The Real Reason WWE Are Sexualising Women Again
Mandy Rose And Alexa Bliss Were Involved In A Bizarre Twist On The Women's Revolution.
It won't have escaped your attention this week - indeed, because that was the entire point - that WWE's programming included two segments best described as "a bit of a throwback".
In separate backstage situations, both Alexa Bliss and Mandy Rose were featured in compromising positions, which the entire premise of the 'bit' being "hey, look at this attractive woman, she sort-of isn't wearing any clothes". In the first, Alexa Bliss apparently doesn't hear repeated knocking on her dressing room door from a runner, who promptly enters to find her holding a t-shirt over her boobs; and in the other Mandy Rose shows Jimmy Uso her underwear in an attempt to get some incriminating pictures of him.
Actually, explaining them seems fairly redundant. At the time of writing, Alexa Bliss Is Rudely Interrupted In Her Dressing Room has been watched over 5 million times on YouTube, with Mandy Rose Welcomes Jimmy Uso To Her Hotel Room trailing in its wake on a not unimpressive 2.1 million. For context, backstage segments involving Finn Bálor and Mickie James this week sit on around 150k and 60k respectively.
In short, these have been a huge hit with WWE's web audience. Scanning the top comments on the Bliss video reveals some cerebral insight into the skit, with one user commenting "The moment of Bliss I want to see. :-D", a Mr Sean Sewell opining "Bring back bra and panties match" and, most inquisitively of all, Piggy muses "Can y’all just imagine if she accidentally dropped the cover ohhhh baby my meat bouta be gone".
This is all happening just months before three women cap off career-best runs by potentially headlining WrestleMania.
As yet we've not seen anything approaching an outcry over this, and in all likelihood we never will. There's been a bit of eyebrow-raising and eye-rolling, but by and large WWE's audience fall into two categories; either they see it as a bizarre approach to talent they've spent years (and millions of dollars) working to legitimise, or they're already unzipping their trousers.
With WWE being a PG product, the obvious defence of all of this is very simply "well, it's not that bad is it?". Alexa effectively get's her back out for the lads, and Mandy is attempting to seduce Jimmy Uso by wearing *more* clothes then she actually wrestles in. The sexualisation of both women isn't overt, it isn't glaring, and it definitely isn't salacious, but it is definitely there. What you do or don't see isn't really the point here, it's that they've elected to do it at all.
It isn't a new thing of course, Bliss had her introduction to the main roster in August 2016 by filling in for Eva Marie (remember her!?), after her top... somehow... magically... came off(?) at the start of the match. Eva Marie Has A wardrobe Malfunction Before Her Match vs. Becky Lynch, 37,070,712 views on YouTube and counting.
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