amusing myself
From this article about Steve Irwin’s wife and daughter and their madcap US promotional tour:
Earlier, Irwin told reporters she was embarrassed about constant questions about her daughter Bindi’s workload.
“I’ve given Bindi’s schedule a lot of thought,” Irwin said.
Bindi, she pointed out, had been filming all her life — literally. She said her late husband had filmed both the live births of his children.
Live births? As opposed to what? Laying eggs? It doesn’t even make sense if you assume the journalist meant that he filmed them live - because how else can you film a birth - scripted? Before a studio audience on 7 second delay?
January 15th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Well they weren’t born dead!
January 16th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
January 16th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
:-).
January 16th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
:-):-)
January 16th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
:-):-):-)
January 16th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
:-):-):-):-)
January 16th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
:-):-):-):-):-)
January 16th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
It’s starting to look like an erection, which makes a lot of sense.
January 17th, 2007 at 7:21 am
lol… no it was an attempt for a smiley oyramid….saw it on a myspace somewhere. It’s not working though.
January 17th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Is it just me or does anyone else find that there is something (albeit hard to place your finger on) wrong with what’s going on with the Bindi Irwin situation?
Does no-one else feel there is a kind of disturbing Americanistic, over-cutesified aura about the whole thing that does not fit a natural situation?
And has anyone else noticed how impassioned people are in favour of the situation (especially women).. if you question what’s going on, they get really angry!
Her Dad dies, …in order to quicly establish a new media figurehead for the organisation they thrust a primary school age child into his place to ape & mimic everything he did with sickly & extroadinarily contrived & overdone cuteness. Bindi & the Crocmen?
First they say (rightly) Terri Irwin is concerned that the little girl doesn’t grieve properly & seems to be enjoying the limelight a little too much. That i could believe. Then shortly afterwards, they quickly send out an opposite message in PR overdrive with some wistful words from Bindi about “Dad is always with us” etc. clearly designed to pull at the heartstrings of the average Aussie but with words clearly scripted for her by the media machine around her.
And the whole time i’m thinking, um…..why can’t Terri Irwin be the public face of the Zoo until Bindi is 21 & at least give Bindi a chance at a normalish childhood in the meantime? What’s this obsession with having to cutesfy everything & tear jerk everything with the “Daddy’s little brave soldier doing it publicly” thing?
It’s almost like all the adults around her, sections of the australian & american public are projecting their fantasies & unresolved grief onto this child who has no choice. It’s actually a little sick & hypereal.
The media circus & schedule, the overseas trips, the home-schooling & lack of socialisation with same-age peers, not slowing down for one moment to let what has happened catch up with her with assistance from adults. Does anybody not think it’s going to hit her like a sledghammer in her mid-20’s?
Macauley Culkin, Haley Joel Osment & Dakota Fanning must be watching all of this & going “well,.. there goes another one”
The lack of adult consciousness & responsibility here reminds me of what kind of parents JonBenet Ramsay must have had - “child as media doll”.
This is another example of the americanisation of australia, there was a time when this kind of thing would have been shot down rather than passionately defended.
Time will show this was all wrong & should have been stopped. Terri Irwin & Australia Zoo’s Manager should be listening to their critics instead of discounting everything they say.
January 17th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
All good points, but I get distracted by how animatronic she looks.
January 17th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
I’m with you Reve… Bindi’s about the same age as my own children and the whole thing leaves me gob-smacked. She’s allegedly writing a regular column for the Women’s Weekly, for crying out loud… as well as all the TV stuff. She’s just a kid who’s recently lost her dad.. I would have thought it would be in her best interests to aim for a “normalish” childhood and give her some space to develop in her own directions… and just to play… and to chill out… and to hang out with kids her age.
I’d have to say… there are plenty of kids I feel more sorry for… ones with not enough food, ones forced to participate in war, orphans in Africa, children enduring physical and sexual abuse from their parents… in the scheme of things there are worse things than turning a child into a media icon. She seems a nice kid and Terri seems a nice person… but I personally think the whole thing is ill-advised.
January 17th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
I’m glad you guys understand. I thought i was going nuts. Mention anything about it here at work & i get mobbed & disembowelled.
I did notice one thing though, those who protest most loudly against my argument are the same ones i remember loudly affirming Schapelle Corby & her families innocence (puh-lease!), the same people who think Gretel Killeen is great, think Oprah Winfrey is a godess & never miss an ep of Oz Idol or Big Brother.
So, there might be a typology there.
January 17th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I’m glad you guys understand. I thought i was going nuts. Mention anything about it here at work & i get mobbed & disembowelled.
Yes but Reve - you do workl at Australia Zoo - so you shuold expect that reactin!
January 17th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
If you work at Australia Zoo, you can expect to be eaten alive… consider yourself lucky if you’re only mobbed and disembowelled.
January 17th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
And I’m with you too reve (though I’ll skip getting disembowelled), as a mum myself (though my kids are grown now) everything inside me shrieks at the unnaturalness of it all. Yeah, there are much worse things that can happen to a kid, but they’re not usually being put under the spotlight for our “admiration”. kids need space to feel their feelings, to work through things at their own pace, to not be required to perform to order where it involves denial/sublimation of significant emotional trauma. Extreme extroversion is just as unhealthy as extreme introversion, every time I see a picture of Bindi I feel i’m looking at someone who’s going to crash sometime post puberty and spend years in therapy trying to get in touch with the emotional forces that are driving her. let’s hope I’m wrong.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:02 am
http://www.neapolitan500.com/pics/birth.jpg