Before they were taken down, memes about Australian Olympic breaker Rachel Gunn (aka Rae Gunn) were all about making fun of her: videos of her flipping and kangaroo hopping around the stadium at the Paris Summer Olympics included captions like “What you do when your nephew says to everyone, ‘Watch this,'” and images of Gunn twirling juxtaposed with Homer Simpson doing the same. The embarrassment was endless.
That was just the beginning: the Internet criticized Gunn’s performance, and she ended up not winning a medal or earning any points. other I found myself pondering deeply about what the Olympics entails and wondering how someone with no particularly impressive skills could represent Australia at the Olympics.
That’s when things got complicated.
Soon after the Olympic breakdancing competition ended, controversy began to brew about how Gunn, a professor of cultural studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, had competed in the Olympics. People began questioning her sincerity, her affiliation to the Australian Breaking Association, and whether her performance was an insult to breaking. One person started a Change.org petition calling for an investigation into what happened and whether Gunn’s participation meant that less-privileged dancers were denied the opportunity to compete.
As Vox reports, the allegations of misconduct against Gunn are largely unfounded. Some breakers both in Australia and abroad have come to Gunn’s defence. Still, some have pointed out that the side effects of the situation in her home country are dire, telling the Guardian that Gunn’s performance could affect whether other dancers in Australia receive support.
“How do we strive for sponsorship and grant funding to break away from a sporting program that has now been ridiculed?” Brisbane dance studio owner Leah Clarke told the outlet. “This is actually affecting us on a much larger scale than just a meme.”
It’s actually emblematic of a larger disconnect online. As the past week wore on, Gunn posted a video to Instagram on Thursday saying she “never expected that competing in the Olympics would open the door to so much hate” and called the experience “devastating.” Harassment is already a huge problem online, but in situations like these, it’s all too easy for sincere criticism to get drowned out by thoughtless jokes and harsh opinions.
It’s worth examining what role Gunn’s privilege played in her qualification (at the very least, she could afford to attend a qualifying tournament that might have been out of reach for some) and larger questions about cultural appropriation in breaking (“Rae Gunn Deserves Olympic Gold for Colonizing Breakdancing,” read a Grio headline; there are several other threads on the topic that are definitely worth checking out.) These questions have been raised in a variety of places, but you’re likely to go unnoticed without first watching a few parodies and reaction videos.
