Ray gun, the Aussie icon turned villain.
Ok, Aussie here so I want to get out there and talk about the Aussie Icon turned villain that is called Raygun. I'm assuming everyone knows the "story". She accidentally got "selected" to do break dancing at the Olympics, even though she mostly taught about the sociology of break dancing and it's social context in non white communities at university.
She was terrible at the Olympics. Pretty horrifying actually. Immediately became an Aussie Icon for having a go and making fun of herself afterwards. She could have floated along on that claim to fame and survived the very valid questions asked about how she got selected to participate in the Olympics when she was completely unqualified and there are very, VERY talented not privileged, not white female break dancers in Australia.
She could have embraced the memes. She could have embraced THE MUSICAL that was written about her. She could have continued to be an Aussie Icon for her absolutely terrible attempt at dancing at the Olympics and treating an opportunity that other people would have killed for as a joke.
But no, like every white woman that has ever been accused of cultural appropriation, she doubled down. She claimed she was being abused because people, very rightfully, made fun of her, and then used her position to SUE venues to stop comedians making fun of her in stage shows. She litigated to have the entire RAYGUN: THE MUSICAL blocked from happening. She refused to let her "likness" be used to raise money for charity. None of these are actually very Aussie Icon things to do.
So, we hate her. Bitch could have used her position to highlight very real, very apparent gaps in how Indigenous Australians (some of who are most excellent break dancers) are affected by racism, she could have let charities that raised money using her likeness to USE that money for charity. She didn't. She's the embodiment of everything wrong with privileged racist white people in Australia. And she can't take a joke.
So when you watch the Raygun doco on Netflix, the doco her management team spear headed to try and somehow make her imagine more palatable, please remember that Aussies hate her for very good reasons. She wasn't bullied, she wasn't threatened, she was legitimately made fun of because she can't fucking break dance and her "selection" for the Olympics was a joke that highlights some very big fucking problems in the way professional sporting bodies gatekeep access to the Olympics only for the people that can afford it.
Don't get online and tell us we mistreated the villain at the centre of the story, when she had the opportunity to embrace the absurd and chose tantrum instead.