the fans’ responsibility to shirk that reputation—it’s that of the producer, the genius in the tower. Part of the problem here is unfortunate timing certainly, but the angle was stupid enough even outside of the context of the terror attack that they only opened themselves up to controversy such as this, as in 1991 when they started an angle that featured Sgt. Slaughter as an Iraqi sympathizer right before the war began.
So let’s see how WWE chooses to handle this. Perhaps a controversy of this magnitude will force WWE to think differently about the material it presents on television and broadly rethink the influence its broadcasts carry on a diverse and worldwide audience. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
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