Breaking Kayfabe: Pro Wrestling, Masculine Performativity and Narrativity

In professional wrestling, kayfabe, is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true”. My research focuses on the pro wrestling concept of kayfabe and explore its application in post-truth discourses of identity. My creative work narrativizes my experiences as a pro wrestler and functions as a dramaturgical study of pro wrestling, a metafiction of my own identity narrative and reveals the autobiographical pact to be itself a form of kayfabe. My presentation will situate my research within narrative theories of identity, counter-essentialist identity politics and theories of gender performativity, with readings, footage of my matches, discussion and practical advice and exercises for writers of autofiction at any stage.