RIP Steve Irwin you bloody legend.

Ok this might be a bit lengthy, but I just wanted to post my thoughts on this I'm wondering what some of the other site-attendees made of Germaine Greer's response to Steven Irwin's death: i.e. her initial comments that 'the animal kingdom has finally taken its revenge on Steve Irwin', followed by her numerous further statements during the week that Irwin was an embarrassment to Australians, that he was a cruel exploiter of animals for profit, and that it was embarrassing having english media refer to Irwin's death as Australia's 'Princess Di moment'. The obvious criticism of Greer is the one taken by most of the media - that her comments have been hurtful and unsensitive to Mr Irwin's family. However, this is really only a criticism of the TIMING of her comments and not the substance. Mr Irwin was a public figure by choice and profession, and if it is fair for him to receive praise and applause in death by reason of his public profile, then it is surely also fair for him to receive criticism under those same circumstances. On the other hand that criticism would have lost none of its cultural relevance if it was made a few months later, but would likely be judged less insensitive. However, that by itself would simply place the comments as 'insensitive but accurate', which of course is exactly what Greer was aiming for. As to the CONTENT of her comments (lets just imagine that Greer made her comments 50 years after Irwin's death and put aside the question of whether her comments came too soon, or whether they were insensitive etc), I think they in themselves are worth a look at. The least interesting of her comments is also the most justified - that Irwin exploited animals and isn't the environmental activist that media are portraying him to be. This is nothing more than a continuation of the criticism that many made of Irwin throughout his career, and whilst the criticism is well-founded I don't think Greer's comments actually added anything worthwhile to it. Especially at a time when several of Irwin's greatest opponents (conservationists and biological scientists with much greater credibility than Ms Greer when it comes to commenting on such issues) chose to lay aside their criticism for the time being and instead recognise that whilst they strongly disagreed with Irwin's means there was no doubting that his intentions were good and that he genuinely loved nature. I think that Greer was so focussed on taking the cheapshot at Irwin, that she overlooked a far more salient point: the fact that the media organisations trying to reinvent history by falsely portraying Irwin as some kind of animal rights activist are the SAME media organisations that profit from Irwin's television show and that have a financial interest in protecting the value of re-runs of that show. Greer could well have had something interesting to say if she wanted to use the media coverage of Irwin's death as an example of capitalist interests distorting public perceptions of reality. Unfortunately Greer chose to attack the dead target rather than the live ones. The thing which I found interesting, and most disagreeable, about Greer's comments was the notion that we should all be embarrassed by Irwin. This strikes me as a watermark by which we can measure how far Australia has grown since Greer's generation. There's a good reason why most Australians heroised rather than were embarassed by Steve Irwin - because no-one in their right mind would think Irwin to be in any way typical of modern Australian life. Greer on the other hand seems to be fighting yesterday's battle against the long-dead australian self-image as being all about illiterate outback existancce. She overlooks the fact that the reason why we can watch Irwin without embarassment is that Australians NOW (unlike those of her generation) are comfortable in their levels of artistic and intellectual endeavour, and that the Irwin's of the television world are consequently no threat to our self-image. Instead we can laud them as a image of a fictional previous Australia, that we know never really existed (and are glad for it) but is enjoyable and entertaining nonetheless. Actor, martial artist and soon-to-be Philosophy post-grad student. Making myself less employable one step at a time:-)