Ronda Rousey and the ironic celebration of ‘keeping it real’
In a recent blog exclusive for MMAWeekly, TUF 18 cast member and Team Rousey standout Peggy Morgan made a case…
In a recent blog exclusive for MMAWeekly, TUF 18 cast member and Team Rousey standout Peggy Morgan made a case for Ronda Rousey, based on the argument that ‘Rowdy’ is real. The idea is that a tiresome percentage of people in society are insincere in their pleasant words and deed, and that it is refreshing when someone lets it all hang out, as it were.
Morgan offers an example of Rousey being real.
“We’re chilling in the Team Rousey locker room before practice and Miesha walks past and calls out in a sing-song voice, ‘Good morning guys!’ And without missing a beat, Ronda replies in the same tone, ‘Why don’t you go f— yourself?’
“Some of you probably think Ronda is bat crap crazy. Okay, maybe Ronda is bat crap crazy. But I genuinely like her, and here’s why: she doesn’t bother trying to pretend like she isn’t completely insane. In fact, she doesn’t bother trying to pretend anything at all.
“As we’ve already seen, if Ronda feels like kicking a hole in the door, she’s gonna kick a hole in the door. If she feels like crying, she’s gonna cry. If she feels like telling you you’re a miserable bitch faced —-, she’s gonna do that, too. On more than one occasion, I heard Ronda say, I’d rather be real mean than fake nice. And after being around her nearly every day for six weeks, I can say this is absolutely true. Ronda might be a crazy bitch, but she’s a real crazy bitch.”
There is no question, as has been the case since time immemorial, that the public face of most celebrites is remarkably scrubbed, not at all real, and in aggregate is indeed tiresome. The question though, is whether the cure is anti-social celebrity behavior. An obvious cure is paying less attention to the private lives of public persons.
In this context, Fowlkes offers a more thoughful take on Ronda Rousey, and the phenomenon of ‘keeping it real.’
Imagine if Rousey wasn’t famous, wasn’t a world champion, wasn’t really good at fighting but was instead just your roommate who worked at Starbucks. If she was doing this stuff in your house instead of on your TV, you probably wouldn’t think much of her I’d-rather-be-real-mean-than-fake-nice explanation. You’d probably point out that much of what we regard as civility or common courtesy or “fake nice” is really the act of restraining our natural impulses, which we generally expect from one another.
It doesn’t make you fake to have a thought and keep it yourself, just like it doesn’t make you a phony to feel like kicking a hole in somebody else’s stuff without actually doing it. Maybe it also doesn’t make you much fun to watch on TV. Which, if we’re being honest, is what we’re actually talking about here. That’s the irony of it.
We tell ourselves we want something real, but we’ll settle for stuff you couldn’t really do in the really real world. At least as long as it’s entertaining.