Gay for Pain
I'm not sure how I feel about Victorious Secret, the Vanguard Wrestling All-Star Alliance "gay" tag team of Cameron Salem, 5'8", 160#, and Mason Conrad, 5'11", 195#. The boys actually have their fans in the independent pro wrestling world, where their limp-wristed posing, cry-baby petulance, and suggestively homoerotic antics (their finishing move is called Sodimy and Gamoura) generate a lot of positive pop with some crowds and negative heat with others.
They are apparently not the usual faux-mo jobbers, mere fancy-boys for the rugged "straight" faces to beat up on; they are skilled wrestlers and they are, in fact, "victorious" a lot of the time--though more through sneakiness and illegal double-teaming than through legitimate means. Killer queens, indeed!
VS versus Jeff Troy and Ovirload, Orland Park, Illinois, 17 April 2009 (via VWAA)
Unlike most of their predecessors in this gimmick, Salem and Conrad are personally attractive, especially (I think) Salem, and while their behavior is flamboyant and provocative--which they amp up all the more when the crowd hates them--they are fit, agile, and rather easy on the eye.
Watching them, I am reminded of what director John Waters said of golden-era wrestler Gorgeous George, who, he says, inspired every character he ever wrote:
Times are different now, of course ... not different enough, perhaps, for pro wrestling crowds to accept an openly gay wrestler as anything but a heel. A part of me always feels this gimmick serves as a coverup for charges that pro wrestling is homoerotic in general--as if to serve as a lightning rod that assures homophobes that the rest of the wrestlers and the rest of the matches are 100% hetero.
But, like Waters, I am fascinated. And a little turned on.
They are apparently not the usual faux-mo jobbers, mere fancy-boys for the rugged "straight" faces to beat up on; they are skilled wrestlers and they are, in fact, "victorious" a lot of the time--though more through sneakiness and illegal double-teaming than through legitimate means. Killer queens, indeed!
VS versus Jeff Troy and Ovirload, Orland Park, Illinois, 17 April 2009 (via VWAA)
Unlike most of their predecessors in this gimmick, Salem and Conrad are personally attractive, especially (I think) Salem, and while their behavior is flamboyant and provocative--which they amp up all the more when the crowd hates them--they are fit, agile, and rather easy on the eye.
Watching them, I am reminded of what director John Waters said of golden-era wrestler Gorgeous George, who, he says, inspired every character he ever wrote:
It was probably the very first thing I ever saw that I thought is this, maybe it was gay, even though he wasn't gay, right? And I didn't know what gay meant yet. I just knew it was that this was something very, very different and something that could very much interest me. He became a kind of secret fascination.
Times are different now, of course ... not different enough, perhaps, for pro wrestling crowds to accept an openly gay wrestler as anything but a heel. A part of me always feels this gimmick serves as a coverup for charges that pro wrestling is homoerotic in general--as if to serve as a lightning rod that assures homophobes that the rest of the wrestlers and the rest of the matches are 100% hetero.
But, like Waters, I am fascinated. And a little turned on.
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