DianaBarbed comments for Irwin
September 8th 2006 09:59
Hello and welcome. This is a space where any Australian issues in the British media are given a proper mulling over. No subject is spared, be it politics, sport, the arts, entertainment, whatever. I guess the inspiration behind it is Alistair Cooke’s missives from America for various British newspapers and radio. Except this humble blog will have one or two less readers and be less, well, good.
It’s a shame to begin with the sad story of Steve Irwin. Germaine Greer’s piece in The Guardian was pitched on the front page with the quote ‘the animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin’. The article itself is pretty harsh (accompanied by a wooden piece from Jono Coleman celebrating Irwin), remarking that ‘there was not an animal he was not prepared to manhandle. Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress’ and that his ‘self delusion is what it takes to be a “real Aussie larrikin.”’
Harassing wildlife aside, Irwin’s biggest success was to make the UK love Australians again. The simple, loud, good-natured, no-nonsense bloke is all the UK wants from its ex-colony. Especially when what she’s got in recent years has been the snarling brattyness of Lleyton Hewitt, thatgrotesque Machiavellian Lynton Crosby and now Darrell Hair. He may have been an anachronism that set back twenty years Australia’s mission to banish its stereotypes, but at least Steve Irwin gave us what we wanted over here.
It’s a shame to begin with the sad story of Steve Irwin. Germaine Greer’s piece in The Guardian was pitched on the front page with the quote ‘the animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin’. The article itself is pretty harsh (accompanied by a wooden piece from Jono Coleman celebrating Irwin), remarking that ‘there was not an animal he was not prepared to manhandle. Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress’ and that his ‘self delusion is what it takes to be a “real Aussie larrikin.”’
Harassing wildlife aside, Irwin’s biggest success was to make the UK love Australians again. The simple, loud, good-natured, no-nonsense bloke is all the UK wants from its ex-colony. Especially when what she’s got in recent years has been the snarling brattyness of Lleyton Hewitt, thatgrotesque Machiavellian Lynton Crosby and now Darrell Hair. He may have been an anachronism that set back twenty years Australia’s mission to banish its stereotypes, but at least Steve Irwin gave us what we wanted over here.
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Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Even if every animal he brandished behind a camera was in distress it was justified, sure it was in distress for what? 5 minutes maybe? But a lot of people learned about those animals in those 5 minutes of so-called distress...