Originally published at: Australian otter's tribute to Rachael "Raygun" Gunn - Boing Boing
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I feel sorry for her. She’s getting more press than the men’s and women’s medalists for all the wrong reasons. I expect at some point people are going to let up on her. Or I guess I just hope it happens.
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“I’m David Seaman, and I approve this message.”
This does seem a bit mean. Like Seaman, there might have been people more suited to the role, who didn’t step up.
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Huh? I don’t. She’s someone who should’ve known better.
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That may be the case. Many in the breakin community opted not to participate because they didn’t like what the dance had to become in order to be a part of the Olympics. So, technically, she was the best in Australia based on the scoring system who chose to participate.
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Off-topic, but one of the best cosplays I’ve ever seen was a young lady running around an anime convention in a dress that had strawberry shortcake on it and a red beret like Rerun… 
I still think about how awesome that costume was… it was like 7 or 8 years ago now?
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Addressing this point:
She brought it upon herself IMO, and I have no sympathy.
Unless Ms Gunn is less self aware than 45, there’s no way she could have believed she was an equal peer to folks like this:
I know that ‘white supremacy is a helluva drug’ that convinces certain mediocre people that they can “easily” be better than anyone else via sheer will power and the tendency to fail up, but c’mon son…
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I’d be surprised if she wasn’t aware of her skills compared to her international peers. She’s been in the scene for years, participating and even judging not just in Australia but in other countries. She couldn’t have expected to win, but to become a total mockery is something else.
This Vox article helped me to understand her situation just a little better:
I could definitely see privilege coming into play, especially since I don’t know what economic hoops and whatnot came into play with the trials. But an even bigger problem may be codifying breaking into a scoreable event. She’s gotten to where she is based on that. It used to be judges just pointing at who they thought was better, but trying to make it objective and quantifiable does, well, this to the art.
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Where she got was scoring absolutely ZERO points. At the Olympics! Again, she’s someone who should know better, and one thing she surely knew was that she was completely outclassed by other country’s dancers there.
Also, her privilege-blind, self-pitying self-defense afterward showed that she either hasn’t learned a damn thing, or that she chooses to pretend she hasn’t.
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I’m sorry… but…
Neither of them were that great, if you ask me. I’m not a judge, obviously, but… 
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This weekend at UFC305:
(Casey O’Neill, Australian fighter )
See also, Elizabeth Swaney:
Regarding those who would glibly shrug and defend that privilege-blind bullshit with a “well, maybe…” the way Australia conducted their tryouts were incredibly preventative.
To begin with, the qualifying judges for the category were composed of ballroom dancers, not people with any actual experience in break dancing.
That fact alone pissed off a lot of dancers, worldwide.
And then there’s the issue that the qualifying events were rushed, with a severely limited window of time from the announcement to the competition in Australia.
Citizenship was another obstacle that deterred many Aussie dancers from trying out, as was the fact that dancers had to register with three different organizations in order to compete in the Oceania Breaking Championships.
So yeah… while “RayGun” did not actually scam her way into the spot, the deck was still rather stacked in her favor, despite her clear lack of skill.
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It does seem that way, given all of that… And given she has a phd in dance, she should have known better.
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Given that she won the qualifying spot based on the rules, what do you expect her to have done? Refused to go and have no one in the competition? Or passed and let the runnerup compete instead (do you know if they would have done any better?)
The problem was the way that the qualification was done, and Australia need to drastically change how the competitors are selected. My Daughter in Law is heavily involved in Breaking in Australia and they are disappointed in how it has gone, but would have no representation been better?
Oh, I dunno… lots of PRACTICE with people who actually know how to dance well, maybe?
Or, barring that, she could just own up to the fact that she is obviously a teacher, and not a practitioner; rather making weak excuses that just demonstrate her unearned privilege.
Your daughter in law has my sympathy.
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I’ve never seen Raygun in any live competition but from the ones that I have been to, there are so many different styles and moves that it seems bewildering.
My DiL points out subtilties that I could never pick up on, especially not at the speed of a completion.
There is no way I could presume to judge a Breaking performance.
I agree that there is a wide variety of stylized movement in breakin’; that said, what she did on the world stage was not on par with any of them.
It was a ludicrous travesty, a mockery of the art form; and I understand why many more competent dancers across many subgenres are upset.
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