Not only was it entertaining as hell, it managed to tell a fresh and interesting story without the two men so much as touching.
Whoever decided to pair Dream and Black stumbled upon a feud for the ages. He just wanted Aleister Black to “say his name.”
The Velveteen Dream just wanted Aleister to notice him.
YOUNG GAY MEN WRESTLING IN A RING PROFESSIONAL
Tattoos cover his body from head to toe, and his mysterious, enigmatic demeanor belies some of the most brutal strikes in modern professional wrestling. Rather fittingly, Aleister only wears black (or sometimes really dark grey), and trudges to the ring to the sound of haunting choral punk. But it wasn’t until he met his arch-nemesis, that he started to seem like more than just another cheap, gay panic throwback.Įvery Joker needs a Batman, and The Velveteen Dream found his in Aleister Black, a stoic, unfeeling warrior from Amsterdam, Netherlands. He waltzed out to the ring, oozing with charisma, and put in some great performances against NXT’s resident enhancement talent. So when fans were first introduced to ‘The Velveteen Dream’, NXT hopeful Patrick Clarke’s newest character, people weren’t exactly optimistic about how he would be portrayed.ĭream’s name was clearly a sly play on Dusty Rhodes’s moniker, ‘The American Dream’, with all the blue collar niceties intentionally replaced with effeminate smugness and Prince-like swagger. WWE conditioned its fans to hate gay men, or at least harnessed lingering institutionalized homophobia in order to create villains. When legitimately gay wrestlers like Darren Young work in WWE, their sexuality is never mentioned, and the idea of ever seeing a serious gay relationship under Vince McMahon has seemed impossible for as long as the company has existed. This is symptomatic of the industry’s longstanding attitude towards women and femininity, which until recently could be boiled down to: “Men are strong, women are hot, and never these wires shall cross.”Ĭharacters like Santino or Vito were ridiculed for wearing drag, Rico was a joke character based on stereotypes around male hairdressers, and Chuck and Billy’s gimmick literally revolved around a fake-out gay marriage designed to generate nuclear heat from the fans. Gay or effeminate men have almost always been portrayed as heels, or as comedy characters seen as too weak to accomplish anything worthwhile in the ring. Wrestling’s track record with portraying homosexuality (particularly within WWE) has been non-existent at the best of times, and downright abysmal at the worst. In the year 2017, professional wrestling found its Batman vs Joker, and the resulting reaction within the wider wrestling community has been fascinating to see. Pop culture has often stuck doggedly to these black and white depictions of sexuality, and pro-wrestling has historically been one of the worst and most frequent offenders. Remember: Batman is still the good guy, so Joker’s homosexuality, however disingenuous, is automatically coded as somewhat villainous by default. This offered a window into the sexual dichotomy of Batman and his greatest foe, but it also feels like a skewed response to the increased prominence of gay culture throughout the 1980s. The Joker is sexually frivolous and aggressively homoerotic, whereas Batman is repressed, and almost painfully heterosexual (ironic, given that so many Batman in-jokes would come to revolve around his heavily implied romantic relationship with sidekick Robin). The ‘groping scene’ says a great deal about both characters.
They might fall on opposite sides of the battlefield, but both are fighting the same war with their own past trauma. One man dresses up as a bat and punches people, the other dresses up as a clown and blows up hospitals. Bruce Wayne believes in his own sanity, but The Joker wants him to realize that, deep down, he’s just as crazy as the rest of the inmates. But this moment – a scene wherein Batman violently lashes out in response to Joker’s homoerotic advances – was not simply played for cheap shock value.Īt its core, the book is about Joker holding a mirror up to Batman. It had gore, sexual assault, heavily implied pedophilia, and enough disturbing imagery to ruin the character for anyone too young to stumble upon a copy. In 2017, the idea that Batman is dark, gritty, and “not for kids, man” has become a joke in and of itself, but back in 1989, Arkham was pretty much the gold standard for edgy Batman comics. There is an infamous moment in Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s original Arkham Asylum, in which The Joker gropes Batman.