Reflections on... Bray Wyatt

Imagine if the writers of a drama series rewrote their series finale to turn a good character evil just because they were disliked by fans. Or if a soap used the off screen travails of their actors as part of on screen storylines. Or if a struggling sci fi show used the studio heads who wanted to cancel the series as characters within their own show and had their fictional characters battle them.

It is almost impossible to conceive of a written show reactively so dramatically to the whims, preferences and maddening inconsistencies of their fans. It does, however, exist. In the world of professional wrestling the fans frequently tell their masters, the writers, exactly how they expect the product to be produced and, with most the major shows broadcast live in front of thousands of fans, they have the power to force their changes. Think for a second on how it would change your viewing experience if there was a live studio audience on Eastenders that was allowed to boo, cheer, chant and otherwise disrupt the show as much as they wished. Which storylines would have been changed, cut, or lengthened on the strength of their reaction?  Wrestling is a merciless environment that brutally exposes those unable to command an audience and where the writers are directed by fans.

In recent times the rise of the smart, internet savvy, fan has made the crowds at wrestling events more mutinous than ever. They cheer who they want and they boo who they want and there is little that can be done about it. Frequent champion and consistent good guy John Cena knows this better than anyone. While he has been presented as a good guy, an all American, morally straight wrestling fan who succeeds through sheer strength of character, Cena has entered arenas to walls of boos nearly every night for years. Recently fans made up a new song. It’s pretty simple, they just sing ‘John Cena Suuuuuccccckkkkks’ repeatedly in time to his theme music. All he can do is smile a rueful smile and shrugs his shoulders at their antipathy. For a while WWE has presented this as ‘controversy’ rather than outright rejection, at least in part because their hands are tied when it comes to Cena. For, while the adult fans may hate his character, he is the most popular wrestler amongst children possibly since the days of Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. Not only that but John Cena the man has become so blurred with John Cena the character that it is impossible for many adults, and nearly all child fans, to unpick the two. While the character Cena is booed for being an unapologetically nice guy, the man Cena is universally hailed for his relentless pursuit of other’s happiness, he remains the most requested, and most prolific wish granter, in the history of the Make a Wish foundation. He is such a famously good guy off screen that on screen he has become too predictable one note.

For years the WWE has struggled with this fundamental question: how do they portray Cena as the hero while thousands of fans vocally treat him like the villain? They may have finally answered that problem, and their solution is a character named Bray Wyatt.

Bray Wyatt is a relatively new character, he only debuted just under a year ago, and yet he is already pushing at the boundaries of the WWE’s relationship with its fans. Taking the Southern Gothic tradition and building it into a wrestling character was a risk, in the new WWE world of blurred realities and shades of grey it could have been too cartoony to survive. However Windham Rotunda, who plays Bray Wyatt, has chosen to underplay the hoodoo elements of the literary strand and instead created a wild eyed preacher like character who is dominant and charismatic but not magical. He spouts almost idiotic nonsense but with meanings so subtle and conniving that they can only have come from an intelligent brain. He is teamed with two hulking power house wrestlers who are in his thrall and fight most of his battles for him. He often reacts to his opponents’ violence with bursts of manic laughter, proud at how they cannot counter him intellectually. He sometimes sings songs at his opponents to put them off their stride, notably ‘He’s got the whole world in his hands’. At times his character is so on point as to be mesmeric. The problem for most of his contemporaries is that with great performance comes great popularity. The more a wrestler tries to get booed the more they get cheered in appreciation of their attempts. It is a beguiling and frustrating problem for most wrestlers. Not for Bray.

Bray is a cult leader, he may or may not believe he has a higher purpose, but regardless he feeds of the adulation of others. He targets the most popular wrestlers and attempts to expose their hypocritical relationship with the fans. As he assaulted Daniel Bryan, WWE’s most popular wrestler of the day, he yelled “Why aren’t you helping him?” at fans held behind barricades and security staff before ramming their hero into a ring post again. The commentary team and other wrestler’s portray him as a man corrupting the fans, and a threat to the very sanity of the WWE.

After defeating Bryan, Bray shifted into a feud with John Cena. The flagbearer of the WWE and its most hated hero. As their confrontations built Bray tried to convince Cena that all his good guy persona and his legacy of good deeds were a sham, that really Cena was a monster, just like Bray. Cena started the feud his normal cocky, joking self but as Bray continued his psychological war Cena became more afraid, more conflicted and more troubled than we had seen him before.

In their match at Wrestlemania, Bray tried to convince Cena to step over to his side, to the side of violence. Bray begged and begged Cena to break the rules and bring out his violent side. It felt like Bray could win by Pinfall, Submission, or Psychological Trauma. However Cena refused again and again, eventually winning the match. But something else began to happen, not in the ring but in the crowd. At one point, as Bray had taunted Cena, the fansbegan to wave their arms and spontaneously serenade Bray with their own rendition of “He’s got the whole world in his hands”. John Cena, the last good man, may have stuck to his morals and won the match but had he lost something greater?

This song has now become Bray’s calling card and, in his feud with John Cena, it has become the sound of lost souls clinging to Bray’s twisted vision of the world. Being popular doesn’t hurt a villain, like Bray, who intends to lead us astray. When the fans take his side, over the clean living dedication of John Cena, it is not the role of villain and hero being upended but the depredations of a dangerous man pulling an audience down into his moral decay. This effective reshaping of the booing of John Cena has fixed his character not as the fan’s favourite necessarily, but as the man the fans know they should favour. John Cena doesn’t fight Bray Wyatt because he wants to but because he has to break Bray’s spell over the fans. In the weeks since Wrestlemania it has become clearer and clearer that he is losing this battle.

Two weeks ago, the fans were given the choice to decide how many of the Wyatt family John Cena would face in main event match. Overwhelmingly they voted for him to face a 3 on 1 handicap match where he had no chance of victory and, in storyline terms, a high chance of injury. Within the fictional world of wrestling it was the latest injustice heaped upon Cena in his brave stand against the defiling influence of Bray. It led Cena to question the fans directly on the next edition of Raw, why had they done this to him, why did they ignore him when he spoke of the dangers of Bray Wyatt? He was answered by a child choir, his former target demographic now united in tauntingly singing modified lyrics of the whole world in his hands, mocking his values and his former fanbase before Bray Wyatt emerged as their leader. It was the ultimate humiliation for the good guy and it allows the WWE to tell a compelling story of a man standing up for all he believes in, all we should believe in, even as we turn our backs on him.

Bray Wyatt only debuted 11 months ago, John Cena has been booed for years, but WWE is now making a compelling story out of convincing us we’ve all been deceived. As WWE keeps reminding us, we all know Cena is right, we all know Wyatt is a false prophet, but we can’t help but boo the boy scout and sing the preacher’s song. The fans aren’t just part of the story, now we are the story as Bray and Cena battle for our soul. It doesn’t really matter who gets pinned and whose hand is raised in victory on Sunday at Extreme Rules. Ultimately, it only matters who we cheer. Will us fans finally see the light of Cena’s deeds and cheer for him and his honest faith in hard work, or are we beholden to our baser instincts and the siren call of Bray Wyatt’s immoral decay?

Now tell me, what other medium could do story telling like that?

Credit to wrestlingwithtext.com for the gifs.