Steve Irwin: national hero
Steve Irwin died today after being stabbed in the chest by a stingray.
The news started off reasonable size with a top of the page article on smh.com.au, but by the time I was going home from work the story had stretched to a banner image of Steve and a goanna across most of the page, and now there's 3 articles and video, photos, a pop-up location map, and a link to "Your Say: Vale Steve Irwin".
Or not.
The last time I remember such a huge spread across the SMH site was September 11.
So I guess Steve passing is an important event. Or not.
The news started off reasonable size with a top of the page article on smh.com.au, but by the time I was going home from work the story had stretched to a banner image of Steve and a goanna across most of the page, and now there's 3 articles and video, photos, a pop-up location map, and a link to "Your Say: Vale Steve Irwin".
Or not.
The last time I remember such a huge spread across the SMH site was September 11.
So I guess Steve passing is an important event. Or not.
posted by lynn at 8:24 pm
6 Comments:
On hearing the news I recalled Steve Irwin was kind of popular here in the UK and US. Sure enough, I had a quick look at the New York Times and his death was the third leading story. On BBC news last night it was story number 2, and google news had it as their top story today. Even the Guardian has come onboard and interviewed a bunch of Australians at some Oz theme pub in London - and got Germaine Greer to pen an article. It was when I read comparisons were being made with the death of Di I started to question my own knowledge of pop culture. Until now I though I was kind of on the ball - maybe not.
Some bloke off the telly who tries to sell us cars was injured in a high speed crash the other day. Similar hullabaloo.
There's been a shift in the zeitgeist when collective grief for minor celebs rates more pages of newsprint than the random bombing of small countries.
Or not.
Dropped in to say your blog's back on my new blogroll, thanks Lynn, I might not say much, but I do read.
Actually Matt told me an interesting story last night about a list of the top 10 Australians we love to hate which was going to be a tv special on the ABC planned prior to Steve Irwin's death, however it got canned and the suspicion is that this was due to Steve Irwin featuring in the list!
Whoops published before I was finished!
It is kinda annoying that someone suddenly can become some kind of national hero after dying when prior to that in his home country he was found quite annoying by a lot of people.
Further with what Cade was saying...
Despite what everyone says now, before his death Steve Irwin was seen as a joke in this country - a caricature fooling around with our wildlife for the pleasure of ignorant foreigners. He was dragged out for George Bush Jnrs visit, presumably because Mr Dundee was unavailable. Irwin's shows weren't shown on Australian tv because the networks knew nobody here would take them seriously. And remember the baby-dangling incident? While alive, Steve was tolerated rather than beloved.
But he died a bizarre and too early death, leaving a grieving young wife & family, none of them camera-shy. The media had lots of material to work with. So everything became sentimentalised. And somehow the fuss didn't seem sufficient if he was just a good dad and a colourful character, so he had to be reinvented as a hero, an icon, somebody we loved all along, truly we did, cross our hearts. We used to be embarrassed that he was so well known overseas, but now it became a virtue - he was an Aussie star, just like Russ & Nicole!
All a little strange...
The really horrible thing about this is that people that are valued members of the Australian community, people who've done a lot for Australian culture, just get forgotten.
The other night Tim and I were listening to a Go-Between's CD, the one that Grant McLennan and Robert Forster put out a couple of years ago. And I said to Tim, something like, "Well we won't be hearing that again." and he said "Why? What do you mean?" and I said "Well, there's only Robert Forster left, GW is dead."
And Tim didn't know about it. I said "But I put it in my blog." and Tim said "Well I don't read your blog." and I suppose that I was upset about it and didn't say much.
But I've just seen that there's a memorial concert in Brisbane on the 30th, I should go!
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