In the world of pro-wrestling, there is a word known as “kayfabe.” It is a simple thing. What you see on television was scripted to happen. That means any promo you see was purposely written out ahead of time so that you could see a performer, well, perform. It is all acting. However, kayfabe is the art of not giving that up. It is sticking to the lie, if you will. It would be like if you saw Stephen Amell on the street and called him the Green Arrow. Yes, he plays the character on television, but he is not the actual superhero in real life. In WWE, guys have to stick to their character a lot.
It used to be that people would stick to the character completely. Today, the men and women of WWE act professional and move away from their character outside of WWE. Some hardcore fans would rather see wrestlers stick to their character, but we see what we see regardless.
Due to this, you would imagine that many would understand that every storyline we see on television would be taken as a story and not real life. On top of this, you would imagine that those who know this won’t freak out when a storyline occurs.
Don’t tell that to a variety of WWE fans upset with the Ric Flair/Charlotte angle that aired on WWE RAW this past week. After adding Dana Brooke to watch her back and winning at WWE Extreme Rules on Sunday, Charlotte decided to drop her father and tell him to hit the bricks. She then began to lay into him and tell him about all the times he wasn’t there as she grew up and it really was uncomfortable to see, but absolutely brilliant heel work by the Flair’s.
However, you’ll notice that if you go to WWE’s Facebook page and scroll down to the comments section on the video showing this, you’ll see people going nuts regarding the angle. One Reddit user noticed that a lot of Indian fans, in particular, were very upset by the angle.
They claimed that WWE should fire or suspend Charlotte for it or they would not allow their children to watch the WWE. Of course in India, it is extremely disrespectful for children to talk this way to their parents. They felt WWE should not even script this action where a son or daughter says such things to their parent.
They feel it is a bad influence on their children, which makes sense up to a point. Of course, here in the United States and in most places around the world, it is disrespectful as well to talk this way to your parent. No one in the world disagrees with this. The problem here is, that is the exact reason why it made sense for WWE to do it. Charlotte is a heel, meaning she will do bad things. That means unlike a good child, she will talk to her parent in a bad way. That’s is the entire point of it.
You’ll see people from around the world saying similar to the Indian fans, as many felt that WWE went too far with the angle. Of course, many of these people also want an Attitude Era to come back. I don’t think they can handle that.
Whether they are calling for Charlotte’s job or they just feel bad for Ric Flair, it seems that the universal thing among casual fans is that WWE did too much having Charlotte say the things she did to her father. While we can get into the anthropological issues in other countries around the world at another time, it should be obvious that Charlotte does not hate her father in real life nor does she say these things to him on the regular. It is only a storyline . That means it isn’t real, it’s a television show — why is this so hard to understand?
[Image via WWE]