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December 17, 2003
WRESTLING, WAL-MART
AND THE GREATER GOOD
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?"
Posted by at December 17, 2003 09:46 AM