Again, We Play The Art Vs. Artist Game

Hero. Scoundrel. Hulk Hogan Was All Of That. A Neutral Fan's Perspective.

When the news broke that Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea had passed away on July 24th, 2025 due to a cardiac event, my phone was flooded with texts and DMs. Unlike most of my friends and colleagues in my circle, I had never wavered from my professional wrestling fandom. And so when something from the world of wrestling like this happens, I’m forced into almost an ambassador role in offering my take on things. I say this not to make today’s post “about me,” but I wanted to underscore where I’m coming from. You see, as a wrestling fan, I grew up during an unusual era. I was too young to witness the classic “Hulkamania” period that had a vice grip on the American zeitgeist in the 1980s. And while Hogan was one of the first wrestlers I would hear about, when I started following WWE (then WWF) in 1993, Hogan had already moved on to a different employer. So I was never bound by nostalgia for the man. In fact, I associate Hogan with his “Thunder in Paradise” movies and TV shows more than grappling, if you can believe it.

If you’ve never seen Thunder in Paradise, it basically answered the question, “What if KITT from ‘Knight Rider’ was a boat?” And that wasn’t even the wildest idea in 1990s TV syndication, either. If you liked talking vehicles, animals, and robots, 90s TV was for you!

Hulk Hogan was a source of inspiration for millions of people. He was a live-action superhero. He told people to eat vitamins and say prayers. He had his own cartoon (which we actually covered on this here blog). He was also a rude individual, a proven racist, and a marketing shill for products bearing his name. His last WWE appearance was to a promotional stunt to advertise his lager named…get this…Real American Beer. And this was ten years AFTER he had said he quit drinking after finding the Lord. But alas,

And so, if you only knew Hulk Hogan in passing, you’d be a bit confused at some of the " ‘eulogies’ you’d find on the Internet today. It's a cavalcade of “Loved Hogan. Hated Terry.” Or, “Hulk was a hero, regardless of his politics.”

Oh right, the politics.

Hogan as it were, after teasing running for President for DECADES because everyone in Washington “couldn’t be trusted,” campaigned for Donald Trump. Twice.

And I’m not even going to go into the alleged backstage politicking in the world of wrestling, here today.

What happens is that we have the same “Can you separate the art from the artist?” debates we do when someone who does something well creatively, ends up having a dubious personal track record. Sometimes you can separate the two, sometimes it’s a challenge. I honestly never believed actor Jaleel White was Steve Urkel, nor Sonic the Hedgehog, for example so his separation is easy. On the other hand, when you’re associated with traits and actions that can be seen as…less than virtuous, you simply cannot.

I think I had mentioned this story before, but there’s a really foul movie that came out in 1915 called “The Birth of a Nation”. There’s a long and drawn-out story there, but the TLDR is that this film and the novel it was based on, while “technically brilliant,” had rather perverse depictions of African-Americans as “villains” that needed to be defeated by proud, American white men. (Ironic, because most of the “black” people in that movie were other white people in blackface, but that’s another issue entirely.) In turn, the film indirectly led to interest in resurrecting the Ku Klux Klan in the United States. When I got admitted into grad school, my University hung a The Birth of a Nation poster on the wall, because of its “cinematic achievements,” but to me, the damage was done. While I currently hold a Master's Degree from that school, (and if there was eventually a grassroots effort to remove that poster) I learned a very important life lesson there outside of the classroom:

You can try to separate the art from the artist all you want, but without context, it is impossible.

Hulk Hogan WAS Terry Bollea. Terry Bollea WAS Hulk Hogan. There was no attempt to draw a line between the two. And while academically I know that wrestling as we know it doesn’t exist with Hulk Hogan—and that’s a crowning achievement—I’m under no obligation to lionize the man either. Unless he…you know, really did talk to boats named “Thunder.”

Look, you can like who you like and hate who you hate. But from my eyes, I saw someone who lauded himself as an “American Hero” cheat to get ahead at his job, got caught with his pants down, got recorded dropping more N-bombs than Tupac, lie about being sober, bared false witness, and went into a political arena AS the same fictional character I’m supposed to ‘separate’ the man from.

No thanks from my end, but I’m not going to rain on your parade either. I will say however, Real American Beer has gotten some terrible reviews.