(yes, that title is an inside joke.)
I keep thinking about The Wrestler. I do strongly dislike the film, partly because of what I view as exploitative sex/violence (just because wrestling and stripping are built upon premises of exploitation doesn't mean that Aronofsky's film has to be) and partly because of the "sacrificial ram" bit. I can't help but view The Wrestler as being about Redemptive Suffering, but I don't buy this premise or its conclusion.
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If you haven't yet, please read Barthes' essay:
The World of Wrestling
Wrestlers, who are very experienced, know perfectly how to direct the spontaneous episodes of the fight so as to make them conform to the image which the public has of the great legendary themes of its mythology. A wrestler can irritate or disgust, he never disappoints, for he always accomplishes completely, by a progressive solidification of signs, what the public expects of him. In wrestling, nothing exists except in the absolute, there is no symbol, no allusion, everything is presented exhaustively. Leaving nothing in the shade, each action discards all parasitic meanings and ceremonially offers to the public a pure and full signification, rounded like Nature. This grandiloquence is nothing but the popular and age-old image of the perfect intelligibility of reality. What is portrayed by wrestling is therefore an ideal understanding of things; it is the euphoria of men raised for a while above the constitutive ambiguity of everyday situations and placed before the panoramic view of a universal Nature, in which signs at last correspond to causes, without obstacle, without evasion, without contradiction.
When the hero or the villain of the drama, the man who was seen a few minutes earlier possessed by moral rage, magnified into a sort of metaphysical sign, leaves the wrestling hall, impassive, anonymous, carrying a small suitcase and arm-in-arm with his wife, no one can doubt that wrestling holds the power of transmutation which is common to the Spectacle and to Religious Worship. In the ring, and even in the depths of their voluntary ignominy, wrestlers remain gods because they are, for a few moments, the key which opens Nature, the pure gesture which separates Good from Evil, and unveils the form of a Justice which is at last intelligible.
I just noticed, too, that the collection Mythologies also contains an essay on Striptease. The collection is available to be read online here.
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Suddenly remembering that the Arts and Faith forum exists, I decided to check out the Arts and Faith thread for The Wrestler. I'm always forgetting that those forums exist. I really should participate.
It was through the thread on that forum, that I discovered the following two posts:
For our sins he was pinned: Salvation in The Wrestler
Film - Think: The Wrestler
M. Leary writes, "I just don’t understand how a character as perfectly conceived and richly performed as Ram is allowed to exit the film in a vapor of Aronofsky flair."
I think that it's the ending more than anything else that provides me with my primary dissatisfaction, but I do think that the ending serves a purpose beyond its existence as a stylistic choice, an "Aronofsky flair."
Randy achieves immortality through his dedication to his religion.
The last shot is pretty great, holding on the empty space in the air instead of following Randy's jump or cutting to its completion on the floor. We get to see our hero faithfully execute his ram one last time, instead of something like a shot of Randy falling on his face, then being transported out on a stretcher into an ambulance. He may die. Or he may live on life support or live and recover and constantly relive his great finale with the Ayatollah. We don't get that. We get a moment of glory prolonged forever. And maybe that's Randy's last conscious experience. But I feel cheated. Because the shot that we do get reinforces every last notion of Wrestling as redemptive for Randy as he struggles through his suffering on behalf of his chosen community, who love him because he suffers for them. And perhaps because of all of the crap in the Barthes essay.
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