Is professional wrestling a legitimate vehicle for artistic expression? I don’t think so. Is it the
future of sports entertainment in this country? I hope not. Nonetheless, I pass along a friend’s
recommendation of Barry Blaustein’s documentary, “Beyond
the Mat,” for what he calls “its excellent, objective view of the world
of pro wrestling.”
Why, you might reasonably ask, does my friend even care about professional
wrestling? Because it is the entertainment of choice for a very large segment of the U.S.
population, and we should understand what our neighbors watch and why. Besides, many people
have said that the best times to go to a Wal-Mart is during the telecast of a pro wrestling
match or a NASCAR event.
Which brings us to another question: Can we categorize people who shop at Wal-Mart as
subversive shoppers? Wal-Mart has been shown to
harm rather than help local economies in a variety of
ways, like displacing local merchants and refusing to use local vendors (besides
paying sub-standard wages and benefits).
So yes, you might reasonably conclude, consumers who shop at Wal-Mart undermine their
local economies: Instead of shopping for the greater good, they just shop to save eight cents on a
roll of toilet paper.
POSTSCRIPT: Marc Weisblott, pop-culture blogger
extraordinaire, recently wrote: “I’m not anti-Wal-Mart out of any sort
of principle, but I can’t say I’ve experienced any satisfaction after shopping there. Case in point:
Fruit of the Loom boxer briefs, two pair for six bucks. In fact, I picked up two such packages, but
forfeited one at the register because it wasn’t the discount kind. The reason why became apparent
once home–they are the “two pouch” variety, featuring a fly that boasts of being “easy to use” on
the basis that it’s horizontal. Whose invention was that?”
