Spring Break
Crikey!
Issue date: 4/23/07 Section: Opinion
"Crikey!" A two-syllable exclamation heard 'round the world. A shout. A catchword. A play on itself. A good-humored elbow in the ribs to anyone Australian. Whatever your chosen interpretation of Steve Irwin's chosen chant, "Crikey!" has become an ubiquitous element of American culture, a sound that immediately puts us into the shoes of an (in)famous "Crocodile Hunter" paddling through the basin of public consciousness. Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter. It would be quite something to put on a business card, wouldn't it? And never "Steve": too plain, too suburban. But never just "Irwin", either: too stuffy, too executive. Steve Irwin was too energetic, too excitable, too peppy to entail a business card, anyway: he was a kid at heart.
And it was his heart that killed him. Steve Irwin has always bounced to the place most of us would never even consider venturing: public embarrassment. Even a month after his death, the website of The Discovery Channel, where Steve Irwin's "The Crocodile Hunter" show has broadcasted since 1996, still shows Irwin as giddy as ever. Again and again, in photos with his face as large as a nickel and his smile as large as a penny, Steve Irwin continues the cartoon of himself. Online, he still gasps at crocodiles, a fake sort of fear that mimics an angry art student mocking "The Scream": hands held to cheeks, a histrionic, feminine wail that we can all roll our eyes at. We can imagine Steve Irwin opening his jaw in a photo shoot, live croc between his arms, sucking in the air of "saving face" and refusing to smile for the camera. Irwin creates and re-creates a scene of medias res for us every time we see such a picture, even if he, in physical reality, is long gone.
But his death had an air of melodrama, as well. In an eerie prelude, Contact Music.com reported him saying, "My number one rule is to keep that camera rolling. Even if it's shaky or slightly out of focus, I don't give a rip. Even if a big old alligator is chewing me up I want to go down and go, "Crikey!" just before I die. That would be the ultimate for me." But we don't know if Steve Irwin said "Crikey!" right before his death. The Queensland Police won't allow the tape to be released, report Ian Gerard and Tony Koch in The Australian. Calling it a "Freak Death" in the headline, Gerard and Koch's voices speak for many, especially in Irwin's native Australia. The details of Irwin's demise were frightfully graphic, even sordid, in certain reports. But each had a mythic quality about it, a martyr effect, a shining star flickering out. In the same article, "lifelong friend" John Stainton recollects how Irwin pulled the stingray's barb right from his own heart, an Arthur executing the reverse Excalibur. Even at the very end, Steve Irwin was, literally, larger than life.
And it was his heart that killed him. Steve Irwin has always bounced to the place most of us would never even consider venturing: public embarrassment. Even a month after his death, the website of The Discovery Channel, where Steve Irwin's "The Crocodile Hunter" show has broadcasted since 1996, still shows Irwin as giddy as ever. Again and again, in photos with his face as large as a nickel and his smile as large as a penny, Steve Irwin continues the cartoon of himself. Online, he still gasps at crocodiles, a fake sort of fear that mimics an angry art student mocking "The Scream": hands held to cheeks, a histrionic, feminine wail that we can all roll our eyes at. We can imagine Steve Irwin opening his jaw in a photo shoot, live croc between his arms, sucking in the air of "saving face" and refusing to smile for the camera. Irwin creates and re-creates a scene of medias res for us every time we see such a picture, even if he, in physical reality, is long gone.
But his death had an air of melodrama, as well. In an eerie prelude, Contact Music.com reported him saying, "My number one rule is to keep that camera rolling. Even if it's shaky or slightly out of focus, I don't give a rip. Even if a big old alligator is chewing me up I want to go down and go, "Crikey!" just before I die. That would be the ultimate for me." But we don't know if Steve Irwin said "Crikey!" right before his death. The Queensland Police won't allow the tape to be released, report Ian Gerard and Tony Koch in The Australian. Calling it a "Freak Death" in the headline, Gerard and Koch's voices speak for many, especially in Irwin's native Australia. The details of Irwin's demise were frightfully graphic, even sordid, in certain reports. But each had a mythic quality about it, a martyr effect, a shining star flickering out. In the same article, "lifelong friend" John Stainton recollects how Irwin pulled the stingray's barb right from his own heart, an Arthur executing the reverse Excalibur. Even at the very end, Steve Irwin was, literally, larger than life.
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