1) Of course we all know Chris Benoit died recently. I've been reading a lot about professional wrestling on Wikipedia, and a few link clicks in I was at Owen Hart's page. Hart died in a tragic accident when his harness unbuckled as he was being lowered from the ceiling at a live event. He fell nearly eighty feet and landed chest-first on the ring's turnbuckle.
Benoit's death is tragic and puzzling, but what is striking about Hart's demise is that he died as a heel, or bad-guy/joke wrestler. All wrestlers go through cycles of heel/face to help generate audience interest, but the indignity of being a national joke for a while is compensated by the promise of turning face again, often within several months.
What I didn't know before was that the stunt that killed Hart was designed specifically to amplify his heel status and make him more of a joke. Hart's storyline portrayed him as a weakling with delusions of superhuman power. Ironically, his harness was set up so that he would fall on his face once he was lowered to a safe distance from the mat, so the crowd could jeer him for attempting to fly. Obviously, the entire joke took a horrendous turn.
One of the many downfalls of a career in professional wrestling is that you may die in a moment of extreme public humiliation. Obviously the WWE doesn't put its wrestlers through the same risk that caused Hart's death, but the heel/face convention is a necessary part of wrestling's continually evolving plotline.
It is likely that Benoit died for wrestling just as Hart did, and the symbolism is equally resonant. Benoit likely flew into a steroid rage that led him to murder his wife and son in his home, then take his own life by hanging himself on the cord of a weight machine. Benoit's role in the WWE was that of an athletic talent; obviously almost every pro wrestler uses steroids, but they become especially necessary for those whose athleticism is essential to their character.
The overlap of fantasy and reality that is part of wrestling's huge appeal makes it one of the few forms of entertainment where endangering a character, either physically or psychologically, also endangers his actor alter-ego. There will be more posts on wrestling in the future.
2) I got some Eliott Smith CDs from the library today. I missed out on him when he was still and only really took an interest in him reading the SPIN story of his death. The tunes are good, but no one talks about this guy anymore, like not even a little. That strikes me.
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