Word: johnson
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...Johnson, who turns 30 on May 2, is a third-generation wrestler and the son of an African-American father and a Samoan mother. His life has not always been so peachy, and in talking about it, he seems to let down his guard. He admits that only six years ago he'd sunk to a low point. His attempt to make it in the NFL had fizzled and he was living on a "p___-stained mattress" in Alberta, Canada. He says that even now he has few real friends on the WWF circuit. "I like doing things by myself...
...sitting there thinking to myself, this Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, whoever he is--he's a really decent guy, introspective, with a true sense of proportion about what's meaningful in life. Plus, he makes you feel as if he's really, really confiding...
Then, a week after the lunch, I'm trawling magazines for stories about The Scorpion King, and I discover verbatim recapitulations of almost every spontaneous aside and admission that I had thought Johnson made to me and me only. This guy is good. From the "p___-stained mattress" to his favorite doughnuts--glazed, chocolate-chocolate frosted, blueberry--it's all there...
...crushed. But then I realize something. Maybe Dwayne Johnson is as meticulously written and choreographed a character as The Rock. And that for the duration of my lunch with him, I'd been written into the Dwayne Johnson story line. It was all "a work"--wrestling jargon for a scripted bout...
Parsing the iconography of The Rock/Dwayne Johnson--a guy who's as comfortable at Make-a-Wish Foundation fund raisers as he is on the Howard Stern Show--is a task worthy of a French semiotician. He represents the postmillennial celebrity--a simulated character overlaying other simulated characters. This is The Rock's secret and perhaps ultimate persona: the Onion. Let others peel away the skin to find another skin beneath. Just ensure that every layer is as tasty as the one before and America will cry for more...