Daniel Bryan made two implications to a surprisingly game Stephanie McMahon that cemented him as a tried and true WWE babyface. He first claimed that Triple H used to be cool until he "laid down with trash," staring McMahon in the face as if sex with her made him a corporate asshole. Second, when McMahon amusingly called him not an A, but a solid B-plus, Bryan said that he was thinking of another B-word that could describe the current shoot head of creative and kayfabe... uh... does she even have an in-character title other than "wife and daughter?" I don't know.
Respectable folk on Twitter at the time said that Bryan deserved a pass for dipping into that well because McMahon had dressed him down following a crushing betrayal at SummerSlam last night. Sure, she deserved to get dressed down in return, and any time I get into one of these lathers, I don't make the argument that women are delicate flowers that deserve to be protected at all costs. When a person does something wrong, they should be taken to task for it. But two wrongs don't make a right, and Bryan could have used any number of slurs that didn't make the implication that McMahon was inferior because of her gender.
You could give him a pass if the footing in WWE was actually equal. They're making strides, small ones, albeit, but strides no less. Women are feuding outside of the Divas Championship, even if those feuds are within the pretense of advertising for a television show. Still, even those shill matches are getting time. Women are slowly getting agency, but that pace is too slow to forgive Bryan's missteps, and if Bryan deserves to be chided, then what about CM Punk?
A plant booed him while he was talking, or maybe it was a happy accident that a fan was shoot booing him. Of course, so many fans who are drinking the fucking Kool-Aid on Paul Heyman and Punk are going to swear that was a total improvisation because Punk and Heyman are such masters. Whatever, I don't want to argue semantics or split hairs. I did too much of that last night when people on Twitter tried to step to me saying Punk's win at Money in the Bank 2011 was clean. If you think that, fine, great, lovely, grand, fucking wonderful.
Anyway, I might be on board with it being brilliant, because having a guy who got the shit beat out of him the night before in the most chickenshit way possible by a guy no one thought he could beat was about to beat anyway lose his shit at one fan in the crowd is genius-level in theory. But again, Punk had to launch into a tirade about how the guy didn't have balls, because balls were the only currency for being tough in WWE. That attitude is what makes female viewers feel hella uncomfortable when they tune in, what helps contribute to self-esteem issues in people who are either women or whom society deems are effeminate like that's a bad thing, what makes normally jovial and positive writers like
Danielle lose her shit for reasons that make her feel awful on a personal level.
You folks out there who are fucking quick to reply to posts like these with stock defenses of why the word "bitch" is totally okay or that men have it just as bad do not have to live in a world where you don't get equal pay for equal work, where you get blamed for being raped for the clothes you wear, where you are judged by your looks and not by the merit of your character as reflex. But the environment is real. So until WWE gets on a higher level and truly creates an environment where women are true equals to men in EVERY facet, I will not accept Bryan's slips even if his overall attitude was justified, nor will I remotely tolerate Punk continuing on the "Balls in the Purse" line of heat mongering. I don't care who likes it or not.
What makes the show such a paradox is how they handled Darren Young. Zeb Colter preceded the Real Americans/Prime Time Players match with one of his in-character bigot specials, and I was scared to death that the PTP would be the opponents coming out for his charges. Not only did Young and Titus O'Neil come out to face Jack Swagger and Antonio Cesaro, but Colter kept his spiel free of mentions of gays. The announcers didn't mention once that Young had come out of the closet out of character. Young's character didn't change. No, alignment shift doesn't equal change in character. WWE played this off perfectly.
So, why can they be progressive towards homosexuals and not women? Why can't they welcome EVERYONE and not make anyone feel shitty for who they are, and rather make the heels look shitty for what they do? I don't want the elimination of heeldom. I want for heels to be mocked and derided because they are scumbags, not because we're supposed to think a woman or a gay person or a black guy or whomever is bad by genetics. Why is that such a hard concept to grasp, by both fans and the WWE's writers?
The shame part about all of it is that Bryan and McMahon played off each other so well in that opening segment, and Bryan again showed how much of a gangsta rockstar he was in the final segment. Punk's passion was unrivaled, and the concept at play was outstanding. The brawl with Curtis Axel that followed was tremendous as well. The Shield working as a paramilitary secret police by an overtly fascist neo-Corporation? You can't write better wrestling at the corporate level than that. Even Triple H going all delusional parent figure on the WWE Universe was fucking brilliant. Granted, all that awesome he showed in the final segment of RAW is just going to end up putting the force behind his knife plunge when his inner Poochie awakens enough to kill me legitimately, but hey, let's enjoy this while it happens.
Too sad though that WWE continues to peddle such a shitty attitude towards 35 percent of the audience and 50 percent of the population.
