WWE's Social Commentary on Arab-Americans
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JoeUser Forums
From WWE's official site, and the archive of last week's RAW (27DEC04) Link:
"Earlier in the night, Muhammad Hassan and Khosrow Daivari interrupted Stacy Keibler when she was revealing her New Year’s resolution, and berated the crowd, telling them that they are all prejudiced towards Arab Americans. They then took their tirade to the announce booth and started pushing around good ol’ J.R. and the King. They later complained to Eric Bischoff, requesting a match against the two, but Bischoff instead told them they could have a debate next week on Raw."
That's an odd assessment of how things went, but it's not like the WWE is continuity heavy enough to sweat the details. Anyway, here's my take of events:
"MH and KD interrupted SK... and berated the crowd, telling them that they are all prejudiced towards Arab Americans." Not entirely accurate, actually. Sure, they interrupted her. She was gushing about having been elected "Babe of the Year" Link and blathering on about how she was going to make 2005 even better than 2004... blah.
Of course they interrupted her; they're cast as Heels (read: bad guys) by the WWE! That's what Heels do, interrupting pretty girls and lovable goofballs alike. Helps draw heat from the crowd.
But the type of heat these two drew was a little incongruous. While Hassan was ranting about how Arab-Americans are being treated around the country, while giving statistics and even a web-site reference (!) for a Cambridge study (!) that seemed to show that many Americans were in favor of curbing the civil liberties of Arab-Americans, the fans just sort of died. And then, to make it worse, they began chanting.
Excerpt from an eyewitness report of the show (live) Link:
"The Hassan segment went over here like a lead balloon. The crowd was screaming through this whole segment and a guy threw a cup in the ring and got kicked out. I told my friend, I can't boo or cheer this guy. This could be an intriguing character if they do him right. So far I'm on the fence. Crowd cheered J.R. and King at the commercial. I also told my friend, "Why's everyone chanting USA? He's from USA! Is that supposed to make him mad?""
That's right. The bonehead fans chanted, "USA! USA!" at an Arab-American. I suppose this could be an attempt to tell Hassan that, no matter what he is personally experiencing as an Arab-American, the United States is still a great country. Then again, I could also imagine the fans in Biloxi adding, "That's right, raghead, go back to where you came from." I'm not even sure where that is. Philly, maybe? NYC? (Looks like Syracuse, actually. I wasn't too far off...)
A (poorly spelled) brief bio for "Hassan": Link
and for Daivari: Link
That explains why I couldn't make out his (Daivari's) Arabic, at least; he's Persian. (Holy shit, his fucking finisher is priceless: the magic carpet ride, a "splash off the top rope while holding a carpet uderneath himself" [/Wikipedia].)
Anyway, they could do a lot with this... but it's the WWE. I don't expect much.
"Earlier in the night, Muhammad Hassan and Khosrow Daivari interrupted Stacy Keibler when she was revealing her New Year’s resolution, and berated the crowd, telling them that they are all prejudiced towards Arab Americans. They then took their tirade to the announce booth and started pushing around good ol’ J.R. and the King. They later complained to Eric Bischoff, requesting a match against the two, but Bischoff instead told them they could have a debate next week on Raw."
That's an odd assessment of how things went, but it's not like the WWE is continuity heavy enough to sweat the details. Anyway, here's my take of events:
"MH and KD interrupted SK... and berated the crowd, telling them that they are all prejudiced towards Arab Americans." Not entirely accurate, actually. Sure, they interrupted her. She was gushing about having been elected "Babe of the Year" Link and blathering on about how she was going to make 2005 even better than 2004... blah.
Of course they interrupted her; they're cast as Heels (read: bad guys) by the WWE! That's what Heels do, interrupting pretty girls and lovable goofballs alike. Helps draw heat from the crowd.
But the type of heat these two drew was a little incongruous. While Hassan was ranting about how Arab-Americans are being treated around the country, while giving statistics and even a web-site reference (!) for a Cambridge study (!) that seemed to show that many Americans were in favor of curbing the civil liberties of Arab-Americans, the fans just sort of died. And then, to make it worse, they began chanting.
Excerpt from an eyewitness report of the show (live) Link:
"The Hassan segment went over here like a lead balloon. The crowd was screaming through this whole segment and a guy threw a cup in the ring and got kicked out. I told my friend, I can't boo or cheer this guy. This could be an intriguing character if they do him right. So far I'm on the fence. Crowd cheered J.R. and King at the commercial. I also told my friend, "Why's everyone chanting USA? He's from USA! Is that supposed to make him mad?""
That's right. The bonehead fans chanted, "USA! USA!" at an Arab-American. I suppose this could be an attempt to tell Hassan that, no matter what he is personally experiencing as an Arab-American, the United States is still a great country. Then again, I could also imagine the fans in Biloxi adding, "That's right, raghead, go back to where you came from." I'm not even sure where that is. Philly, maybe? NYC? (Looks like Syracuse, actually. I wasn't too far off...)
A (poorly spelled) brief bio for "Hassan": Link
and for Daivari: Link
That explains why I couldn't make out his (Daivari's) Arabic, at least; he's Persian. (Holy shit, his fucking finisher is priceless: the magic carpet ride, a "splash off the top rope while holding a carpet uderneath himself" [/Wikipedia].)
Anyway, they could do a lot with this... but it's the WWE. I don't expect much.
You can't be serious!