Up at 5:30 in the morning? Watching television? NBC, maybe? You, like me, may have witnessed the anchor of Early Today scoffing in disbelief at Mickey Rourke’s proposed match at Wrestlemania. The upshot being that Rourke, who’s chops have been pretty roundly recognized in his comeback movie, The Wrestler, is risking his Oscar win by participating in actual professional wrestling. The anchor goes on to say, “You remember Roddy Piper? THAT’S the guy Rourke is getting his career advice from. Remember him? From the old WWF?”

Basically more classist bullshit from the anti-wrestling crowd, but this I actually find a little astounding. As an actor, you will be praised for training with professional wrestlers, for learning how to wrestle, for getting into the head of a wrestler, for sculpting your physicality in order to more convincingly appear to be a wrestler, if and only if you ARE ONLY PLAYING A WRESTLER. Actually wrestle (and what, precisely, is the difference between “pretending” to wrestle and actually wrestling?), and you’ve blown your shot to get the big gold statue.

I guess I’m most bewildered by how willing people are to like the things they’ve been given permission to like, and to dislike the things for which permission hasn’t been granted. It is okay for upper-middle to upper-class individuals to like an independent film about a professional wrestler, because they have been told that it is smart and hip to like independent films, especially if they are nominated for Oscars. It is not okay to like professional wrestling, because that is a form of entertainment solely patronized by poor, stupid people. And even though the independent film is ABOUT professional wrestling, indeed contains several sequences in which pro wrestling factor in big ways, and while watching and (presumably) enjoying it, they were at least in part watching and enjoying pro wrestling, that disconnect simply doesn’t occur to them. You are allowed to like this because it is marketed to you. You are not allowed to like this, because it is marketed to someone else.

P.S. Rowdy Roddy Piper will destroy you, NBC. Just when you think you’ve got the answers, he changes the questions.

See that right there? Yeah. He's still got it.