The above video was written, directed and narrated by Max Landis. Max is the son of John Landis and co-writer of the very good film Chronicle. A couple years ago he put together a similar oral history-type short film called "The Death and Return of Superman," which is almost as entertaining as "Wrestling Isn't Wrestling."
If you're a longtime reader of Progressive Boink, you'll know that one of the calling cards of the site has been its writers wearing their hearts on their sleeves. Another of its calling cards is writers like Brandon Stroud and Pete Holby being genuinely unafraid to wax literary about pro wrestling as an art form, a storytelling device and something that just makes you feel things. Max Landis accomplished all those things extremely well in this video and got to have a good time with a ton of his famous friends and be silly together and put together a hell of a short film. Everybody wins.
Beyond speaking to multiple of my interests via gender-bending and "Drunk History"- style narration, I was fairly blown away by the sheer craftsmanship of this video. Landis was somehow able to not just put together a remarkably cohesive and pretty much exhaustive history of the character of Triple H, he was also able to cobble together a subtext, motive and narrative arc for a character that didn't really occur to me in precisely this way before.
I try really hard not to be "that" wrestling fan on the Internet (or in person, for that matter). As the years go by, it becomes more and more difficult to avoid being "that guy" without withdrawing, either in part or entirely. Landis was able to remind me that not only is wrestling awesome when you take the long view (although he admits a lot of it sucks), it's worth the time to try to unpack these individual mythologies and try to make sense of them as a whole. Metatextual enjoyment of professional wrestling: the next frontier in fan enjoyment and appreciation.
I'm really glad that someone cared enough about pro wrestling to make this video. Keep loving what you love, everyone. And never be afraid to emphatically state why you love it. Adoration is infectious.
Loading comments...