This article was originally published in The Courier on 15th March 2014.
Insane
Fight Club: Tuesday, BBC One
EDL
Girls: Don't Call Me Racist: Monday,
BBC Three
Paul
Whitelaw
Where would documentary film crews be
without little-known subcultures? Were it not for these eccentric
cabals of people doing unusual things, their work would dry up
overnight. So BBC Scotland must've been delighted when they stumbled
across the blood-caked soldiers of Glasgow's Insane Championship
Wrestling league.
As their bright, likeable, articulate
leader Mark admitted in Insane Fight Club, wrestling is
pantomime for adults. “It's a drama, a comedy, a soap opera. It's
performance art,” he said, between busy bouts of promoting gigs and
writing storylines. Yet despite the cheerful fakery, the physical
pain and gallons of blood are excruciatingly real. ICW takes the
standard theatrics of professional wrestling and adds a gruesomely
violent twist. Fights tend to spill out of venues and into the
streets. One clip depicted a wrestler being bounced off the side of a
passing bus.
The programme followed this
tight-knit group of friends in the months leading up to their biggest
fight night so far. Their usual stomping ground was the Garage
nightclub in Glasgow. But Mark had his eyes on a bigger prize. The nearby ABC holds twice the usual ICW crowd, and Mark was
hoping for a sold-out event. Their goal of turning professional and
making a decent living out of wrestling obviously meant a lot to
them. A colourful tag-team of self-supporting underdogs, you couldn't
help rooting for them.
It gradually became apparent that
wrestling presented a form of escape from life's mundane status quo.
For the likes of star wrestler Grado – an affable, gregarious,
overweight fool – it's a way of transforming yourself into a
beloved folk superhero. No wonder the camera focused on him.
With his
camp, skin-tight leotards and bellowed catchphrase - “IT'S
YERSEL!!” - he was a magnet for comedy, both planned and
unintentional. The scene in which he encountered baffled celebrity
hairdresser Nicky Clarke was one of the oddest mismatches I've seen
on TV in a long time.
But there was an unexpected layer of
poignancy lurking beneath the programme's extrovert veneer. The
gang's mutual respect and affection was palpable, as was Mark's
heartfelt ambition. Having raised his autistic son in a disadvantaged
area of Glasgow, he wanted to do everything he could to improve their lives.
At one point, with tears in his eyes,
he recalled his son worrying about not fitting in with the
other children at nursery. Mark pointed to his own life as a
wrestling promoter, and told him that it's okay to be different. He
and his friends were all oddballs, and that's something to be proud
of. It was a surprisingly moving moment.
While the programme at times felt
like an extended promotional video for Mark's burgeoning business, I
can't begrudge the gang any success that comes their way. There's
something quite heroic in their dogged insanity.
An altogether more dispiriting
community of outcasts could be found in EDL Girls: Don't Call Me
Racist, in which female members of the notorious far-right
movement stated their case.
Confused, angry and naïve – I'm
not sure the girl who photographed herself dressed as Hitler really
knew who he was – they were typical racists in that they couldn't
sensibly articulate their arguments beyond half-baked complaints
about a perceived cultural enemy. Their efforts to “protect”
England from some non-existent invasion are utterly pointless
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