Wrestlers and cinema - The Rock (Hercules) is still no match for Roddy Piper (They Live)

The Rock stars as the titular character in the blockbuster Hercules, currently out in cinemas worldwide. Regardless of whether or not the film might be a good one, it certainly resonates the first cinematic vehicle Dwayne Johnson made, The Scorpion King, after garnering a huge reputation as a professional wrestler – in fact one of the most popular of all time.

 

 

The Rock has arguably had the most successful switches from professional wrestling to cinema than anyone. Even the ‘immortal’ Hulk Hogan starring in such laughable vehicles as Suburban Commando and…Santa With Muscles could never match the people’s champ’s cinematic escapade.

 

 

Despite this, well, The Rock’s film career is pretty average. And on top of that – well, he may have a broad filmography and many titles to his name but he is yet to top the greatest performance by a professional wrestler in a film.

 

 

That honor belongs to one Roddy Piper, whose name was preceded by Rowdy in the squared circle days. And the film in question is John Carpenter’s “They Live”

In Carpenter’s film we see the usual mixture of stylish B-movie elements, rebellious nature and downright cleverness through a witty and satirical initial premise. This, in fact, follows a drifter looking for work – played by Piper – who fortuitously stumbles across a box full of sunglasses that block a brainwashing frequency sent out by a secret alien society and allows him to see things the way they really are.

 

 

This means that flashy advertising billboards are seen as simple white boards with words as ‘Obey’ and ‘Marry and Reproduce’ on them. As well as that, these sunglasses allow him to distinguish the normal humans from these wealthy evil masterminds – members of the alien society.

 

A dig at consumerism and perhaps the most underrated of John Carpenter’s works. Upon singling out Roddy Piper’s performance, we can notice the man is not afraid to down tone his turn from the way in which he delivered his promos back in the eighties that gave him the reputation as the greatest villain in the history of wrestling.

 

Nevertheless, the sports entertainment gleam in his eyes is only held back for more glorious scenes. Such as the one where he enters a bank with a shotgun and delivers the memorable line “I’m here to chew bubblegum and kick ass…and I’m all out of bubble gum!” On top of that, the fight sequence where he tries to persuade Keith David to put on his sunglasses is one that respects the slow and choreographed timing of wrestling.

 

 

It’s clear that this performance is a lot more credible and retains more dignity that ones by action stars of the time – often prone to overplaying their part a ridiculously great deal. Yet, what adds significance and depth to his overall presence in the film – and what may be the strongest argument for saying that Roddy Piper’s performance in this film is no doubt the greatest performance by a professional wrestler in cinema – is the very fact that he is a wrestler!

 

 

This is a statement that can be easily explained. There is a lot of satire in They Live, some of which is shamelessly funny on purpose. Yet, underneath it all, it is a film about how the ‘powers that be’ are constantly lying to us and how we the people fail to understand that or, worse, know it and refuse to understand it.

 

 

Well, let’s consider for a second that for decades, professional wrestling got over by lying to people and telling them that everything they were watching was real. In the eighties, when wrestling became incredibly popular, moguls such as Vince McMahon took precautions to keep the money making feuds from being portrayed as legitimate as possible by having the characters act like good guys or bad guys respectively depending on what part they were playing on TV, and having them travel separately and never be seen together.

 

 

To this day, some refuse to believe that wrestling is fake (of course, wrestling is not fake, the bumps are real and staged but it’s fair to say that whether you like it or not, these athletes put their bodies on the line doing what they do and a lot of them unfortunately die premature deaths), or at the very least choose to suspend their disbelief to the point that they make themselves believe that everything they are seeing is legitimate.

 

 

So you see that this very factor creates a perfect synergy between casting and film. Piper’s presence in the film is vital to the film’s very nature. But can we imagine Hulk Hogan in the same part. Certainly not. And that is all to Piper’s own credit.