In a letter to Journal Inquirer Managing Editor Chris Powell — one in a series – WWE vice president Brian Flinn makes it clear that Linda McMahon’s family business intends to go after anyone who suggests that the company’s product is anything short of family entertainment. Flinn was writing in response to a column Powell wrote on May 21.
Powell, via email, doesn’t appear to be backing down:
… when I got Flinn’s letter by e-mail last night I e-mailed him back, asking if he wanted the letter published in the JI and if we could do the depositions before the Republican primary …
Powell also said he was eager to meet “Trish,” star of an infamous WWE “bark like a dog” skit where Linda’s husband Vince forces a performer to take her clothes off.
The letter, copied to political journalists around the state, Brian Flinn writes:
…
And finally:
Family entertainment? Ok, let’s stick our daughters head in a mop bucket. Wouldn’t every journalist like to see Vince denigrating Women as a portrayal of Good vs Evil? The McMahons have no souls.
Are they wrong?
I watched one episode of ‘Two Broke Girls’ and the blonde was wearing a camelskin loin cloth that was more suggestive than anything I’ve seen the WWE girls wear. I;m not sure the setup was all that much different than the barking dog skit. Less vaudville yes. Both scripted. Both equally ‘demeaning’ (or not).
There’s so much soft porn on TV these days I’m not sure I’m buying anything about the WWW as more raunchy than much of primetime.
Good for WWE! It’s about time someone holds these reporters with hidden agendas to journalistic standards. Powell has been a one man hit parade for years. I hope he gets smacked down by WWE!
In the context of the First Amendment, public officials and public figures must satisfy a standard that proves “actual malice” in order to recover for libel or slander. Legal malice must be committed intentionally without just cause or excuse.
In order to recover damages, WWE would have to show “actual malice” on the part of Mr. Powell. The legal standard for publications is New York Times vs. Sullivan 376 U.S. 254, 84 S. Ct. 710, 11 L. Ed. 2d 686 (1964).
In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that public officials and public figures cannot be awarded damages unless they prove that the person accused of making the false statement did so with knowledge that the statement was false or with reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of the statement. Demonstrating malice in this context does not require the plaintiff to show that the person uttering the statement showed ill will or hatred toward the public official or public figure.
It is nearly impossible to sustain that standard in a commentary piece. There are multiple difficulties, these among others: Courts have allowed hyperbole in commentary pieces; pornography, more often than not, lies in the eye of the beholder; most often, letters of the kind quoted by Mr. Green are intended to curtail free speech, and the First Amendment is a mighty bulwark against the suppression of speech.
Sometimes stupid people say or write stupid things.
I’d like to see Chris Powell tossed off a twenty foot steel cage!
There is way too much violence of all kinds on TV BUT the powerful difference in the WWE programming is that it’s the GOOD GUY that is initiating the violence, the abuse, the denigration. In movies, soap operas etc, the bad guy resorts to violence and the good guys have to defend themselves. This is a very different message. The WWE has modelled violence as a strategy for resolving conflict, abuse as power and domination as strength. = Violence, bullying, domestic abuse all on the rise. The WWE has been making America dumber and meaner for decades. Thanks so much. No qualification for public office.
Who can forget Chief Jay Strongbow (d. 2012) going on the warpath against tag team foes Mr Fuji and Professor Toru Tanaka when managed by Grand Wizard.
I do feel sorry for people like Savvy who watched that stuff and act out anti-Indian or anti-Asian tendencies bsed on their childhood exposure to WWE. Most normal kids never took it as seriously as inbred academics (notably feminists and ethnicist scholars) or McMahon political critics.
Who’s up next? Alice Cooper and dead babies and the Death of America?