David

So I looked into this. I thought maybe I should feel sorry for the woman, athletes can choke, and maybe it was cruel for people to be making fun of her. Alternatively, I thought it may be possible she was led up the garden path, told she was good break dancer when she wasn’t, and I can’t imagine anything more humiliating than realising you are in fact not a talented athlete on the world stage. Turns out Rachael Gunn here has a PhD in cultural studies, with a speciality in the gender politics of movement and breakdance. She has written about how including break dance in the Olympics changes it from a practice within an alternative subculture, to a hegemonic one that incorporates the dance into what she sees as Australia’s settler colonialist project. I am 100% certain what she is doing here, in wearing the Australia kit even, is trying to make some subversive point she can later write journal articles about. This whole episode is demonstrative of the supreme selfishness of woke identity politics studies. Her little stunt diminishes Australia on the world stage. Hundreds of Australian athletes who will have dedicated their entire lives to athletic excellence will be forgotten, because Rachael wanted to bulk up her ResearchGate profile. Rather than their medals and efforts, this is what Australia will be remembered for. Not to mention the disastrous effect this will have on break dancing as a sport. Its position in the Olympics is not secure, and surely won’t be taken seriously after this. Good job Rachael, you really showed those chauvinist nationalists, hundreds of women and girls will not get their Olympic opportunity now. Rachael represents so much of what is totally lecherous about cultural studies academics. Pick a subject area that will be under-studied in your context, so you can rise through the ranks quickly (how many break dancing academics will there be in Australia?), and wreak absolute havoc in lives of the people you want to study. There is no limit to the sheer disrespect they will dole out, purely for self-advancement.