Hulk Hogan the man did terrible things. But the character was revolutionary
If you aren't a wrestling fan (you're reading the Guardian. You're probably not a wrestling fan) you might wonder why someone who was famous for four decades would feel the need to lie about whether he could have been in Metallica. These are the sorts of lies the quarterback of your high school tells at the reunion. 'Andre the Giant was 700lbs when I bodyslammed him in from of 200,000 people at the Roman Colosseum' is definitely an anecdote that could get you a free shot at the no-host bar at the Elks Lodge, but if you're Hulk Hogan, you could just be honest and say Andre was more like 400lbs and the crowd was between 80,000 and 93,000, depending on whom you ask. Also, it was in Pontiac, Michigan, not Rome. Hulk Hogan did not need to lie, but he did. Often.
Lying, fabrication and multiple layers of reality are fundamental tenets of professional wrestling at every level of the industry. In 2019, I worked at WWE as a writer for their TV show SmackDown just long enough to get fired. I wasn't there for enough time to actually get good at the art of crafting a compelling wrestling story, but I was there long enough to realize that the most crucial element of wrestling is some form of dishonesty. The performer's job is to approximate reality, to portray their character not just on TV, but on social media, in the press, and sometimes even at the airport. Wrestling is performance art on an entirely different level. Terry Bollea had to live his life as Hulk Hogan – the bandana, the tank tops, the white mustache. In his now-infamous reality show, Hogan Knows Best, despite the conceit of seeing inside Hulk's real home, he was still that character. Terry Bollea was so committed to being Hulk Hogan that he had a formal bandana for black tie events. No one would be mad if he wore, say, a Kangol hat or maybe … no hat at all? When Hogan testified in the Gawker trial, it was shocking to hear him refer to 'Terry Bollea' and 'Hulk Hogan' as two different people. The line wasn't just blurred. It was wiped away completely.
In the pro wrestling parlance, this veil of fiction is called 'kayfabe' – a word with its origin in the old-timey carnival culture that wrestling evolved from. Kayfabe is both a noun to describe the glorious unreality of wrestling and a verb to describe when someone is subtly lying to you (or hiding something incredibly important). In WWE, there are layers of kayfabe, with fewer and fewer people smartened up to what's happening the deeper you go. The outcomes of the matches are kayfabed. Who is wrestling in the main event of WrestleMania 42 next spring is super kayfabed. This doesn't seem that terribly different from protecting the ending of a summer blockbuster film, but when you're inside the business, you realize that everything can be kayfabed. How can you trust anything anyone says? WWE just launched a reality show on Netflix called Unreal, which claims to lift the veil on the behind-the-scenes creation of their storylines. I immediately said to myself: 'This is just another layer of kayfabe.' The sacred work of wrestling is to make people believe, to bend the truth just enough to make a few bucks off our curiosity. This is the world Hulk Hogan lived in.
I still love wrestling, and despite the horrible things he said and did, I still see Hulk Hogan the character as one of the most influential heroes in American history. He managed to make the most mundane, thunderingly obvious credo ('say your prayers and eat your vitamins, kids!') sound revolutionary. He knew how to captivate an audience with nothing more than a gesture. He understood the art of platonic seduction – the way to get someone to not just love you, but to think that their struggle is also yours. Wrestling fans – both children and adults – could live vicariously through Hulk Hogan. His appeals in his speeches were to his 'Hulkamaniacs', the fans that gave him the strength to do the impossible. At WrestleMania 3, if Andre the Giant wanted to beat Hulk Hogan for the WWE Championship, he'd also have to contend with the millions of Hulkamaniacs cheering for him. In the unreality of pro wrestling, you, the audience member, are the real protagonist. Hulk Hogan is merely a vessel for you to travel in.
If this sounds familiar, it's because it is.
One of Hulk Hogan's last televised appearances was at the Republican national convention in 2024. He tore a Trump T-shirt off his body instead of a Hulkamania shirt and pledged his full fealty to our future president. In some twisted way, it was a passing of the torch. For years, Hulk Hogan had been the apex of wrestling's art of unreality. His talent for leading the masses peaked around 1988, and as the world got more savvy about WWE's particular magic trick, the connection severed. He left for a rival company, became a bad guy, and reinvented the art form again. But it could never be quite what it was in the mid-80s. Wrestlers such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock and John Cena could captivate a crowd, but it was nothing like Hulkamania. No one would or could ever truly believe like that again. This is why WWE has to open up (or at least pretend to), like the Soviet Union at the end of the cold war.
After years of sitting under the learning tree of WWE's former owner, Vince McMahon, Donald Trump took the tools of platonic seduction that Hulk Hogan perfected and applied them to politics. The use of the word 'we', the commonality of struggle, the dastardly enemies to defeat in righteous combat. Even the empty slogans. Is 'make America great again' that far removed from 'say your prayers and eat your vitamins'?
When Hulk Hogan exaggerated a story or outright lied, he'd very rarely retract his statement. When he was allowed back in the WWE locker room after tape of his racist tirade circulated publicly, he spent most of his apology warning fellow wrestlers to be careful about 'getting caught'. Hulk Hogan was a man who made his own truth. He didn't need to do anything other than live in the world he made for himself. The more he made up about himself, the grander he became. He was truly the greatest American hero, because he personified the most American virtue of them all: you do not have to be you. And the more he fashioned himself a superhero, the more we wanted to be him – to fully merge with him into one entity. This power was both awe-inspiring and perhaps the most terrifying weapon any human being could wield in this life.
Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
5 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Sex toy tossed on LA Sparks' court in third WNBA incident in past seven days
A sex toy landed near Indiana's Sophie Cunningham after it was thrown from the stands in Los Angeles while the Fever played the Sparks on Tuesday night. The incident in Los Angeles occurred with 2:05 left in the second quarter with the object landing in the lane near Cunningham, who had been vocal on social media about fans throwing the toys on the court. Kelsey Plum kicked the toy into the stands. Cunningham walked over to the Sparks bench and was laughing about it. According to social media posts, another green toy was thrown in New York, but didn't reach the court – landing near a child. A week ago the first incident occurred in Atlanta late in the fourth quarter of the Dream's game against Golden State in College Park, Georgia. A fan was arrested, according to the WNBA, and was ejected from the arena and faced a minimum one-year ban. On Friday, another sex toy was thrown in Chicago under a basket after a whistle was blown to stop play during the third quarter of Golden State's 73-66 victory over the Sky. An official kicked the object aside before it was picked up and removed. It's unknown if the fan who threw the object at the Sky game was arrested. 'The safety and well-being of everyone in our arenas is a top priority for our league. Objects of any kind thrown onto the court or in the seating area can pose a safety risk for players, game officials, and fans,' the league said in a statement. 'In line with WNBA Arena Security Standards, any fan who intentionally throws an object onto the court will be immediately ejected and face a minimum one-year ban in addition to being subject to arrest and prosecution by local authorities.'
Daily Mail
5 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Anne Hathaway's love interest is seen for FIRST TIME on set of Devil Wears Prada 2 in New York City
Anne Hathaway 's love interest for The Devil Wears Prada 2 was unveiled for the first time as she filmed a romantic scene in New York City on Tuesday. The 42-year-old actress - who is in the midst of shooting the anticipated sequel - is reprising her role as Andy Sachs in the project which is set to hit theaters next year in May 2026. Anne was seen cozying up with her new co-star Patrick Brammall in a lighthearted date night scene in the streets of Brooklyn. In the 2006 movie, Adrian Grenier had played her character's boyfriend Nate - but the actor is notably not returning to the second movie. The actress was glammed up for the evening scene wearing a sleeveless blue dress that was made of a shimmering material. She slipped into a pair of open-toed, blue pumps and easily carried a small silver purse in her hand. Anne's long dark locks were parted in the middle and effortlessly flowed down past her shoulders in elegant waves. A pink blush was added to her cheekbones while a blue shadow was worn around her eyes to coincide with the color scheme of her outfit. The star opted for a rosy pink tint to her lips and chose to not add flashy pieces of jewelry to the look. Patrick - who is known for his roles in shows such as Colin From Accounts - was also dapper in a dark navy suit. He additionally sported a light blue button up underneath and donned a pair of black dress shoes. Anne and Patrick were spotted filming a few sweet moments as they strolled through the crowded streets of Brooklyn as the sun set in the distance. At one point, the actor placed his arms around the beauty as they fell into an embrace while standing outside of a restaurant. The Princess Diaries star also flashed a big smile on her face as Patrick twirled her around in circles. The actress was glammed up for the evening scene wearing a sleeveless blue dress that was made of a shimmering material A pink blush was added to her cheekbones while a blue shadow was worn around her eyes to coincide with the color scheme of her outfit Anne and Patrick were spotted filming a few sweet moments as they strolled through the crowded streets of Brooklyn as the sun set in the distance In another romantic moment, Anne was seen gripping onto a silver pillar attached to a corner building before running into Patrick's arms. The co-stars later strolled arm-in-arm down a sidewalk in Brooklyn as they held a conversation. Last month in July, it was first reported that Patrick has been cast to portray Anne's love interest in the sequel, per Entertainment Weekly. A source informed the outlet that his character will be vying for her attention during the course of the movie. Adrian Grenier had played Anne's boyfriend named Nate in the first film 20 years earlier - and has since divided fans, with some labeling him as an unsupportive boyfriend over her journalism career. The Entourage actor previously discussed his role in the first movie while talking to Entertainment Weekly in 2021. 'I didn't see some of the subtleties and the nuance of this character and what it represented in the film until the wisdom of the masses came online and started to push against the character and throw him under the bus, and I got flak. 'All those memes that came out were shocking to me,' he added, referencing to how fans had called Nate 'the villain' of the film. Last month in July, it was first reported that Patrick has been cast to portray Anne's love interest in the sequel, per Entertainment Weekly 'It hadn't occurred to me until I started to really think about it, and perhaps it was because I was as immature as Nate was at the time. And in many ways he's very selfish and self-involved.' Adrian continued, 'It was all about him; he wasn't extending himself to support Andy in her career.' Production for the sequel began in July in NYC - with Meryl Streep also stepping back into the shoes of her character, Miranda Priestly. Other stars that are reprising their roles in the second movie include Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. Simone Ashley, Lucy Liu, Pauline Chalamet, Kenneth Branagh, Tracie Thomas, B.J. Novak and Justin Theroux are other cast members in the project. David Frankel - who directed the first 2006 movie - is returning as director on the sequel as well. The premise: 'Follows Miranda Priestly's struggle against Emily Charlton, her former assistant turned rival executive, as they compete for advertising revenue amidst declining print media while Miranda nears retirement,' per IMDB. By the time the sequel hits theaters next year in May 2026, it would be 20 years after the first movie was released. The Devil Wears Prada was a critical success and raked in $326.7 million in the box office on a budget of around $35-$41 million. It also garnered two Oscar nominations, such as Best Actress for Meryl Streep. Other nods included five BAFTAs and three Golden Globes - with Meryl winning for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. During an interview with WWD, Anne - who is also set to star in The Princess Diaries 3 - opened up about reprising previous roles. 'I was so beautifully cared for on both of those films,' she recalled, while adding that she had been young when making both The Devil Wears Prada and The Princess Diaries. 'I was so guided and looked after and cared for by the communities that made both of those films in particular, each of their directors, Garry Marshall and David Frankel.' She added, 'I'm so excited that now I can do that for other people, that now I have the knowledge and the experience and the confidence to take care of other people on sets in which I'm looked at as a leader.' Anne and Meryl were recently seen reuniting on set of the sequel and were also joined by Stanley Tucci. The Idea Of You actress was spotted running after both Meryl and Stanley as they jumped into an awaiting Mercedes.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘I couldn't get rid of Finchy': Ralph Ineson on The Office – and becoming a Hollywood superstar at 55
How do you portray Galactus, a gigantic, amoral, immortal superbeing who thrives by draining planets of their energy? If you're making a film of any part of Marvel's Fantastic Four journey, your best bet is probably to depict him as a cloud. That's what happened in 2007, and even though fans complained about it a bit, it solved a lot of problems. Matt Shakman, director of the new The Fantastic Four: First Steps, cast Ralph Ineson, who still sounds faintly surprised by the move. 'I've been working for a long time,' he says. His first role was a small part in Spender, the Jimmy Nail vehicle, in 1991, and he's in a similar mould to Nail: tall with a handsome, rough-hewn face, a guy who looks as if he knows how to do guy stuff. 'I've been a jobbing actor for a long time,' he continues, with the same disbelieving, 'how the hell did I wind up in this huge movie?' tone of voice. 'There's no denying it's really nice to have a huge trailer. And it was huge. Bigger than mine and my wife's first flat.' (He married Ali Milner, a radio host, in 2003.) 'Nice trailers, nice cars, and a paycheck. But it's a privilege and an honour to be the first person to bring this character to life. Twelve-year-old me wouldn't have believed some of this shit. I don't have any snobbery about it. I loved it.' Then Ineson describes what it took to make this character, in terms I could already hear, after five minutes, were extremely true to form: stressing the industry and professionalism of everyone on set (including the two people whose job it was to blow cold air into each of his gauntlets between takes) except himself, the dude who just has to show up and try not to sweat. 'They had to shoot me on a white background, with lots of bright light, and I'm wearing this enormous costume, so it was incredibly hot and there was nowhere for the heat to escape. Obviously, Galactus can't sweat. So I had a Formula One pit crew of people around me.' It sounds like a nightmare, I suggest. 'For me, there's something quite masochistic about acting. Sometimes you only really get the good stuff when you're at the edge of something, either mentally, emotionally or physically. It unlocks stuff.' And then, mindful that he has skated way closer to pretension than he'd prefer, 'Occasionally I had to have the physio at my knees, because I'm 55 and falling apart.' His calling, as an actor, has been playing one bad guy after another, but he is one of the most personable people you could ever meet. Ineson grew up in Leeds in the 1970s, when he 'felt as if acting was something that was almost shameful, or maybe that's too strong a word. But it wasn't really something to be proud of, when I was a kid.' His parents were supportive in the sense that they would never miss a show, but nobody thought it was a serious career prospect, and after doing theatre studies at Furness college in Lancaster, he worked as a drama teacher at a sixth-form college in York. He got involved with the York Mystery Plays – a tradition that's been going, on and off, since the mid-14th century: a Bible story told every year, once performed on a roaming cart, then, by the time Ineson did it in 1992, at the York Theatre Royal. All the characters were played by the people of York, except for one professional actor, who that year was Robson Green. 'He was pretty lonely on his own, sat in his hotel. We'd go out for a drink and I ended up sharing a dressing room with him. And he said: 'You're not wedded to being a teacher, are you?' I wasn't, although I did enjoy it, but I hadn't been to drama school, I wasn't classically trained. He said: 'Go home and watch TV tonight, look at the characters you could play.' So I watched a soap, I watched the nine o'clock drama, and there were about five people I thought I could play.' He describes the next phase as a series of lucky strikes: meeting an agent through Green and getting the part in Spender, 'basically because I could ride off-road motorbikes – the character was a professional motocross rider'. Then another agent, more parts, but still 'I don't think I realised I wanted to be an actor until I'd been doing it for 20 years,' he says. 'Shoots were something I really enjoyed, but almost pretended I didn't. Then, I was sitting on a horse on the plains outside Santa Fe, dressed as the man in black, a posse leader' – that was The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a Coen brothers film. 'And I thought: 'This is exactly what I have always wanted to do.' I just didn't realise it until I was in my mid-40s.' But that was 2018, and quite a lot had happened in the years before that. If you feel as if you know Ineson personally, it will be because of The Office, in 2001, where he occasionally breezed in as Finchy, the boorish sales rep whom Ricky Gervais's David Brent hero-worshipped all the more for his proudly offensive humour. Ineson was sent the pilot episode on VHS, 'which is how long ago it was. I remember being really terrified. How brilliant they were, the central four, firing off each other. I was slightly intimidated. My first thought was: 'Shit, can I do this?'' When he first started out, he often felt as if he was on the back foot because he hadn't been to drama school. 'I don't know whether I would have suited it, but it felt like a big thing for the first few years, because that is all young actors talk about.' Slowly, he came to have more regard for his own idiosyncratic apprenticeship: 'For years I've had the chance to work on big productions without a lot of responsibility – mainly getting my horse to stand in the right place, being in that part of the screen, behind the main villain's left shoulder. You learn a lot about acting, doing that.' Anyway, feeling that he had to be on his mettle – which was fair, Gervais, Mackenzie Crook, Martin Freeman and Lucy Davis were explosively good together – he made a fateful decision. 'I thought: 'I'll use my own accent, I'll play Finchy as a Yorkshireman so I don't have to think about anything except keeping up with the rest of them.' That was a big mistake, because it meant that everybody, for at least 10 years, thought that I was Finchy. That I wasn't acting; that was just my personality. So having people thinking you're Chris Finch, looking at you with amusement, but also a bit of disgust, a bit of fear. He's just such a shitter. It's not a nice skin!' It didn't end with regular human interactions, either – 'career-wise, it was a bit of pain. I just got offered wankers, racists, misogynists and homophobes.' Before The Office, he was always having to recount his CV for people in the street – they'd come up and go, 'what have I seen you in?', and he'd have to size them up and figure out whether they remembered him from Goodnight Sweetheart or an episode of The Bill. He remembers thinking it would be nice to have something so major that nobody would have to ask. 'Be careful what you wish for, because then I got Finchy and I couldn't get rid of him for about 20 years. At least Galactus simply exists, he's a cosmic force. He doesn't do it out of malice. You can't really get much worse than Chris Finch.' He remains a big fan of The Office, which I smoke out by getting him to adjudicate between the British and American versions – he didn't watch the US one for ages, because he caught snatches of it and thought: 'No, they're doing it wrong.' Five years ago, his daughter watched the whole thing and he realised, 'it's different, but it is good. Because I have a slightly twisted sense of humour, I prefer the British Office, it's darker. You would actually let Michael Scott [Gervais's US counterpart, played by Steve Carell] look after your 18-year-old daughter, whereas I'm not sure you'd let Ricky Gervais's character look after your 18-year-old daughter. Same with my character, he's a lot darker than Todd Packer, the American version. Whether that makes it better or worse, I don't know. It's nastier underneath, which I kind of like.' The late 00s were taken up at least partly with the Harry Potter movies, in which he played the dark wizard Amycus Carrow. His son was 10 and his daughter was six when he shot Half-Blood Prince in 2008. It was the perfect age, you get the impression he'd have done it just so they could meet Daniel Radcliffe. He also got to hang out with Michael Gambon for days on end. 'He's the best storyteller in the world, ever. Joke-teller, raconteur, everything. He told me this joke that lasted a whole week; I could tell it in 15 seconds. It was one of the best weeks of my life.' Nevertheless, he had no lines at all, 'a supporting artist, basically'. The producers enticed him in with the next two books, in which there's more meat on Carrow's bones. But when they came to make the astronomically long Deathly Hallows, parts one and two, the plot had been very slightly tweaked to remove the pivotal moment when his character spits in Professor McGonagall's face and unleashes hell. 'I did three Harry Potter films without saying a single line.' As the father in The Witch, Robert Eggers's acclaimed, hypnotising horror movie, which won lots of indie film awards, including best director for Eggers at Sundance, Ineson felt that he'd got the first part with its own arc. This was 2015, when he was in his mid-40s, realising he actually was an actor, perhaps relatedly, at around the time the industry realised how good he was. He speaks so highly of his co-star, Kate Dickie – 'she should be a dame, she's that good,' he crescendoes a little surprisingly. But his collaboration with Eggers was intense. Ineson sat at the director's shoulder while the other actors were cast. 'It was a weird experience – it felt terribly unfaithful, as if I was cheating on my profession.' They worked together again on The Northman in 2022, which had a broader canvas visually and emotionally, but had the same feeling of The Witch, a film that had an immense amount of knowledge go into it, only a fraction of which you could pin down. 'I have got no idea how Rob has managed to read so much in his lifetime, it feels as if he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of almost every period in history.' If Ineson was never prepared, post-Office, to give in to being typecast as a wanker, he's pretty comfortable with being a supervillain. 'I think with my size, face and voice, 90% of the time I've been on the bad guy side of the line anyway. I would be fighting a losing battle if I was trying to get myself into romcoms. Some things are beyond the realms of casting.' If The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a turning point, the difference is mainly one of scale. 'Although I've been involved with big films before, I've never played a character that is this important to the film and the franchise,' he says, with an amount of trepidation. It's true – there are other people in the movie (Pedro Pascal! Vanessa Kirby!), but if the villain doesn't work, nothing does. 'So if it doesn't make a profit, it's my fault? Is that what you're saying?', he says, mock petrified. The film is already doing fine at the box office. He should relax.
