Debbie Does Destruction

Recently I have noted a significant rise in the popularity of the "Extreme Fighting" shows, UFC and the like. I admit that, as a martial arts hobbyist, I have followed these things myself, in the past, since their modern origin in the early 1990's (I remember watching UFC #1 when it first came out). The early exhibitions had an element of "testing" the various martial arts styles against one another - pitting Brazilian Ju-Jitsu against Muay-Thai kickboxing, etc, to see who was the "Ultimate Fighting Champion". However, the bouts were often not well matched in terms of the competitors' physical abilities and they tended to either result in a immediate knockout or to wind up in the much-dreaded, boring, stalemate on the ground.

Since those early days, a considerable evolution in no-holds barred fighting competitions has occurred - indeed a new, synthesized and entirely pragmatic "Mixed Martial Arts" fighting style has arisen along with a class of competitors, drawn from the ranks of ex-collegiate All-American wrestlers, Brazilian jujitsu champions, Japanese shoot fighters and anybody else with the "guts" to take that sort of beating, whose sole "occupation", as it were, is to train full-time to beat other people up. This phenomenon has seemingly hit a marketing gold streak, meeting some sort of need in American popular culture that has lain dormant since the demise of professional boxing in the wake of the rise and fall of Mike Tyson.

In the early days of the extreme fighting shows, they were always "Pay per View" and I noted that they tended to be presented with one of two tones. The first, characteristic of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, presented the fights in a sporting motif, under bright lights, with clean cut commentators in brightly colored sports coats talking through the technical aspects of the match and a referee in a striped shirt. The second, examples of which escape me now, tended to present the event in the terms of a quasi-street fight, complete with heavy metal music (anything by "Rage Against the Machine" could be counted on as a standard...), a barbie-doll shaped ring girl (wearing a bikini that made you wonder exactly why she bothered to wear anything at all) strutting around with a "Round" card, a raucous crowd and a dark arena. There was something ominous about these "darker" exhibitions. The emphasis was less on technique and far more on seeing somebody get "beat up" (somehow a stronger term for that seems more appropriate but I'll hold off...).

In the most recent packaging of the extreme fighting consumable, I see a blending of the two styles into something that is trying to approximate the tone of professional boxing. There is theater - ring girls, heavy metal, etc., but it is somewhat toned down to make it easier to the masses to consume. And there is emphasis on technique, which has far greater traction now due to the higher level of expertise of the fighters and the commonality of the Mixed Martial Arts style.

Yet, for some reason, the idea has come into my mind that there is something about this no holds barred fighting phenomenon that is akin to pornography.

Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary explains that the word "pornography" comes from the Greek pornographos meaning "the writing of harlots" and defines it as "the depiction of erotic behavior intended to cause sexual excitement". Well, with that definition, my thesis doesn't get far.

However, there is an interesting quote (I've been unable to find exactly who said it - I'm guessing JPII) that the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much, but rather that it doesn't show enough, meaning, specifically, that it deliberately fails to show the personhood of the people involved. Notice, that with pornography, we never care WHO the people are - We never ask, for example, "whose son is that in that threesome"? Whose sister are we seeing bent double? The whole thing functions on the depersonalization of the participants.

Herein lies the latent "pornographic" element of the full contact fighting. With the rise of one after another of these chiseled, highly trained competitors, the personality of each individual tends to get lost and it becomes less and less about who they are (as in "Whose son's body is that laid out on that mat after taking a kick to head?") and more and more exclusively about what they can do. All Star wrestling has been approximating this sort of thing for a long time, but there is a real difference between the two. All Star wrestling is like people acting out pornography with their clothes on. Extreme fighting is like hard core pornography.

I think this is relevant because many people who would never dream of having bunch of guys over to their house to watch the latest hard core porn film in a group, will gladly invite a bunch of guys over to watch a man get hit so hard in head that his body assumes that (unfortunately, by now...) all too familiar rigid form on the mat and cheer for it.

I was surprised to learn that it is the official teaching of the Catholic church (sorry I don't have a reference) that any competition, of any sort, which has as part of its objective, to do damage to a human being, is intrinsically evil. My surprise with this comes because professional boxing falls under this heading - the point of professional boxing is to knock the other guy out, which is doing damage to his body. I grew up watching professional boxing and never had any sense that anything was wrong. It's fine line of course - the point of professional football isn't to hurt people, it's to tackle them, but it's silly to think that damage isn't being done. It's also interesting that the evil of this is not waived by the consent of the competitors or their goodwill toward each other. It does not make it okay if the two full contact fighters stand up and say "good job" and hug each other after beating each other down, anymore than a woman working in the hard core porn industry telling us that she is happy doing what she does makes hard core porn okay.

Of course, the final form of this will be a unholy marriage of the two (porn & violence) - indeed it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to see that it would take a deliberate act of the will to prevent these two from coming together. The same crowd that wants to see these fights wouldn't blink at incorporating hard core porn - they'd cheer all the more, buy more beer and even more money would be made. Following that, you could take volunteers from the full contact fighters who would be willing to fight with weapons to the death - and you'd get some and this would be even more of a spectacle.

It's all been done before.