Did WWE Cross A Line On Raw Last Night?
Unlike traditional television shows, characters on WWE programming blur the line between fiction and reality. Ambrose's indelicate utterances might be exaggerated to serve a narrative purpose, but they regard a real life situation. It's this ambiguity which makes things icky.
Cancer touches everybody. It's likely that every person watching Raw on Monday night knows at least somebody who has been affected by the illness, if they're not a sufferer themselves. Whilst storylines shouldn't be sanitised to protect the sensitivities of everybody watching, WWE promotes itself as entertainment, not drama. Blaming a man's legitimate leukaemia on his own morality doesn't need to be part of that.
It's all the more tone deaf when one considers that the company spends one month out of each year devoted to the cause of the Susan G. Komen breast cancer charity. Gimmicks are frequently put to one side during programming as superstars gather to shake the pink ropes and vow to help beat the disease. It's not a good look to have one of these same superstars cutting a promo the next minute saying victims of the illness are paying the price for past misdemeanours.
Besides, the line wasn't just tasteless - it was unnecessary. Dean's later jibes of juvenilia were enough to let fans in on his alignment, most of whom can see through such reality-piercing invocations for the cheap heat-seeking shortcut they are. Why risk upsetting a huge portion of the fan base to achieve the sum total of nothing?
It's probably because WWE just can't help themselves. This isn't the first time good taste has been thrown out the window to push an angle. There's a massive pile of it in the alley below.
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