Steve Irwin RIP
This blog has noted the deaths of two people in its life: Pope John Paul II and poet Robert Creeley. Now, Steve Irwin. It is not just the fact that my ladyfriend intends (or intended) to go snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef next weekend. It is not just that on my recent cost free trip to Australia I was greeted by a video of Steve Irwin, telling me about the importance of quarantine (No foreign cheese or cultures could be brought into his home country). I did not watch Animal Planet or his show the Crocodile Hunter. Though I did know he used a good portion of his television money to buy land to preserve wildlife. I do not even have 1/100th of his enthusiasm for "wildlife". Who didn't joke to themselves that Steve Irwin would die a painful death because of this enthusiasm? At the same time, who thought it would actually happen? The jokes were only funny because Steve Irwin's character seemed stupid and charmed enough to be invincible. I suppose this was deliberate. I wasn't particularly interested in Steve Irwin, but I wanted to believe in Steve Irwin.
"Crikey, mate. You're far safer dealing with crocodiles and western diamondback rattlesnakes than the executives and the producers and all those sharks in the big MGM building!" - Steve Irwin
Go with God, mate.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Oddities, Culture
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''I am shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden, untimely and freakish death,'' Australian Prime Minister John Howard said. ''It's a huge loss to Australia.''
Reader Comments (5)
Steve Irwin is an interesting 'culture wars' figure in Australia in some ways. There is a long running divide here between what can be thought of as traditional Australians and new internationalists. That categorisation is not quite correct but anyhow Australian sociologist Katherine Betts has done a good job in mapping out the split in her paper 'The Great Divide' discussed here http://www.sydneyline.com/Multiculturalism%20sociology%20of%20shame.htm"
Understanding this cultural fault line is key to understanding Australian politics over the past dozen years or so, there is some affinity to the red state / blue state divide in the US however this split is for the most part an all secularists affair being devoid of the religious angle found in Red vs Blue.
One side of the divide has embraced internationalism, celebrates the cosmopolitan nature of Australia's two biggest cities, would love Australia and Australians to be less like Australia and Australians, and more or less thinks the rest of the country are as thick as two bricks, and like to lump all Australia's historical mistakes on those less enlightened than themselves. The other side largely ignores the first which is, of course, the ultimate insult. I think I have given a fair and balanced interpretation.
Anyhow the internationalists are embarassed by people like Steve Irwin or Paul Hogan and to make the pain worse the international celebrity status of Irwin and Hogan only adds insult to injury. You can feel the internationalists' pain in all of it's glory in this piece by Australian expatriate feminist Germaine Greer http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,1865124,00.html.
Exactly what her contributions are to wildlife education or conservation are, are unknown. Ms Greer has in the past threatened not to return to Australia until major aboriginal land reforms were implemented. Myself, I suspect the prospect of her return to the bosum of a grateful nation have delays the reforms.
http://www.sydneyline.com/Multiculturalism%20sociology%20of%20shame.htm