Dave Ziran, sport writer for The Nation magazine, told of CNN calling him about his thoughts on Hogan's passing. Ziran basically told them Hogan was a racist, woman assaulting POS. The CNN caller said "Thanks. We'll keep looking."
I've been trying to figure out how to approach Hogan's death. I remember watching him in Rocky III as "Thunderlips," and though I wasn't a huge fan of wrestling thought he was good for telling kids to take their vitamins and such. He sold himself as the "good guy" wrestler. Over the years it came out that he was a virulent racist, then he turned to MAGA, and that was enough for me to say "fuck that guy" and not care, but then it hit me. Like...five minutes ago.
There was a time when he turned "heel" and became "Hollywood Hogan."
In a way, Hogan was emblematic of old school Hollywood all along. But instead of young starlets locked into ironclad contracts with studios, the WWE (and WCW) were exploiting beefcake wrestlers. Pushing them to conform to impossible physical standards. To take whatever drugs you had to in order to look good for the camera. Work long, brutal hours for shit pay on the slim hopes that you'd someday "make it," and if you didn't become a "star," they'd discard you and leave you broke and broken on the side of the road. Or even dead. Beloved wrestlers died of drug overdoses, suicides, or just having their bodies give out. Vince McMahon was like a studio head of old Hollywood, pulling the strings, taking all the money, and ruling over his entertainment fiefdom like a king. Yeah, women were disposable eye candy, but -in an odd twist - so were the men.
When the "starlets" decided to stand up to the studio head and unionize, "Hollywood" Hogan ratted them out, and stood up for Vince and the exploitation machine.
Yeah...fuck that guy.
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