Today's false alarm on the ballistic missile heading to Hawaii had me thinking about a real attack on Hawaii, the one from 76 years ago. Pearl Harbor has to go down as one of the most consequential days in American history as it brought us directly into WWII but it also one of the most tragic. That got me thinking that as a kid, when watching WWF there would be times when Gorilla Monsoon or Mean Gene would yell about a wrestler getting Pearl Harbored which meant attacked when not paying attention
Think about that term and how widely it was used then without any thought paid to it. Now think about an announcer today saying a wrestler got 9-11'd or something and tell me how well that would go. That announcer would be thrown out so quickly you'd never hear from him again...either that or we'd elect him president
World has changed I guess
I remember the Pearl Harbor move from watching WWF as a child.
ReplyDeleteBut that term paled in comparison to the overtly racist caricatures embodied In villain pro wrestlers and managers like the Iron Sheik (supposedly from Iran, even though sheiks are Arabic and not Persian), Mr. Fuji (with his sneaky poisonous dust that he would spray on opposing good guy wrestlers when the referee wasn’t looking), and Slick (the black dude manager who spoke in jive, walked like Gumby on crack, and was basically a street hustler).
I’m kind of surprised they never had a gay caricature villain in pro wrestling, but I guess the “sport” is already so gay that Vince McMahon never bothered. Also, given the general demo graphic to which pro wrestling typically appealed, a gay character probably would have gotten the crap kicked out of him by an angry mob in the audience and torn to shreds.