Thursday, September 07, 2006
Birmingham on Greer on Irwin
I didn't feel compelled to write on Steve Irwin's passing on Monday. He died doing something he loved, which to me seems a better way to go than sitting in a home someplace barely able to remember your name or your friends & family, let alone your glory days doing what you loved. What more was there to say besides that and an expression of sympathy for his family both for their loss and the media attention they'd no doubt rahter go without under such circumstances? Maybe a quip along the lines of 'live by the camera, die by the camera', but that'd be harsh.
I started drafting something in my head a day or so later about how it looked like Irwin's death was turning out to be Australia's "where were you when you heard the news?" moment. Something about his access to that Gold Class part of the afterlife reserved for those so well regarded across so many countries & wide demographics and with a death so unusual that they become major world media events. Something that remarked on the number of articles Google News had found and quipped about the cultural cringe in making such a remark. Didn't get around to finishing it.
I'd heard that Germaine Greer had had a go at Irwin, but didn't feel compelled to read her rant nor comment on it. But I sure as hell wanted to direct you to the rebuttal from John Birmingham in today's Australian that made me spit coffee:
For the childless former Celebrity Big Brother contestant, the distress of Irwin's family was nothing when measured against the rightful vengeance of the animal world. Less a harridan than a poorly sketched caricature of a harridan, she would be easy to dismiss as some unwashed and wretched bag lady who had somehow stumbled on to the opinion pages of The Guardian, were it not for the fact this feral hag does actually speak for a significant minority.Gold.
Although, to be fair, she probably wouldn't like to think of herself as having anything to do with those three guys at the breakfast buffet, as they were grown men rather than hairless boys, and thus deserving only of her contempt rather than any creepy sexual consideration.
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Although I'd be the first to shout about how G.G. has gone batty on occasion in recent years, in her younger days she actually did write one of the world's seminal tracts of second wave feminism.
On the other hand, all John Birmingham has to show for his efforts is one of the seminal tracts on being an unwashed share-house skank.
Tell me again who is the "unwashed and wretched" and "feral" one?
You should check out Birmingham's Off One's Tits.
Regardless of what GG did in the past, don't you get the impression that she's just bitter/jealous that Irwin's getting the reaction / attention that she thinks/thought she deserved for said seminal tract, but never will?
When Greer clocks out she'll get one front page and a weekend feature in each paper; maybe a few flowers, a card or two, no pilgrimages, no jokes.
You think it's jealousy? I suspect that it wouldn't cross the mind of someone like Greer who has made a deliberate work of being an iconoclast and challenging to deep seated social orthodoxies to be hailed and sainted by the meathead Australian media like an Irwin or a Brockie.
Worst of all, she's an unabashed intellectual type, who thinks she's too good to live in 'straya, and a woman to boot. Bah - page 16 at best.