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| The real star of Total Divas Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Anyways, Total Divas is certainly a television show. The E! reality show format has become such a cliche at this point that it almost becomes surprising when the show revolves around legitimate events. Wrestling is fascinating in the extent that we're told to believe, and yet in the post-kayfabe era, there is another narrative that is suddenly "real." Presumably, that is Total Divas at its whole, the reality of Bellas dating wrestlers, Nattie being a real-life woobie, and Eva Marie existing. Now, for the purpose of charting the show, I'm going to steal from auteur/head bee guy TH and do my Total Divas rankings each week, with why and the like and numbers and stuff.
1. Nattie (Natalya)
This is going to be goofy, but the show also revolves around using the real-life names of the women involved. There's obviously no difference now, but it gets confusing when we get down the list. Anyway, Nattie is naturally the show's ace in terms of being a respectable presence. To steal a thing that CM Punk said about her husband, Nattie is the workhorse who kind of laments that her talent essentially ostracizes her from the action that the rest of the divas are doing.
Of course, Nattie is the show's Woobie in all of this. She is the one Stephanie McMahon goes up to first to say that she won't be on WrestleMania. She is the one proverbially rolling her eyes mentally at helping out the Bellas/Funkadactyls match at WrestleMania. Yet, she is also the one who is a solid rock as the match got cut and shit went south. I'm interested to see where they take her character. Hell, if this tweet from noted late-night drummer/fantastic musician Questlove is any indication, WWE may have struck gold with Nattie's arc of overcoming being the Woobie.
2. Trinity (Naomi)
Trinity plays a purpose that actually didn't serve to make the show as insufferable as I expected. Trinity plays a genius straight (wo)man to Ariane's confusing life. She seems to be in her character from NXT Season 3, who isn't overly charismatic but certainly likable. In a show with a dearth of those type of characters, Trinity is the one who seems especially grounded. She doesn't do much in terms of the show, but characters like her on reality shows are merely meant as the reaction shot. We'll see if there's more to her characterization than that during the show's course.
3. Brie (Brie Bella)
Brie gets the show's most adorable moments when OMG DANIEL BRYAN SHOWS UP. They walk the dog (OMG JOSIE YOU'RE SO ADORABLE YES YES YES) and Bryan generally doesn't have to do anything to push the plot forward. We need to see more of him, but that's coming. With that in mind, Brie doesn't really have a lot to do. She's more or less in most of the show's scenes, but it always feels like Nikki is commanding the setup. I've liked Brie from the moment on NXT with the double date, though, and for some reason, I like her more than Nikki. I'm weird. It's complicated. I also wonder if she is a part of the show's future best moment, when Daniel Bryan says, "You are a grown ass woman."
4. Nikki (Nikki Bella)
Upon reflection, Nikki wasn't nearly as grating to me. Her character is kind of genius, as she does most of the show's dramatic arcs (will her and Cena get married, does she actually think Eva Marie is cool, will she just give sorority girl teasing to the others) and kind of exposes that maybe the Bellas are more in mainstream culture than you'd expect. Maybe I feel bad, though, because Nikki is part of the show's more problematic discussion points. I tweeted back and forth with Ari Amaru about the Nikki/Cena relationship in terms of time spent dating and the like to find that quite a few people put the annoying gold digger tag on Nikki. And, I mean, term's problematic. Just because Cena gave her a Range Rover doesn't mean shaming her for it really does us any good. I can snark, but I'm not going to snark that.
5. Jojo
There's really nothing to say about Jojo yet, as in the service of attempting to explain these women to a non-wrestling audience, they basically forgot that Jojo was even around. She was there to react to the charisma vacuum of Eva Marie and nod. We'll presumably learn more about her character in the next few weeks. Maybe it'll be interesting, too.
6. Ariane (Cameron)
In the few times Ariane spoke on television after Tough Enough, she sounded like a 30s gangster cartoon. "That cannot be a real person's voice!" I exclaimed to no one in particular. It is her real voice. Ariane is just generally an annoying character, from the way she describes Trinity essentially introducing her as "She's got a big ass, woop woop!" (not a real quote) to the dramatics with her relationship with, umm, Vincent. There's not really much more to go on as Total Divas hasn't altered my opinion of her in the slightest.
7. Eva Marie
If there is one worrisome trend in WWE, it is the idea of the proliferation of characters based solely on looks with no other particularly insightful traits. I tend to be on the "you're overrating how much WWE gives a crap about good looking people" front, but I also don't know how to explain Eva Marie. As anyone who saw last week's Raw can attest, at present her promo and acting ability are both equally terrible. The five minute long scene of Eva Marie debating her hair color change and then opting for "Rihanna red" (i.e. fruit punch colored hair) was probably the most glaringly unwatchable segment of the show. She's like a less interesting Candice Michelle. Take from that what you will.
Oh, before I go, I thought about a future piece on the ethics of if they cut the divas match exclusively to make drama for the show. I'm not sure yet, though. So, Total Divas is certainly watchable. I actually wouldn't mind watching it for the site on a permanent basis (well, as permanent as this summer run is). Expect more and expect a miracle to get Eva Marie above 7th on that chart.