I’m Barthes’s essay, The World of Wrestling, he explains that the act of wresting, unlike boxing or other forms of sport, is pure theatre. It is a theatrical display with the expectation of it being so. Unlike any other sport, the audiences of wrestling, “expect no defined outcome,” and that the point of wrestling is not its winner in result, but the timelessness of its performance.
Reminiscent of our previous lecture, wrestling is the purest display of costume, mask, and story forming a life through the human body. Much like in theatre, the body of the performer that was once private, “becomes public.” Each action of the performer becomes the sum of its story, meaning the body, much like its costume, becomes a signifier, in that, “like a seed contains the whole fight.”
The win, much like the defeat of wrestling is not an actual loss, but a display and performance in itself. The audience doesn’t question the truth because, “in wrestling, nothing exists except in the absolute, there is not symbol, no allusion, everything is presented exhaustively.” To wrestle is to express gesture, making it more of an act of theatre, art, and puppetry which leaves room for ambiguity, and therefore a more democratic viewing experience where audiences are free to imagine unregulated and undefined outcomes.
