People Died on Linda McMahon’s Watch, And That Ain’t No Soap Opera

[posted 6/24/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]


Slick as owl shit, like the Linda McMahon campaign always is, Connecticut’s would-be Republican senator has rolled out a new TV commercial in which she turns the fake-vs-real question inside-out. Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo blog has a decent analysis, including a comparison of McMahon’s ad with the way another showbiz figure, comedian Al Franken, navigated a somewhat similar challenge during his successful run for the Senate seat in Minnesota. See “McMahon Downplays Her Pro-Wrestling Past: It’s A ‘Soap Opera’ That ‘Isn’t Real,’” http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/mcmahon-downplays-her-pro-wrestling-past-its-a-soap-opera-that-isnt-real-video.php?ref=fpb.

There’s a key difference, though, and it has nothing to do with whether Monday Night Raw is more high-, medium-, or low-brow than Saturday Night Live.

At Linda McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment, people die needlessly. Not soap-opera characters. People. And that isn’t funny.


Irv Muchnick