A Few Words Archives - Half Formed Thoughts 9/18/02

What the "F" in WWF Really Stands For

This column is for Missa, our amazingly talented webmistress, for whom I have the utmost respect. In a recent column, she expressed her feelings on homosexuality quite eloquently, and I know that she happens to be a fan of the WWF, which I refuse to call WWE.

Most of you either don’t watch wrestling or won’t admit that you watch wrestling. I’m in neither boat. I’m proud to admit to being a wrestling fan, but I never watch the shows. However, I do pay attention to the current plot twists via the Internet, and the theme of this week’s shows was definitely gay and lesbian. Last Thursday on Smackdown, two male wrestlers got engaged and set their wedding date for exactly one week later. (And I thought my wife and I rushed to get our wedding planned in about two months.) Monday Night Raw, a show which is competing against Smackdown within the fictional world even though they’re both owned by Vince McMahon, proactively countered with a lesbian make-out session. The whole story line came to a crashing halt during the actual “ceremony” itself as the two wrestlers didn’t get married for reasons which still baffle me, only having read the description of what happened.

But for the purposes of this column, I’m not particularly interested in the minute details of the wrestling story. I’m more interested in the predictable reaction of the usual nutjobs. You see, the rest of the entertainment, news, and sports industries prefer to pretend that wrestling doesn’t exist. They don’t quite now how to categorize it, and they certainly don’t want to give even the appearance of approving of its existence. But they couldn’t resist turning the “gay wedding” into a controversial subject. And, as they have done so many times in the past, a vocal minority has called for a boycott of wrestling and called on network directors to get that filth off the television, despite the fact that a large number of people like to watch it every week.

I was thinking about that uproar this week, as we marked the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There are dozens of events and images that I will always remember about that day, and the days immediately afterwards, but one which kept coming back to my mind was ABC’s firing of Bill Maher, the host of Politically Incorrect, for his comment that the terrorists weren’t cowards. I should state for the record that I happen to agree with Bill on this one. The men who carried out the act were terribly sick individuals, they were murderers who acted based on a truly warped idea of what their religion teaches. I am generally reluctant to use the word “evil” to describe fellow human beings, but I think that being responsible for the deaths of thousands is about as evil as it gets.

But they at least had the courage to back up their convictions, evil though they might have been, with their lives. Remember, they believed that what they were doing was noble and good. While there are evil people in the world, no one ever believes himself to be evil. They sacrificed their own lives to serve what they believed to be a greater good. No matter that they were wrong, it was still courageous.

Anyway, whether or not you agree with me or Bill Maher isn’t the point. The point is that some people found his words so offensive that they forced ABC to cancel his show. To me, that’s cowardly. But it happens every day in America, the one place it shouldn’t. Two “shock jock” DJ’s were recently fired over a show in which they ran a contest involving couples having sex in public places. One of the locations was St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which got the Catholic Church quite upset. (So now Opie and Anthony are out of a job for encouraging two consenting adults to have sex, but Bernard Law is still a Cardinal. What’s wrong with that picture?)

And here’s the reason it goes on. People who are offended by something tend to be very vocal about it, whereas people who aren’t offended tend to enjoy it quietly, to themselves. And while there are always more people who enjoy something, a small minority backed by powerful emotions will always win over a lukewarm majority.

I suppose that it’s a good thing that minorities can get their voices heard, otherwise democracy can quickly turn into oppression by numbers, but I think censorship always sucks. It offends me, and it stirs me into action. That public sex stunt was sponsored by Samuel Adams beer, and once that fact got out, a lot of bars boycotted Sam Adams beer. Me, I plan to drink nothing but Sam Adams for the next six months, and I’m going to write a letter to the company letting them know that.

It’s the least I can do to preserve freedom of speech, one of the values which has made America the greatest country in the world. May she always remain so.

Email Steve with any comments at aenor@aurora.mv.com