- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Ecco (Feb 16 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 006019829X
- ISBN-13: 978-0060198299
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.5 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 499 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #828,414 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
This fascinating study uncovers a microcosm of America in its gaudiest pop-culture spectacle. Journalist Hackett steeps himself in the pro wrestling demimonde, from glitzy WWE extravaganzas to grungy, underground, hardcore matches where blood-drenched wrestlers grapple on mats studded with broken glass and barbed wire. He finds it a brilliant form of postmodern theater, tangled in intriguing contradictions; an elaborately scripted yet sincere imitation of athletic competition, its fakery simultaneously acknowledged and denied by fans and participants. Most of all, it's a lurid showcase for violent, heterosexual masculinity that also drips, like Jesse Ventura's trademark feather boa, with effeminate preening and homoerotic subtexts. As the wrestlers and their teenage male fans hurl elbows, chairs and gay-baiting obscenities—and endearments—at each other, Hackett observes, the athletes enact a primitive but potent rite of passage for a society eternally insecure about its manhood. Hackett mixes anthropology and critical theory with engaging reportage that is slightly appalled by its subject but always wry, funny, incisive and affectionate. If wrestling's confusions and paradoxes don't easily resolve themselves, he suggests, that makes them an apt symbol of a nation where heartfelt fraud is the soul of authenticity. Photos. (Mar. 7)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Hackett approaches the subject of professional wrestling from the premise that it is not dishonest. It's about spectacle not sport. But as Hackett immersed himself in the culture and history of the enterprise, he began to see other aspects of its drawing power: its rags-to-riches story lines, its narcissism, even its homoerotic appeal. And, most of all, there was the wrestling game's fierce competition for stardom. Few reach the top in any sport, but few sports demolish its apprentices as thoroughly as professional wrestling, where the road to stardom is littered with steroids, suicides, and alcoholics. Through interviews with fans and wrestlers, Hackett offers a fascinating examination of the phenomenon of celebrity. Wrestlers are celebrities because they're famous, he concludes, and they're famous because they're celebrities. Perhaps the most interesting part of this account is Hackett's seeming ambivalence about his subject. He empathizes with the individual fan yet disdains the "chromosomally damaged" herd. But maybe that's his point: celebrity watching, in or out of rings, makes no sense unless you're the one doing it. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.5 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but not great, May 22 2006
By Todd B. Graham - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, And Professional Wrestling (Hardcover)
If you want an inside look at wrestling and how it operates, this is not the book for you. However, if you want a look at pro wrestling and the intersection between it and pop culture, this book does a decent job. I can see how someone could be attracted to the Indys at a writing subject. They have more hardcore fans, and the press access is a lot easier than with Vince McMahon's WWE.On the flip side, the fact that he starts off with anti-wrestling bias, the poor timeline and the lit-crit references that would go over the heads of 80% of the population are problematic. He seems so intent on making his language authoritative that you wonder what shortcomings is he trying to make up for. He would have done a better job backing out a lot of the high-falutin' talk and speaking plainly. That said, if you're someone who wants to read about wrestling as critique as a popular culture phenomenon, this book will suffice.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, April 16 2010
By R. Lovus Dillon - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, And Professional Wrestling (Hardcover)
This was a wonderful book. The two-, and three-star reviews seemed to have at least one common complaint: the fact that the author had a negative outlook on wrestling and therefore wrote a biased book. While, admittedly, the author does initially have a "negative" outlook on professional wrestling, it becomes apparent during the course of the book that his disdain doesn't come from wrestling itself, but from the culture that causes teenage boys and grown men alike to turn to such a violent sport for feelings of validation. This begs the question, of course, of whether or not one must adore wrestling in order to write a book about it. Simply because the author has an opinion that isn't gushing with adoration on the subject of professional wrestling doesn't mean he or she is any less qualified to write a sociological book exploring the psychological reasons for which legions of fans flock to wrestling for escape from the quotidian routine of everyday life in America. One could just as easily find another way to be entertained, but millions of people choose professional wrestling; this book examines the "why" behind that.One reviewer stated that while the author spent time in Van Nuys with the people of XPW he (the author) made no reference to the company's ties with pornography: a statement that is blatantly false; the author talks for several paragraphs about his time spent on the site of where a pornographic film was being shot and uses pornography to parallel professional wrestling.
In short, the book was exceptionally well-written and I often found myself in a state of self-reflection when the author opined on American cultures obsession with what is considered the ideal image of "manliness". The book is fantastic and makes an attempt to delve into the minds of the people who devote their free time to professional wrestling (mostly the independent companies), and though others complain that the book makes broad, sweeping generalizations about wrestling fans, the fact is that the author cannot possibly HOPE to interview every, single wrestling fan he meets.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Cultural look into pro-wrestling, Dec 26 2006
By R. Howell "boriskhan" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, And Professional Wrestling (Hardcover)
Journalist Thomas Hackett takes a look into professional wrestling from a non-participant point of view in an attempt to explain why pro-wrestling is so popular in American society. His timeskipping gets a bit annoying but overall it's not a bad book. Rather than dealing with storylines in the big feds, Hackett spends some time hanging out with independent wrestlers that are virtual nobodies except in their area, and seldom even then. Unfortunately, he also pretty much sticks to a point that wrestling is low-class and seems to base many of his writings on backyard or 'extreme' wrestlers that are willing to bleed any chance they get. It's an interesting cultural look into the lower ranks of "pro-wrestling". I put it in quotes because these guys rarely get paid anything and are doing it to try and break into the business. There is a lopsided interview with The Rock but other than that, Hackett sticks to these wrestlers and even some rabid fans who later turn on the 'sport'. He also stops by XPW based in Van Nuys, CA. If you don't know what Van Nuys is known for, find out and you'll see it's another attempt by the author to cut on the business. Another unfortunate viewpoint of Hackett's is that he seems to think wrestling is about [...]-eroticism and has little thought that wrestlers are athletes. I grant that a larger part of the wanna-be's of the bar & barn circuit, and even a few big names, aren't athletes but generally it takes something more than being a low-grade actor to put on a convincing story/show in the wrestling business.Overall, it is an interesting book when he talks with the fans and wanna-be's he travelled with. The Rock and Hart family chapters did little for the book other than to put a few names into it. The author looks down on pro-wrestling and it shows. There are issues wrong within pro-wrestling but this business is part of our society and doesn't appear to be leaving.
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