This article explores the trajectory of Rachael Gunn, an academic and breakdancer who gained notoriety after her performance at the Paris Olympics. It analyzes her initial awkwardness, the subsequent media scrutiny and the backlash she faced, culminating in her legal actions against artists who paid tribute to her.
From where I sat, high in the rickety bleachers of the Olympic breaking stadium in Paris on that hot August day, Rachael Gunn ’s performance didn’t look that bad. Sure, she resembled a 1980s PE teacher when she walked out in her Australian team tracksuit. Yes, the writhing was cringeworthy. I was too far away to see the contortions of her face, or the finer points of the helicopter/sprinkler/changing the doona moves that became the biggest story of the Games.
But nerves do strange things to people, even at the Olympics. I thought she’d be eliminated and that would be the end of it. So did she.pen afterwards, asking polite but pointed questions, I watched Gunn’s smile tighten as she realised they were laughing at her. At that moment, she rallied. She answered questions gracefully, with a quiver in her voice and a startled look in her eye. Over the next few weeks, as vicious, unfounded and misogynistic allegations flew at her and the global humiliation intensified, I was on team Raygun. My sympathy for the awkward academic began to curdle into cynicism as her commercial campaign took off back home, but the latest effort from brand Raygun, in which Gunn’s lawyers shut down a Sydney comedian’s tribute show,. To put that amount in perspective, the venue had raised $500 from presales for the show they were donating to women’s charity. A dancer from a sub-culture defined by its freedom, rebellion and creative generosity was now trying to control other artists. It suggests grasping rather than grace.In the lead-up to Paris, Gunn was a media curiosity. The sport formerly known as breakdancing, born in the Bronx 50 years ago and with a brief, much-mocked moment in the cultural mainstream during the 1980s, was making its Olympic debut. Australia would be represented in the women’s event by Gunn, an articulate, earnest academic who had a PhD in the cultural politics of her own spor
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