WWF: Looking for Talented Women, Really!

A recent Thursday evening...

As I recline in my Lazy Boy for an evening of television, I am torn. So much quality programming, so little time. I settle on Smackdown!, the "sports entertainment" program produced for UPN by the World Wrestling Federation.

After an uneventful opening segment, I am wowed by a word from our sponsors. Kudos to the WWF for reaching out to female viewers with an inspirational, girl-centered anti-drug ad -- and to Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey for delivering this message to a mostly male audience.

The ad's theme is soccer. We see young girls giving it their all on a muddy field and the U.S. Women's Team pursuing, then celebrating, a World Cup championship. Standing out among the white-clad whoopers is famed Brandi Chastain, looking buff in her black Nike bra. You go, girl!

As these images roll on one half of the screen, a procession of women and girls on the other half speak eloquently to their sisters:

Chastain: "There's never been a better time to be a girl -- to be brilliant, fierce."

An Olympic teammate: "To start something."

Girl #1: "There's never been a better time to be a girl."

Girl #2: "Not the 1950s."

Girl #3: "Not the Middle Ages."

Girl #4: "The Victorian Era definitely stunk."

Tiffeny Milbrett (soccer Olympian): "There's never been a better time to be a girl."

Another teammate: "To take barriers and smash them to pieces."

Girl #5: "There's never been a better time to be a girl."

Chastain: "There's never been a better time to be what you are: a force to be reckoned with: a girl."

Girl #6: "There's never been a better time not to use drugs."

Chastain: "Don't blow it."

Unspoken message displayed on screen: "Opportunity: the anti-drug."

They couldn't be more right. Today, opportunities for girls and women abound -- nowhere more so than in the WWF, where women are doing things, inside the ring and out, that the Fabulous Moolah and other bygone greats could scarcely imagine.

Consider Mandy and Victoria, two talented young actresses who broke into the WWF playing no-name "ho's" in the Godfather's stable. The Godfather, incidentally, found the Lord this summer and is now the "Goodfather." Before being saved, however, he'd lead a procession of ho's into the ring, grab the mike and call out to his fans, "Have you been busy pimpin' ho's?" Judging from their enthusiastic response each week, they had.

Dumped by the born-again Goodfather, Mandy and Victoria launched a grassroots "Save the Ho's" campaign and hitched their stars to the ample frame of Rikishi, the most agile (and cellulitic) 423-pounder ever to lace on a corset and administer the "stinkface" to a vanquished foe. Tonight they are in his corner, looking positively ho-ish in white boots and cheeky hot pants. Whenever Rikishi wins, he and the girls dance. Tonight they dance.

The thrill may be gone for B. B. King, but not Jerry "the King" -- Lawler, that is. The former nemesis of Andy Kaufman, now a WWF commentator and part-time wrestler, is smitten with Mandy (or is it Victoria?). I hope love blooms, for they seem so right for each other -- she, the beautiful young actress; he, the has-been with the high-pitched scream and badly scarred forehead.

There's no glass ceiling at the WWF. Just ask sassy Trish Stratus, who has vaulted into upper management and currently directs the tag-team fortunes of "T & A," two personality-deficient giants named Test and Albert.

Tonight Trish needs a third for a six-man brawl. The backstage camera eavesdrops as she approaches Kane. He plays hard to get. "Your mammary glands don't impress me," says Cain. Trish looks confused. She probes her neck with her index fingers, searching for the elusive glands. Darn it, she can't find them. Later in the show the King will croon, a la Bob Hope, "Thanks, for the mammaries."