Every GM should watch professional wrestling.
Let me amend that. Every GM should watch good professional wrestling. And yes, before you ask, let me say that there is such a thing.
For most people, their experience with the genre is limited to 80’s style WWF kick-punch-repeat. Well, my fellow gamers, that’s like someone saying, “I don’t like gaming” after playing Tomb of Horrors.
When friends of mine ask me how I can watch pro wrestling, I ask them for twenty-five minutes of their time so they can watch Max Landis’ Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling. And if you aren’t a wrestling fan and you’re wondering why I am and you haven’t seen it yet, you should. Video below (probably NSFW, depending on where you work).
I could go on about this, but that’s not why I’m here. Why I’m here is to encourage you to watch GLOW on Netflix. A show that’s loosely based on the real all-woman wrestling promotion from the ’80’s. I say “loosely based” because while the show does tell the story of an actual wrestling promotion, the characters are completely fictional. Now, me being a nut for history—especially the history of the things I love like gaming and pro wrestling—I recognized a lot of what’s going on. There are tips of the hat to the actual people involved and that’s kind of cool. Almost like making a fake version of Europe for a fantasy roleplaying game…
Watching the show reminded me of running an all-woman game of Changeling a while back. Running a game for women is entirely different than running a game for men. Priorities are different. The tone is different. And watching a show run by women, written by women with an almost entirely female cast about something I love gave me an entirely different perspective on professional wrestling.
But then again, this isn’t a show about professional wrestling. It’s a show about women in professional wrestling, but it’s still a show about women. And in the hyper-testosterone world of wrestling, that’s not just a breath of fresh air, it’s like opening the door on Socrates’ cave.
I not only enjoyed the heck out of watching GLOW, I’m also grateful for it. I ran all the way through it, watching episode after episode. And I’ll probably watch it again. Seeing GLOW and Wonder Woman in the span of a couple of weeks had a profound impact on me as a writer, a storyteller, a game designer and a man.
A friend of mine once asked me, “John, why do so many women play your games?”
I replied, “I try to make games women want to play.”
GLOW isn’t just a show for women, but it is a show about women. And women shouldn’t be the only ones watching it.