Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 22

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The Popular Culture Review

Dollar Man and turn his pockets inside out, if Zeus gets in my face, me
and all my Hulkamaniacs are gonna wipe him out too."
Hogan, the golden boy of wrestling, the suntanned surfer boy
with his rock star gestures like ripping his t-shirt off and throwing it
to his adoring fans, Hogan, everybody’s brother, man, can beat the big
bad financier at his own game. Debiassi is labeled upperclass not
only by his diamonds an d his ownership of Zeus, but also by his
diction. Debiassi's grammar is correct and he does not use much slang.
Hogan, on the other hand, like most of the wrestlers, uses "gotta",
"ya”, "ain't”, "dude”, "man”, "brother", etc. Debiassi, as a
representative of the upper class loses his match against Hogan, of
course. Zeus, as a representative of an ethnic minority had previously
lost his three matches against Hogan that year, despite his strength
and size advantage.
Though any kind of white man can win his match in
wrestling, even the Bushwhackers, aka the Marching Morons,
representatives of ethnic minorities, who at least now are allowed in
the ring, only win against each other and sometimes not even then. In
the Main Event match between former tagteam partners Tito Santana,
who wears a red sombrero and lightning bolts on his white trunks, and
Rick Martel, the Italian style boy who calls himself, "the Model,”
and who calls Santana, "the refried beanbrain,” both wrestlers were
disqualified after their match turned into a free-for-all as their
buddies on the sidelines stepped into the ring to turn it into a fourcomer circus.
So, while wrestling has changed since Barthes’ day, some of
the significations are really still the same. The mythology of the
American formula for success in wrestling is you should be male,
white, and middle to lower class, but you should also be aware of
what is going on in the world in order to use it to your own advantage.
You should not be over-educated—for instance, you should not speak
standard, grammatically correct English—but you should be able to
read, or at least, to understand a television newscast. More
importantly, you should know how to protect the bottomline of your
financial statement; even if you, like the Million Dollar Man, have
to take out a bonecrushing insurance policy. While Elvis is still alive
in the person of the Honky Tonk Man and the American flag is alive
and well on the royal cape of Macho King and in the hands of the
Fabulous Rougeau Brothers, even if they do wear Fleur-de-Lis