Reality Bites

WWE is now officially in 'the Reality Era'.  It must be true, as Triple H cut a promo recently which acknowledged this openly. Indeed, as one of my friends noted, he used the word 'reality' so often, the word almost lost all its meaning by the end of this segment. But what does this mean?

Generally, WWE invented the concept of sectioning off its history in this manner during the Attitude Era at the end of the 20th century.  This was a successful attempt to see off the challenge of the rival WCW promotion with a diet of violent matches, crude humour and sexual innuendo.  Once WCW met its demise, WWE promptly did a 180-switch and launched the family-friendly Entertainment Era.  As a result of signing a major deal with toy manufacturers Mattel, all WWE programming was watered down to achieve a PG rating.  Now the action was less bloody (blading is now banned) and viewers saw gimmicky guest hosts from the worlds of sport and entertainment while marvelling at John Cena's collection of colourful t-shirts,  So how does the Reality Era differ from the Entertainment Era?

To find the answer, it's useful to note that 'reality' has a specific meaning in television terms.  The whole reality genre relies less on naturalistic portrayal of people's lives than carefully edited and even scripted scenes conforming to a set formula.  Probably the first true reality show started exactly 50 years ago.  '7 Up' (1964) was a British programme looking at a cross-section of 7-year-old children, with the idea that every seven years after that a fresh programme would be made to follow the progress of the children.  This was upheld; '56 Up' was shown in 2012.  Remarkably, thirteen of the original fourteen subjects appeared in this latest episode.  This show's aim was genuinely sociological rather than attempting to be entertaining.  However, it was criticised for its use of editing to support its central framework; in particular, the programme had editorial points to make about the British class system.

The reality genre has exploded over the last decade or so.  The Dutch format 'Big Brother' was an international success based on a simple idea, that a group of strangers are imprisoned in a house and cut off from the rest of the world while psychological pressure is applied.   This manipulative set-up does not even try to hide how artificial the whole business is.   Another strand of reality television is the talent show, re-invented by British producer Simon Cowell in shows such as 'Pop Idol'. '[insert country name here]'s Got Talent' and 'The X-Factor'.  In these competitions, it's never just about singing performances, but about the contestants' backstories.   Any family tragedy, in particular, will be ruthlessly and cynically exploited to appeal to the emotions; contestants often refer to going on a 'journey' rather than just entering a competition.  There's often a lot of crying on these shows.  Finally, you have 'fly-on-the-wall' shows either following the lives of celebrities ('The Osbournes', 'The Simple Life', 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians') or ordinary people ('Jersey Shore', 'Driving School', 'The Only Way Is Essex').  These are, at the very least, highly edited and are often scripted.

Wrestling has had crossovers with reality television too.  Members of the 'Jersey Shore' cast have made appearances on both WWE and TNA (indeed, in TNA, Robbie E's character is clearly inspired by that programme).  Both promotions have also staged reality shows of their own - WWE have 'Tough Enough', 'Total Divas' and 'Legends House', while TNA served up 'British Bootcamp'.  In the latter, realism was undermined by the fact that both Rockstar Spud and Marty Scurll were clearly playing their in-ring roles outside of the ring.   Finally, British viewers have to endure ITV's dismal 'Celebrity Wrestling' show, which simply wasn't thought through at all.   Because there wasn't time to train the z-list celebrities properly, there were no actual matches, but 'wrestling-style games'....how they persuaded Rowdy Roddy Piper and D'Lo Brown to get involved in this I'll never know.

It's really not hard to see how all this relates to wrestling.  After all, wrestlers are often playing amplified versions of themselves.   CM Punk, who allegedly coined the phrase 'Reality Era', has used his real Straight Edge lifestyle as a gimmick throughout his career, both as a heel and a face.   Indeed, his legendary 'pipebomb' promo of June 2011 could be seen as the birth of the era.  The six-minute promo felt exciting because we had rarely heard anything like it before.  Ostensibly a heel promo at John Cena's expense, it mixed up his heel persona with genuine grievances Punk had.  He deliberately broke rules, referring to wrestlers' real names and mentioning other promotions and his old Chicago friend Colt Cabana (though, apparently, he was banned from mentioning TNA), while also referring to backstage WWE politics.  It's an utter tour-de-force where you can't quite tell where the CM Punk character ends and the real Phil Brooks begins.

It's that blurring of the boundaries that has driven Triple H's role in the Authority storyline.  Essentially, his heel character is based on common public perceptions of his conduct.  He portrays a ruthlessly ambitious man who will do anything to get his own way (even marrying the boss's daughter, which of course he did in real life) and takes great pleasure in burying anyone in his way.   Specifically, Daniel Bryan.   Again, we wonder how much of HHH's criticisms of Bryan are just ways of getting heat at the expense of a popular fan favourite; do they instead reflect his actual opinions?

This has consequences as to the type of character suited to this culture.  The standard WWE template for a wrestler, unchanged from the 80s, was that they should be untouchable, musclebound supermen - godlike gladiators.  But fantasy characters like that do not fit in the Reality Era, which is part of the reason for the failure of Goldberg-throwback Ryback.  Instead, an everyman character like Daniel Bryan, who crowds can connect with, is far more suitable.  Today, we want to feel for wrestlers, not be in awe of them.  There's another example of this in the UK.  The biggest star in cult Glaswegian promotion ICW is Grado, a somewhat short and paunchy figure, who frankly is an unlikely wrestler in any culture.  But because he has such a strong personality, he definitely has that common touch which means everything today.

Of course, this perhaps isn't good news for John Cena, unless he can tweak his character.  Funnily enough, I think he's already started to do this in his feud with the Wyatt family.  A few weeks ago, in answer to a typically creepy Bray Wyatt, he delivered his usual jokey promos filled with lame gags.  This just misjudged what was required, and turned the whole segment into a joke.  I think someone then had a word with him, because his work since then has been very different.  The following week he delivered a far more serious promo which repaired the damage to the angle from the previous promo.  Since then, he's barely spoken but has shown unusual vulnerability.  On last week's go-home show, he pulled a fine piece of wrestling theatre by invading the Wyatt's victory ceremony wearing a sheep mask.  Maybe we were wrong;  Cena doesn't need a heel turn, but needs to be a more credible face.  Here's hoping.

The fear is that, even as it admits eras have changed, WWE is pursuing the wrong path.  The music coming from the Performance Center suggests that they plan a production line of  80s-style musclemen.  I think they need a better mix of characters, as most of the big men coming through the ranks recently have failed while smaller technical workers have fared a lot better.  Surely this philosophy has to change now.   At Wrestlemania tonight, giving Daniel Bryan the Championship belt will show that times have changed, and that the Reality Era could be the most entertaining era yet.