Intel turns face and tag-teams with Apple: How the theatre of Professional Wrestling helps understand the reaction to Intel Inside Apple (or why Steve Jobs is the Vince McMahon of Silicon Valley)

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Intel turns face and tag-teams with Apple: How the theatre of Professional Wrestling helps understand the reaction to Intel Inside Apple (or why Steve Jobs is the Vince McMahon of Silicon Valley)

Date Created: 28 Jan, 2006, 01:43 PM

When I was a kid growing up, before the advent in Australia of colour television (the PAL-D type, introduced in the mid-70s), Sunday mornings would bring the sports shows, followed at noon by World Championship Wrestling.

Here, generations of Australian males - Greeks, Italian, Jews, and sometimes Aussies - would sit with each other while the women prepared lunch, and watch rather obese, unathletic men apparently pound the crap out of each other.

It was all part of a travelling circus of local and imported professional wrestlers who would fly to Australia's capital cities for live performances which is where the promoters - a couple of Americans - made their money.

There was also the pub. circuit, where somewhat more lithe and athletic men and women put on a more graceful show, reflecting their amateur backgrounds. The pros. seemed to come from a football or powerlifting background and had limited moves, usually "finishing off" their opponents with a signature move: The Abdominal Stretch, an inverted suplex, an atomic drop, the figure-four leglock, the aeroplane spin, a variation of a sleeper hold, and so on.

It was all good fun as it turned out, which I occasionally got to see close up when I met wrestlers away from their professional duties in ways I don't need to blog here. As I grew older, the entertainment came from watching the audience reaction, and the professionalism of the wrestlers to remember their choreographies and not hurt each other.

That some people didn't see it as pantomime or entertainment, called marks from the fairground side-show lexicon, I found intriguing. And I enjoyed the inventiveness of the story tellers, called bookers, who used the wrestlers to weave intricate social commentary into "matches".

The reinvigoration of professional wrestling in the 1980s under the banner of the World Wrestling Federation, whose acronym was in conflict with another WWF, brought a new wave of interest, especially amongst celebrities and new monied individuals who like to be wherever sparkle and glitter might be found. We could call them "early adopters" or those on the edge.

Here, old battles betwen good and evil were fought, with nasty wrestlers coming from Iran and the Soviet Union, fighting against ex-Marines and patriots, be they hicks, hillbillies or super-sophisticated urban dwellers. It was pure theatre, and only when a number of unhappy wrestlers spilled the beans on the industry (or were accused of steroid abuse) did its owners publicly declare it was a sham, a form of sports entertainment. The pure theatre is an artform in Mexico with its Luche Libre form of wrestling.

Curously, the fans didn't suddenly leave the arenas because they'd been "had". Indeed, it made it even more attractive, as wrestling became ever more focussed on narrative, and basic story-telling pitching good and pure, against evil and nasty. Of course, one person's nasty was always very attractive to another's noir view of the world. And so stories also became more convoluted to reflect more of society's subgroups, especially those experiencing disenfranchisement.

This division between good and evil is played out on many fronts, including technology. There's Microsoft being referred to as the Evil Empire, to borrow a term from another entertainment medium, the motion picture. Or as the Borg, where Resistance is futile, taken from the continuing Star Trek franchise.

President Bush's use of the term Axis of Evil post 9/11 was hardly an afterthought, and this Wikipedia link is quite enlightening.

Apple, too, is not without its good and evil metaphors, appearing in biblical stories, starting with Eve's temptations in the Garden of Eden and its Tree of Knowledge. The apple in this context represented the fruit of the tree "that gives the knowledge of what is good and what is bad".

So, the apple was the original forbidden fruit. And it still seems to the case for 90% of the computer-using populace, to mix metaphors. Despite the fact that it has attracted no worms, so far.

Its use as a container of evil, or poison, continued in the fairytales of yore, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, again tempting the good character to come under the spell of the evil one, in this case, her wicked step-mother.

While the original Grimm story was in German, the line which gets Snow White into hot water, is the one said by her step-mother to her mirror:

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"

No matter what she tries, the same answer keeps coming up: "Snow White".

Is it any wonder so many of Apple's products are in White, a G3 iMac even being referred to as Snow, some years back?

I can just see Creative's CEO, Sim Wong Hoo, standing in front of his mirror, having pumped another $100 million into his next mp3 iPod-killer development, and asking the same question, only to be told yet again,

"Thou art fairer than all who are here, Sim Wong Hoo... But more beautiful still is the iPod, as I view."

Perhaps news that Microsoft is about to build its own mp3 player to finally bring down the iPod's 70% market share will see Bill Gates stand in front of the same legendary magic mirror only to receive much the same message:

"Bill, you're the fairest and most generous where you are, but the iPod is more beautiful by far".

Irony #1: Over on the Windows side of life, there was a worm released to the wild a few years ago, called Snow White. Sent via email, the message purported to contain a sexualised story involving certain kinky behaviours involving Snow White and her little friends.

Of course, Snow White was one of the first major animation hits for Walt Disney in 1937, and how she appeared in that film, and her humanising at all the Disneyland theme park franchises is the appearance most of us carry around in our heads. Go here to see other portrayals through history, since 1812.

How ironic (#2) that the sale of Pixar to Disney for shares will place Apple in a position to access the huge Disney catalogue to offer on its iPod and iTunes products.

One of the enduring themes in fairy tales, and the same tradition continues in professional wrestling, is the double agent or good guy masquerading as the bad guy.

In wrestling terminology, good guys are referred to as "baby faces" and bad guys as "heels". In Hollywood, we occasionally see actors typecast this way until their roles dry up or they become disinterested in their on-screen personna and wish to reveal their "true" acting abilities, rather than rely on box-office looks.

Witness Tom Cruise becoming an assassin in the excellent Collateral (2004), where his looks don't count at all.

Women in Hollywood have less opportunities to swap roles like this, but when they do, giving up their genetic privilege of beauty, they usually make themselves very unattractive, both in appearance and character.

Such as Academy-award winner Charlize Theron's role as a serial killer in Monster (2003).

In pro wrestling, if a storyline is faultering - it's not going over with the fans or true believers or a character in this pantomime of athletes is not generating enough heat or audience approval, we often hear of the bookers making a "face turn heel".

This is usually accompanied by a change of costume, growth of facial hair, or the appointment of a manager with Svengali attributes to make sure the dumber marks really get the new picture. Occasionally, given the demographic most attuned to pro wrestling, the new manager is a buxom blond who somehow too often gets in the way of the action, and lo and behold, accidentally has her minimal outfit ripped away from her, to which she reacts by a choreography of "covering myself up with my hands" usually to no avail and the roar of the appreciative crowd.

It's a bit like a new Mac coming up through the floor of the Moscone convention centre, when Steve Jobs reveals his "one more thing" to the roars of the appreciative crowd. Long-term watchers of Jobs smile appreciatively, while no doubt Apple workers whoop and holler to work the crowd as if they are marks. In fact, they are better thought of as smarks, or smart marks. Followers who know it's entertainment, but like to be part of the action nonetheless. They are the ones who cheer a good work ethic amongst wrestlers, such as those who execute excellent athleticism, or who work hard to put over other wrestlers.

One of the most respected acts in professional wrestling occurred when Andre the Giant lost to Hulk Hogan in an early Wrestlemania (1987), knowing his career was coming to an end, allowing Hogan to pick him up and slam him. Try doing that with a live 500 pound human one time!

(Irony #3 - this event, Wrestlemania 3, was the first of the really huge pay-per-view shows put on by the WWF which saw wrestling return to mainstream television. Apple is now doing the opposite, taking maintream and making it pay-per-view).

Andre, whom I once sat on a plane with flying from LAX to San Diego on PSA (he took up both first class seats in the front), was pure class and much loved by all wrestlers and fans, and his jobbing to Hogan to get him over, brought tears to many in pro wrestling for its sheer act of professional kindness and courtesy. To job is to purposely lose the match, or appear worse than you truly are...

Pro wrestling has legions of jobbers - journeymen - to help make the stars look good, even though their own wrestling talent may be excellent. But they may lack charisma, or presentation skills or TV looks, and so their role is to wrestle often, perhaps be given a chance to become a star, but mainly to keep the circus going.

As an aside, and in keeping with the theme of this blog entry, at January's Macworld, Intel CEO Paul Otellini jobbed to, ahem.. Steve Jobs.

Dressing up in a bunny outfit, coming through the smoke on stage (to remind long-time Apple followers of the Toasted Bunny advertisements Apple made when it introduced the G3), and allowing himself to become a target of potential jest, all helped to get Jobs over. To make the Intel transition all the more remarkable because it was ahead of schedule. This was an entertainment-oriented selling of the Apple-Intel relationship, complete with silicon wafer prop. (Props are very important in pro wrestling stories, whether they are "hidden objects", wooden chairs, step ladders and cages!)

Despite the potential for ridicule, Otellini stayed in character, continuing to wear the bunny suit, unmasking himself as he approached Jobs on stage. Masks in pro wrestling are still an old favourite story line to build character mystery and unpredictability. Less so in North America, a standard part of the act in Spanish-speaking countries.

Wrestlers themselves will rarely break character unless there is a falling out with management, which permits them to have a book ghost-written on their brief joust with fame and fortune. Otherwise, the old circus and carnival side show maxim of kayfabe is maintained.

Kayfabe?

It's a term devoted to maintaining the storyline, the actors not breaking character, and the keeping up of appearances to keep the audience spellbound and immersed in the theatrical spectacle. In a carnival side show, or the street-bound three card monte trick, an assistant or shill usually plays a role of innocent bystander to fool the marks into believing winning is easy. His task is to always maintain kayfabe.

In another context, I once attended a Broadway production of "A Funny thing happened on the way to the Forum" which featured Whoopi Goldberg in the main, usually male, role of Pseudolus replacing Nathan Lane for part of the season in 1997. The same role has been undertaken in previous revivals by Zero Mostel (you do see the connection, don't you?) and Phil Silvers.

Whoopi was meant to stick to a fairly loose interpretation of the character but on the day I attended, a number of actors were in attendance (including Timothy Dalton) and I'm sure she broke character even further than usual. Of course, the audience was in peels of laughter and there were many times her own paroxysms of laughter stopped the other actors dead in their tracks and made the whole production half an hour longer.

Not all breaches of kayfabe go down well, as Wikipedia outlines here with respect to more prominent events in professional wrestling. These usually go punished by promoters, but smarks adore seeing the soft underbelly and feel more a part of the storyline while marks are simply bewildered and angered.

Loyal Apple followers, sometimes referred to by Windows supporters as either Mac fanboys or Mac zealots, must have felt they were watching a professional wrestling event last year when rumours were eventually substantiated at WWDC 2005 that Apple was turning to Intel chips.

Many sites and commentators refused to believe it, such have been the years of effort to continue the Apple versus Wintel storyline.

Suddenly, Intel was turning face.

All those years and column inches and black on white pixels spent dissing Intel, its CISC versus RISC technology, and the Megahertz Myth - all for nought!

Now, Apple followers had to follow a new storyline, and embrace a new face in town. It was as if technology kayfabe was being broken! No wonder there was initially so much confusion and anger.

Steve Jobs let us know that behind this story another one had been occurring - OS X had been acting as a double-agent all this time, able to run on Intel from the very beginning. In 2006, rather than years to wait until OS X was ready to run on an Intel chip (like Microsoft followers will have to wait between Windows Xp and Vista), Apple would rollout Intel-equipped Macs.

Indeed, when it did happen, earlier than many had predicted but secretly hoped for, it wasn't the Mac model most expected - an updated iBook - but one least expected, the just-updated iMac. To wrestling fans, this would have had the smarks jumping out of their seats for allowing themselves to be fooled, to not see the story ahead of the marks. They would be crying over their newly purchased iMac G5s, now superceded barely three months later. Sucked in again by the master showman, the Vince McMahon of technology, Steve Jobs.

Now this is true kayfabe on the part of Jobs, where the storyline is more important than a small group of unhappy fans. This is big picture stuff, the so-called road map outlining Apple's future, and that of the consumer electronics industry which necessarily follows.

Paul Otellini in his bunny suit understood the importance of kayfabe, of getting Jobs/Apple/Intel across to the public. This was fun, but it was very real too. Billions of dollars are at stake, and these guys are up on stage having fun and making great theatre. They can afford to. Between them, there is huge potential for both Apple and Intel to allow themselves to be the butt of jokes, as Apple has experienced since its inception where its GUI and mouse and little all in one box was thought of as a joke by serious computer users and their DOS command lines.

These guys (and their shareholders) are going to laugh all the way to the bank, not just because they will make lots of doh in the years to come, but because they are fulfilling a dream of Jobs of continuing to make insanely great products, services, and devices to enrich our lives.

Apple affecianados with a sense of theatre will watch as the story plays out, as we get used to Intel as a face, not a heel. And the storyline will have Apple, the former 5% market share underdog, be accused of turning heel because of its dominance of the consumer digital media marketplace amidst phony hyped-up accusations of near-monopoly practices.

In Apple's case, it has Creative and Dell and indeed Microsoft who for all intents and purposes, are jobbing for it, given their weak performances in this same domain.

But here's the rub: Apple doesn't need their jobbing. It has consumate skills, vision, creativity, and talent to get itself across to the audience without the need for its "opponents" to pull punches. This is a shooting match, a term used in pro wrestling where the promotor allows the wrestlers to go at it for real to settle a personal spat or behind-the-scenes politics. This is a business after all.

Apple's the gold-medal winning Olympic athlete, well-versed in basic moves, turned pro who can now make some real money, putting all that R&D to popular use.

Apple stands in the ring awaiting all comers in a "Royal Rumble winner take all competition", but one where each opponent seems to trip as they enter the ring, and nary a blow is landed.

But all put on a good show for us all, no-one daring to break kayfabe lest they be tossed out of the circus carnival sideshow.

Of all of them, Microsoft has the most to lose from breaking kayfabe. That's when people will learn what marks they've been all these years, enduring spyware and malware, choosing to be part of the Big Show and its "good enough" narrative.

Intel turning face and tag-teaming with Apple (or, as one sexist pundit has put it, swapping wives for a new model) will hopefully change the way this circus plays out in 2006.

Update - February 10, 2006: I was out looking for some links to this post, when I came across this hithertoo unseen Apple website pro developer page, featuring, of all things, the Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment.

It seems the links between the WWE and Apple are closer than even I thought!

How so?

Well, the WWE is highly dependent on its exceptional graphics. And it has a team devoted to developing those graphics who are Mac users. Who especially like to use Final Cut Pro, Shake and Motion (See a still from a video clip, above left).

And of course, a huge assortment of Mac Hardware, including dual G5s and Xserve clusters (and a few PCs too for rendering tasks).