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January 07, 2004
I've watched this story unfold over the last few days. It has depth.
Croc hunter Steve Irwin fed a four-metre crocodile with one hand while clutching his one-month-old son Bob during a show at his Australia Zoo reptile park on the Sunshine Coast.
Bill Leak
Australia Zoo is about tourism, entertainment and money. Irwin is the new face of the old bush hero--the new Crocodile Dundee who sells Australiana for international tourism. So he becomes an icon; a part of the interantional face of Australia.
He is also a part of the culture industry in the form of the Discovery Channel.
Irwin is part of the conservative face of Australia--the bush tradition plus the free market. That is why he was invited to the exclusive barbecue hosted by John Howard for President Bush, when the imperial presidency was here last year.
My suggestion? Let's go beyond Leak. Let's free the animals.
Update
Why not a fully mechanized and digitalized Australia Zoo as a showcase of Aussie ingenuity?
Why not Australia Zoo as a Disney-style theme park selling wilderness to tourists to showcase the Aussie entrepreneurial spirit? Or is that what it is now?
We could be even more adventeurous with the popular culture/show biz side of things. Why not attach a cultural studies course to Irwin's Australia Zoo that critiques the pioneer experience, and construction of, wildness? This course could be subsidised by the Australian tourism industry as a giving back to society (mutual obligation) for all the government handouts it currently receives.
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Bill Leak is a predictable dickhead. I thought cartoonists were supposed to be funny.