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Werken van Thomas Hackett

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Slaphappy is Thomas Hackett's look into the world of professional wrestling as he searches for the answer as to why it's so popular amongst its fans. Along the way he interviews wrestlers and fans alike in hope he can unravel what those reasons are. Occasionally he will procure a theory and then back it up with some "facts" with one of his major outlets being that professional wrestling has its roots in homosexuality. Some of the reasoning behind this theory is ludicrous such as 'The Macho Man' Randy Savage presumably, according to the author, chose the name as a homage to the Village People and that Big Sexy, aka Kevin Nash, named himself such for the male audience. Hmmm.
The gay wedding of ex WWE wrestlers (sorry, I know I'm not supposed to call them wrestlers anymore due to WWE's desire to been seen as having entertainers) Billy & Chuck also gets a mention but the facts surrounding it are wrong in that the 'Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation' were furious over the wedding not taking place, when Billy and Chuck announced they weren't really gay, as they were led to believe by the WWE that it was going to happen thus breaking new boundaries. Also, anyone watching at the time would have easily noticed Billy and Chuck did not meet with fan approval even though Hackett claims they did. With basic facts being wrong several times throughout the book it was difficult to accept 'Slaphappy' as a professional piece of journalism. For instance, the shaving of armpit hair among wrestlers is portrayed as preening and somewhat homoerotic whereas, in reality, wrestlers do it so that when they have a guy in a headlock he's not getting a face full of their armpit hair.
There were many blanket statements that didn't do the author's arguments any good such as all wrestlers being oiled up and wearing "bikinis". Anyone who has watched any form of wrestling can clearly see that different wrestlers wear different attire and while some do sport the traditional look, and do use oil, there are as many wrestlers nowadays who don't. Even the guys on the cover of the book itself are not wearing the attire Hackett claims they all wear!
While this was a well written book (in terms of grammar sentence structure etc) it had too many flaws and for every chapter I found interesting there always seemed to be one that fell flat. However it does contain an extensive bibliography for anyone requiring further reading material but for some reason only contains information on some of the photographs used. As such one photograph will be labeled whereas the next one will leave the reader bemused as to who in the hell they're looking at.
With a bit more professionalism and more water tight theories this book could have been very good. As it is I wouldn't rate it beyond average.
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BookMarcBlogpants | Apr 21, 2011 |

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Statistieken

Werken
2
Ook door
1
Leden
22
Populariteit
#553,378
Waardering
½ 2.3
Besprekingen
1
ISBNs
3