CBC Ideas radio program, the usual just under 1 hour long.
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/15934636-keeping-kayfabe-the-philosophy-pro-wrestlingThe article on the program:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/pro-wrestling-kayfabe-1.6571027In April 2019, a wrestling match in New Jersey got out of hand. Several minutes in, a wrestler attempted to throw his opponent — his own brother! — from a balcony. As the referee tried to intervene, they both toppled over the bannister. The two rivals fell into the crowd below, sending spectators scattering and falling over backward in a heap.
The strange thing was both wrestlers were invisible. Only the referee could see them, fans were told, by wearing a special pair of sunglasses.
Despite the invisibility of the wrestlers, fans cheered on the good guy and taunted the bad guy throughout the match. After the wrestlers' disastrous fall, the crowd burst into a spontaneous chant: "This is wrestling! This is wrestling!"
Of course, neither wrestler actually existed, except in the mind of the spectators.
And it's this kind of suspension of disbelief that makes professional wrestling so relevant to philosophers today.
My take is that professional wrestling is performance art, and, as mentioned in the episode, it really isn't any different than the performative OUTRAGE! we see in politics especially as practiced by Republicans. Going back a bit in history, I don't think it's a surprise that one of the first, in America anyway, performance artists - Andy Kaufman - outraged audiences with one of his routines that featured him wrestling with women, as well as being friends with some of the some of the top professional wrestlers of the day.
Also, as fake as wrestling is, the harm that this art inflicts on the wrestler's bodies isn't and more needs to be done to protect the safety of professional wrestlers.
