Vince McMahon: A Case Study of Loving The Art But Hating The Monster

Greg Ehrhardt, OnScreen Blog Columnist

News came out earlier this year that Vince McMahon, now former CEO of WWE, is officially who we thought he was: an (alleged) perverted deviant who (allegedly) trafficked his female wrestling stars to other employees as well as himself, who also (oh by the way) paid hush money to silence the various affairs he had with other employees (allegedly).

We pretty much knew McMahon was a sexist scumbag because, well, that’s how he portrayed himself on TV for decades on WWE television and pay-per-views. (We’ll get to examples in a bit).

But the new piece of information that came out was at least mildly surprising in that we didn’t think he was stupid enough to (allegedly) treat his female employees like prostitutes.

Vince McMahon has resigned following the latest allegations but has vowed to clear his name. He should be given his day in court, and who knows, maybe he didn’t quite do the things he’s accused of. We’ll see.

But for now, we have yet another example proving the adage “Never meet your heroes”.  

This brings us to a decades-long conundrum: what do you do with the artist who created your favorite works of art but who has exhibited depraved morality and a remarkably empty conscience?

We’ve debated this for many artists and athletes, including Miles Davis, Bill Cosby, Chris Brown, Bing Crosby, Roman Polanski, and R. Kelly; the list could go on for pages.

There’s no real consensus on what to do, and any opinion seems to be treated on a case-by-case basis of who the person is and what they are accused of doing (or convicted of doing in some cases).

In the case of political heroes, well, it solely depends on their political affiliation and how useful they could be to whoever is up for election (but that’s for another column on another blog).

The general feeling seems to be an offshoot of a Christian principle of “love the sinner, hate the sin,” aka  “love the art, hate the monster.”

I want to argue that we should all only support the artists and athletes who respect society and its laws. Still, I would be a giant hypocrite with my adoration of Lawrence Taylor as the greatest defensive player who ever lived, despite what he pled guilty to.

So, rather than be hypocritical, I have often said it’s up to each person to decide what’s right for them for each artist or athlete. I never liked being this squeamish, but it’s a messy gray world we live in, with very few instances of black or white dualities to judge; I reason that, ultimately, no one else but the individual must live with the heroes they admire.

Well, I suppose I should thank Vince McMahon for helping to give me clarity in this conundrum.

When it comes to McMahon, I will admit I have never been a fan. In one of professional wrestling’s halcyon days in the mid 1990’s, I was a WCW devotee. I was all in on the nWo feuds and the cast of characters they had involved (including many of the 1980s legends).

Still, I was more opposed to McMahon’s tactics to gin up ratings, which mainly consisted of crass humor, nearly nude women wrestlers, juvenile announcers, and lots and lots of attitude. It seemed unnecessarily low-brow and a cheap way to rouse up support of the lowest common denominator (not unlike what we see today with President Trump’s campaign tactics).

Still, at the time, and many years after I stopped watching wrestling around 2000, I admired Vince McMahon as a businessman. It is no small feat to make a wrestling company a billion-dollar empire. And, to a point, I enjoyed him as a wrestling villain. He was a great foil for The Rock, Steve Austin, and many others, and McMahon knew it because he inserted himself into every main storyline for many years.

But whenever McMahon took it a few steps further and made himself a villain by being wildly misogynistic, sexist, and frankly gross, it was a bit too much for this German Irish Catholic, mainly because I didn’t think it was necessary to be a great wrestling villain.

Now it’s obvious why he did it; he needed it.

See the examples below for McMahon’s perversion and deviancy out in the open.

 Remember, these are all happening between a boss and his employees.

Tell me, should anyone have been surprised he was a sexual deviant offstage when he was enjoying it a bit too much on screen?

Never mind the fact that he was ok with (and probably directly approved) WWE announcer Jerry Lawler grossly objectifying female wrestlers with gross terms for certain body parts.

The behavior McMahon is accused of was in full view of millions and is partly responsible for WWE’s surge in popularity and profitability. It would be analogous to Bill Cosby being the star of a hit sitcom that featured multiple episodes of him slipping drugs into women’s drinks.

So, in a way, McMahon has set up a new level of “loving the art, hating the monster”. There was no evidence Bing Crosby(allegedly) was an abusive father in his movies or songs. We had no idea Miles Davis (allegedly) beat his wives based on his music.

But man, we should have had an idea McMahon trafficked women based on how he treated women in front of millions of people every week for many years.

So, enough preaching. What do we do with McMahon and his WWE legacy? I can’t argue with a straight face that people should boycott WWE, especially now that he’s gone.

But what I think is reasonable is that we all stop sharing popular gifs or YouTube videos (like the ones above) of McMahon ogling nearly naked women wrestlers in jest. These clips could be shown in court as evidence of his alleged crimes. He unmasked his deviancy to make himself and his shareholders richer. Sharing these clips on social media further cements his behavior as acceptable when we know it’s not.

Many problematic artists are making great works of art, putting the devilish side of their souls at bay. We can celebrate that.

But we can’t celebrate art influenced by the devilish side of their soul.

So, to be clear, when it comes to Vince McMahon, celebrate the moments when he was doing impeccable mic work and his story of making a laughingstock of an entertainment company into a billion-dollar empire.

But banish the clips of him denigrating women in front of millions into outer space, outside of using them to instruct people of his deviancy.

Let’s apply that test to all the problematic artists out there, and maybe we’ll be at a better piece. After all, everyone is a sinner to some extent, and we don’t want to be remembered only for our sins.

On the other hand, we don’t want to be celebrated for them either.