A libidinal economy of professional wrestling

Abstract

In the world of professional wrestling, the insistence that the action contributes towards a legitimate sporting contest–despite its being a pre-determined performance–is known as kayfabe. This article focuses on the intensities behind the media spectacle, the passion and excitement, to conceptualize how kayfabe is communicated between professional wrestlers, live audiences and television viewers. It is argued that professional wrestling is given its legitimacy by the co-production of passion in the form of communication; that this exchange of passion can be understood in terms of a libidinal economy; and that this libidinal economy is both sustained and disrupted by its mediation. As a media spectacle, professional wrestling is caught between its appeal to television viewers as a primary audience and its reliance on arena crowds to communicate its legitimacy and corroborate its storytelling. Without the presence of fans in attendance, kayfabe would be reduced to a kind of empty control–a top-down insistence that the television audience goes along with the pretence. It is concluded that professional wrestling is a communication of shared passions or else it loses its coherence as a spectacle.