mainstream commentary: chris benoit
while the fans of pro wrestling are "shocked" & "saddened" by the alleged murder-suicide of wwe wrestler chris benoit, after doing a small amount of research, i'm not in the least surprised and neither should the fans be "saddened" by the loss of this murderer.
benoit was a monster who had a history of intimate partner violence. his wife had filed for divorce and an order of protection from him but later dropped the divorce filing and the TRO. i wonder what could have caused her to do this? (/sarcasm) like most victims of domestic violence, charges get dropped because victims are threatened directly or indirectly by the partners they wish to escape. in nancy benoit's case, chris benoit "had threatened her and had broken furniture in their home." the divorce papers cited "cruel treatment" as well.
i refuse to pin this on drugs, solely. i'm sure that his abuse of steroids contributed to his elevated levels of rage (rage enough to cause someone to kill their partner and child), but it seems to me that benoit was a man living in the violent universe that the wwe (and he, as a part of that institution) creates for entertainment. this is a world in which breaking a chair over someone's head is normal, where slamming someone to the ground is common, where the more violent and degrading a "storyline" is, the more the fans cheer. and benoit had been working in this world for over 20 years.
i realize that wrestling is supposed to be "fake," i have even taken some theater classes (back in the day, shut up) on stage fighting and i know that what often looks real is only an illusion created for effect. however, as evidenced by many well documented accidents, injuries, and DEATHS, there are a lot of people who don't seem to make the distinction between the ACT that these so-called entertainers are putting on and the REALITY of the violence they seek to emulate.
in the wrestling world, women are marginalized and used mostly as eye candy, plot devices (as in one wrestler stealing another wrestler's wife or girlfriend), or minor bouts of fake wrestling. few women are seen onscreen and ever fewer are featured as actual wrestlers, relegating them to support roles and portraying them as one dimensional, silicone filled barbie dolls. this serves to reinforce to the largely teen, early 20s males that make up a majority of fans, that women have no place in this chest-beating arena. though nancy benoit was a career wrestler, and inhabited the same hyperbolic sphere as her husband(s) (her exhusband was also a wrestler), she was eventually discarded for younger women and managed her husband's (and others') career behind the scenes in the years before her death.
this hyper-masculinized environment is not the only perpetrator of violence on tv, but it is arguably one of the most violent. sexism (racism- are there any people of color in the wwe?) and heterocentrism are cornerstones of the professional wrestling world. rival wrestlers call each other homophobic names in order to prove who is more manly (whatever that means) and thus more deserving of whatever title it is that they are competing over. sweat runs down their oversized naked chests, revealing arms the size of small tree trunks. the wrestlers battle for "control" of a title and this brand of control, cruel, degrading, and violent; is what benoit tacitly perpetrated by killing his wife and child.
the connection between the violence taking place every day between (non-celebrity)intimate partners and the violence on display in the wwe couldn't be more clear and this incident crystallizes the conflation of masculinity (or manhood) with acts of violence. the benoits were part of an establishment that deplores weakness and normalizes violence in the lives of it's actors. i'm sure we can't extrapolate from this that all pro wrestlers (or wwe wrestlers) beat their partners, but the acting out of perpetual violence certainly comes to bear on these specific victims.
in the larger arena of the real world, histories of violence, domestic abuse, stalking, and sometimes sexual assault/abuse are reliable indicators of people who eventually end up killing their partners. it happens across gender, race, and class lines, but when these incidents are reported, journalists rarely cite statistics such as how many people are killed by their partners each year, or that most murder victims know their killers. the big picture is never presented as being anything other than a random occurence, and the stories fade from collective memory until the next story surfaces, and the next, and so on.
benoit's alleged murder-suicide fits into this scheme and has the potential to raise national consciousness about the need for violence prevention education, dv shelters, better support systems for victims, and more protection for children in homes where domestic abuse has been documented. but we have to demand that dialogue. we have to write letters to editors and post on message boards and the blogosphere to circulate the idea that this violence is nothing new, and we want to see the roots of the problem addressed and more victims supported and protected. chalking this incident up to "roid rage" erases any hope for a deeper, more thorough examination of the underpinnings of intimate partner violence and what we can do to stop this from happening again and again (and again).
benoit was a monster who had a history of intimate partner violence. his wife had filed for divorce and an order of protection from him but later dropped the divorce filing and the TRO. i wonder what could have caused her to do this? (/sarcasm) like most victims of domestic violence, charges get dropped because victims are threatened directly or indirectly by the partners they wish to escape. in nancy benoit's case, chris benoit "had threatened her and had broken furniture in their home." the divorce papers cited "cruel treatment" as well.
i refuse to pin this on drugs, solely. i'm sure that his abuse of steroids contributed to his elevated levels of rage (rage enough to cause someone to kill their partner and child), but it seems to me that benoit was a man living in the violent universe that the wwe (and he, as a part of that institution) creates for entertainment. this is a world in which breaking a chair over someone's head is normal, where slamming someone to the ground is common, where the more violent and degrading a "storyline" is, the more the fans cheer. and benoit had been working in this world for over 20 years.
i realize that wrestling is supposed to be "fake," i have even taken some theater classes (back in the day, shut up) on stage fighting and i know that what often looks real is only an illusion created for effect. however, as evidenced by many well documented accidents, injuries, and DEATHS, there are a lot of people who don't seem to make the distinction between the ACT that these so-called entertainers are putting on and the REALITY of the violence they seek to emulate.
in the wrestling world, women are marginalized and used mostly as eye candy, plot devices (as in one wrestler stealing another wrestler's wife or girlfriend), or minor bouts of fake wrestling. few women are seen onscreen and ever fewer are featured as actual wrestlers, relegating them to support roles and portraying them as one dimensional, silicone filled barbie dolls. this serves to reinforce to the largely teen, early 20s males that make up a majority of fans, that women have no place in this chest-beating arena. though nancy benoit was a career wrestler, and inhabited the same hyperbolic sphere as her husband(s) (her exhusband was also a wrestler), she was eventually discarded for younger women and managed her husband's (and others') career behind the scenes in the years before her death.
this hyper-masculinized environment is not the only perpetrator of violence on tv, but it is arguably one of the most violent. sexism (racism- are there any people of color in the wwe?) and heterocentrism are cornerstones of the professional wrestling world. rival wrestlers call each other homophobic names in order to prove who is more manly (whatever that means) and thus more deserving of whatever title it is that they are competing over. sweat runs down their oversized naked chests, revealing arms the size of small tree trunks. the wrestlers battle for "control" of a title and this brand of control, cruel, degrading, and violent; is what benoit tacitly perpetrated by killing his wife and child.
the connection between the violence taking place every day between (non-celebrity)intimate partners and the violence on display in the wwe couldn't be more clear and this incident crystallizes the conflation of masculinity (or manhood) with acts of violence. the benoits were part of an establishment that deplores weakness and normalizes violence in the lives of it's actors. i'm sure we can't extrapolate from this that all pro wrestlers (or wwe wrestlers) beat their partners, but the acting out of perpetual violence certainly comes to bear on these specific victims.
in the larger arena of the real world, histories of violence, domestic abuse, stalking, and sometimes sexual assault/abuse are reliable indicators of people who eventually end up killing their partners. it happens across gender, race, and class lines, but when these incidents are reported, journalists rarely cite statistics such as how many people are killed by their partners each year, or that most murder victims know their killers. the big picture is never presented as being anything other than a random occurence, and the stories fade from collective memory until the next story surfaces, and the next, and so on.
benoit's alleged murder-suicide fits into this scheme and has the potential to raise national consciousness about the need for violence prevention education, dv shelters, better support systems for victims, and more protection for children in homes where domestic abuse has been documented. but we have to demand that dialogue. we have to write letters to editors and post on message boards and the blogosphere to circulate the idea that this violence is nothing new, and we want to see the roots of the problem addressed and more victims supported and protected. chalking this incident up to "roid rage" erases any hope for a deeper, more thorough examination of the underpinnings of intimate partner violence and what we can do to stop this from happening again and again (and again).