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    Is The Wrestler a Chick Flick?

    Posted Sunday, February 22, 2009 7:46 AM | By Hanna Rosin
    Whether or not to see The Wrestler is a common argument among my couple friends these days. But I was surprised to learn that The Wrestler, for which Mickey Rourke is sure to win an Oscar tonight, has a distinctly feminist edge. Or at least it settles an old score. In the movie, Rourke plays an aging wrestler who continues to abuse his body for the pleasure of the crowd. The abuse is both casual (tanning salons, hair dyes) and extreme (staple guns to the chest, falling from heights onto barbed wire). The crucifixion metaphor is always in the background. Usually when the exploitation of the male body is a theme, the context is noble sport, or test of manhood—boxers face off like warriors, quarterbacks take one for the team. But here the context is pure exploitation. What's happening to his body is the exact equivalent of what's happening to the character played by Marisa Tomei—an aging stripper who can't persuade any of her clients to buy a lap dance. The wrestler often refers to himself as an "aging piece of meat," and he is always objectified by the camera—shot from behind or from the chest down. He's not a victim in the straightforward sense—the wrestlers are all very polite and discuss their moves in advance. But he is in the second-wave sense—trapped in a larger system that gives him no other choice. And by the way, he definitely deserves that Oscar.
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