Wresling: Dwayne Johnson Essay, Research Paper

He is a three-time world wrestling federation champion and a two time intercontinental champion. He was born on May 2, 1972 is 6’5 and weighs 275 pounds. He goes by the name Dwayne Johnson, calls himself the “People’s Champion” and otherwise known as “The Rock.” Other than having the pretty face that Hollywood was looking for, The Rock had to go through many steps as an “actor” before he became well known. However, the rock graduated from the University of Miami as an all -American Football player. Right away, he was entered into the realm of entertainment. This in turn was called a secondary effect because The Rock being a football player was entertainment and attracted the media’s attention. He was as Gabler states, “a performing artist.” (Gabler pg. 4) He was ready to enter the world of a celebrity and a star.

Inside Wrestler magazine says that The Rock has the “same ‘X’ factor” as the Phantom of the Opera, “able to choreograph a rowdy mass of wrestling fans with a simple catch phrase, a dramatic pause, or a little lift of the eyebrow”(March 2001).

The public considers the Rock to be a celebrity being that he has gone from music, to commercials, to sports, and journalism. He has starred on Saturday Night Live, That 70’s Show, and will soon be featured in the sequel to “The Mummy” as the Scorpion King. He is an entertainer who loves performing for the crowd. As he himself said, “Always entertaining the fans and knowing that I’m entertaining them-that’s the goal, to entertain the fans and nothing compares to that.” Each time he appears somewhere knew it adds to his popularity more and more. You start to conform to this so- called “reality.”

The Rock plays many different roles and has many different names, that one might wonder which he really is. When he is wrestling, he is the Rock and when you research about him, as we did for this paper, we found out his birth name being Dwayne Johnson, and then of course, what he likes to refer to himself as, the “People’s Champion. These are just a few examples. He takes upon the role of an “actor” in so many different aspects that he himself becomes comfortable with what he is playing, and eventually this in turn takes over parts of him as a person. It starts to become normal for him whether he realizes it or not. Although the Rock still had to go through many more “jobs” before actually becoming a superstar, there were years of “agenting” that had earned him his title. However, the essence of the pseudo-life was not the fact it was manufactured. The media’s lust-the audience’s lust was for entertainment, and the pseudo-life was manufactured in the name of entertainment, which made that its real essence (Gabler pg.98).

Gabler states that, “it wasn’t long before the ongoing cultural enterprise yielded to the real zeitgeist: celebrity (Gabler pg.149). Gabler states that celebrities are the people’s spirits, and everything that is valued in society is an offset of the value’s given to us from entertainment and entertainers. Take the Rock and the case with the boy in Florida. A kid actually believed that by imitating the Rock, he was being great. Instead, he ended up murdering a classmate. Entertainment has such consequences that can become harmful to oneself or others.

The public also saw the Rock as a versatile actor, Dwayne Johnson where he could grab the audience’s attention because of his celebrity/star profile. As Daniel Boorstin wrote in The Image, although he used “movie goers” as the term, lifles can also be included. He states that, “they wanted a strong character, but a definable, publicizable personality, a figure with some physical idiosyncrasy of personal mannerism which could become a nationally advertised trademark.(Gabler, p 220)

The Rock has certain attributes that make him who he is today. He has created his own trademarks, which will stick with people through out society. He himself will know him as these roles that he is playing. One of The Rock’s famous quotes is “Know Your Role,” and some people may use that quote daily in terms of some form of communication just because The Rock says it. The Rock, according to People magazine is one of the twenty-five most intriguing people of 2000. Since People magazine has written about him, he has become even more popular and his fame has increased dramatically.

In conclusion, celebrities have taken over what our reality is. But then do we know our reality? We are so persuaded to believe what we see on television and what we read in the newspapers or magazines is the truth. We have convinced ourselves that being a celebrity or imitating a celebrity whether it be their actions or the way they look will better ourselves as people. Celebrities today are from the bottom. They start somewhere and make their way up. However, because of this, they sometimes tend to do anything to get there, which creates problems in the eyes of the people who idealize and breathe for these celebrities. These people are you and I, the entertainees.

American’s and everyone else who lived within the orbit of American culture, lived on Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island, where people sated themselves only to be turned into asses later on- a situation that subordinated reality to pleasure (Gabler pg. 242).

With any celebrity or star or basically anyone on television who is a star influences us, the entertainees in our daily life. The Rock represents “fun” in one way or another. He loves to entertain people and that is what he does well. Millions of people have contributed to the Rock’s success by buying into his entertainment. We made him what he is in all reality.