AMERICAN ATTITUDE

The docuseries Mr. McMahon” explores the underbelly of the WWE.

- VINSON CUNNINGHAM

Something's bugging me about the way political happenings unfold these days. How do we all of us who, during the past decade or so, have been baptized in the waters of public unrealitycome to process passages of history which feel like heedless locomotion through plot points that make no sense? Take the last several months: An aging President loses control of his cognition on television, prompting questions about a coverup, and a national referendum on whether he should continue his pursuit of a second term. He surrenders the nomination, and a fresh surrogate steps in with choreographed speed. A different candidate, a former President (almost as old as the deposed one), chooses a running mate with the rhetoric of a cartoon Nazi: something about unwanted visitors abducting and ingesting pets. Somewhere in there, somebody tries to kill the former President and almost succeeds. And then somebody tries again.

We should be alarmed-beyond alarmed. But most of my friends grimace and then, after a rueful joke, move on to other topics. I wondered, watching "Mr. McMahon"-the new Netflix documentary miniseries about Vince McMahon, the crude, bombastic, devilishly clever impresario of World Wrestling Entertainment-whether the surreal story logic of professional wrestling had engulfed, for good, our feeling for plot, and, on a deep level, our understanding of how real life on the national stage should feel.