Modern Day Tragedy

             Ancient Greece was a time of innovation, whose influences can still be seen today on modern day society. Some things, though, were seemingly unique to Greek culture; one example of this being the Greek tragedies. These tragedies weren't just any plays, they were emotional events for the citizens to attend. The acting pulled incredible amounts of emotion from the crowd, causing them to scream and wail, tearing at their own flesh. These events were attended by thousands making them, most probably, the best general example of Greek pop-culture.
             Initially the thought of these performances, to me, were mind blowing. There was nothing I could compare this to modernly, or at least that is what I thought until I reflected on the most popular (money wise) pop-culture event of modern day, professional wrestling. This may seem like quite an absurd thought, comparing one of history's most praised cultural events to modern day's redneck outings, but really, the parallels are astounding. To show this I will reflect on the last professional wrestling event I attended, a WWF "Smackdown".
             Beginning the event the plot (storyline) was introduced by the announcers and Vince McMahon (WWF's owner), the narrators of the show, which can be compared to the chorus of a tragedy whom explain the plot. Following this the main character, "The Rock", enters the arena, introduced with his own theme song. The theme music that introduces each character can be paralleled to the Greek character's unique, signature poetic flourishes for individual characters. The Rock then addresses the audience in an emotional soliloquy explaining his side of the controversy, pushing us into further sub-plots. This speech raises quite a disturbance from the crowd of cheers especially when he uses his own catch phrases (which we also see in the Greek soliloquies) such as "laying the smack down" and "if you smell ...

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