WWE Trades Ruthless Aggression For PG | Wrestling Timelines
April 29, 2011 | Be A STAR
In the next phase of its clean-up operation, WWE launches the Be A Star campaign. Launched in partnership with the Creative Coalition, the national anti-bullying initiative is designed, on the surface, to “promote equality, positive social interactions, and anti-bullying awareness”. In order to actually attempt to make this happen, WWE is active in communities hosting rallies, and publishes educational material online. STAR here is an acronym for “Show Tolerance And Respect”. Longtime fans of WWE receive it as a rank, hollow, and laughable exercise in hypocrisy.
WWE’s history of equality is appalling. As of 2011, not a single positive LGBTQIA+ character has been presented as a positive role model. Only one black person has held the men’s World title. Almost every time an Asian wrestler has stepped foot in a WWE ring, commentators have either mentioned Pearl Harbor, talked about “sandals” when they are visibly wearing regulation wrestling boots, or used a word that rhymes with it to describe a kip-up spot. The women, when they aren’t being pushed explicitly as sex objects, are given less than five minutes to wrestle. A history of WWE’s terrible record of bullying and hazing is worthy of its own 10,000-word deep-dive.
WWE’s hypocrisy is not limited by its historical record under TV-14. Vince McMahon is notorious for bullying onscreen and off. It practically defines a man infamous for berating his staff, most notably Jim Ross, whose 2005 colonoscopy was ridiculed so pungently on national television that his wife, Jan, burst into tears watching it. It’s not just WWE’s history. The present and the future are also disgusting.
In the exact same year that WWE launches the Be A STAR campaign, which is insulting, cynical nonsense, Jim Ross is mocked on TV and fired as lead commentator in front of millions. McMahon is at it again a year later…