Latest news with #Raygun
Perth Now
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Raygun a year on from Olympic controversy
Australian breakdancer Raygun is back in the spotlight one year on from her divisive performance at the Paris Olympic Games. Rachel Gunn made international headlines when she scored zero points for her breakdance in the sport's Olympic debut. Gunn, better known by her B-girl name Raygun, took to sport's most prestigious stage with moves that imitated hopping kangaroos, wriggling snakes and the Australian classic, sprinkler. The performance instantly went viral and was the subject of endless memes and relentless ridicule from around the globe. A Halloween decoration inspired by Olympic sensation Raygun. Supplied Credit: Supplied About 12 months on from the infamous act, Raygun is the subject of an Australian Story investigation that delves into why the arts academic isn't celebrated despite being a sporting underdog. US breakdancing pioneer Michael Holman told the ABC there was a lot of backlash from the international breakdancing community because the performance was seen as culturally insensitive. 'The anger that came from Raygun's performance at the Olympics comes from a lot of different places,' he said. 'A slice of that pie came from people who knew what breaking was, saying, 'Wow, you know, that's not great breaking'.' He said breakdancing originated from marginalised teenagers with poor, working class black and Puerto Rican backgrounds. 'So her being white and Australian and jumping around like a kangaroo, that's going to be a loaded gun,' Mr Holman told the ABC. 'Whether she intended it or not, the end result was mockery.' Virgin Group founder Richard Branson was a huge fan of Raygun, inviting the Australian breakdancer on-board a Celebration Voyage through the Mediterranean after the Paris Games in 2024. NewsWire Handout Credit: NewsWire While the university professor was mocked for the performance, others came to her defence including billionaire Richard Branson. The Virgin Group founder invited the Australian breakdancer on-board his Celebration Voyage cruise through the Mediterranean where she danced alongside the global businessman and pulled out the infamous kangaroo hop. Mr Branson said Raygun was plucky, brave, courageous and original. 'Hats off to her for being so bold and different. Since we have a couple of kangaroos on Necker, that move in particular certainly got me smiling,' he said. But the controversy did not end at the Olympics. Back in Australia about four months after the Olympic Games, a comedian was about to stage Raygun: The Musical when a legal storm erupted. Creator Stephanie Broadbridge cancelled the show after she was contacted by lawyers representing Raygun over fears it would damage her reputation. She later rebranded the show to Breaking: The Musical. The comedy club that was going to stage the show was also sent a letter demanding $10,000 from Raygun's lawyers. The comedian alleged the lawyers told her that she was not allowed to perform the dance moves because the kangaroo dance was owned by Raygun. Ms Broadbridge told the ABC that she was captivated at how Raygun handled the situation and was excited that a woman her age was behaving like that in public. 'She's the hero that Australia needed, the female Shane Warne. The one that's flawed but we love her anyway,' she said. 'I wanted to tell that story. I wanted an Australian larrikin story that was a woman.' Gunn declined to comment to Australian Story.
News.com.au
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Australian Olympian Raygun back in spotlight one year on from divisive Paris Games performance
Australian breakdancer Raygun is back in the spotlight one year on from her divisive performance at the Paris Olympic Games. Rachel Gunn made international headlines when she scored zero points for her breakdance in the sport's Olympic debut. Gunn, better known by her B-girl name Raygun, took to sport's most prestigious stage with moves that imitated hopping kangaroos, wriggling snakes and the Australian classic, sprinkler. The performance instantly went viral and was the subject of endless memes and relentless ridicule from around the globe. About 12 months on from the infamous act, Raygun is the subject of an Australian Story investigation that delves into why the arts academic isn't celebrated despite being a sporting underdog. US breakdancing pioneer Michael Holman told the ABC there was a lot of backlash from the international breakdancing community because the performance was seen as culturally insensitive. 'The anger that came from Raygun's performance at the Olympics comes from a lot of different places,' he said. 'A slice of that pie came from people who knew what breaking was, saying, 'Wow, you know, that's not great breaking'.' He said breakdancing originated from marginalised teenagers with poor, working class black and Puerto Rican backgrounds. 'So her being white and Australian and jumping around like a kangaroo, that's going to be a loaded gun,' Mr Holman told the ABC. 'Whether she intended it or not, the end result was mockery.' While the university professor was mocked for the performance, others came to her defence including billionaire Richard Branson. The Virgin Group founder invited the Australian breakdancer on-board his Celebration Voyage cruise through the Mediterranean where she danced alongside the global businessman and pulled out the infamous kangaroo hop. Mr Branson said Raygun was plucky, brave, courageous and original. 'Hats off to her for being so bold and different. Since we have a couple of kangaroos on Necker, that move in particular certainly got me smiling,' he said. But the controversy did not end at the Olympics. Back in Australia about four months after the Olympic Games, a comedian was about to stage Raygun: The Musical when a legal storm erupted. Creator Stephanie Broadbridge cancelled the show after she was contacted by lawyers representing Raygun over fears it would damage her reputation. She later rebranded the show to Breaking: The Musical. The comedy club that was going to stage the show was also sent a letter demanding $10,000 from Raygun's lawyers. The comedian alleged the lawyers told her that she was not allowed to perform the dance moves because the kangaroo dance was owned by Raygun. Ms Broadbridge told the ABC that she was captivated at how Raygun handled the situation and was excited that a woman her age was behaving like that in public. 'She's the hero that Australia needed, the female Shane Warne. The one that's flawed but we love her anyway,' she said. 'I wanted to tell that story. I wanted an Australian larrikin story that was a woman.'
RNZ News
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Raygun's Olympic breaking broke the internet and continues to polarise
By Greg Hassall and Rebecca Armstrong Rachael Gunn known as "Raygun" of Australia during the B-Girls Round Robin Breaking Battle between Australia and the United States at La Concorde 1 as part of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games in Paris, France, 9 August, 2024. Photo: AAP via Photosport Analysis - Australia achieved its greatest-ever medal haul at the Paris Olympics, but 12 months on, the enduring memory is of a white, middle-class, 30-something B-girl in a cheap green-and-gold tracksuit crashing out of the breaking competition in the first round. Going by the name Raygun, Rachael Gunn seared herself into the collective imagination with a series of moves that failed to impress the judges but launched a torrent of memes, vitriol, and hot takes. Was she punking the Olympics? Was the routine, with its imitations of kangaroos and sprinklers, ironic - a playfully knowing appropriation of Australian iconography? Or was she simply having an off day? Whatever the case, Gunn's routine, the reaction to it, and how she subsequently carried herself, combined to create a confounding cultural moment. "To be honest, I get mental whiplash thinking about this topic," marketing strategist Christina Aventi tells Australian Story. "It's just a confusing mess. And it's hard to make sense of." Raygun competes against France's Sya Dembele, known as Syssy, at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Photo: AFP / Odd Andersen Raygun competes against France's Sya Dembele, known as Syssy, at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. There are so many strands to the Raygun phenomenon that it's hard to neatly untangle any of them. Even the initial responses to her routine were wildly varied and often contradictory. Back in Australia, some simply saw it as funny - something in the spirit of Roy and HG's The Dream - and didn't care if it was serious or a piss-take. But for others, the Olympics represent a rare opportunity for Australians to punch above their weight on the global stage, and thanks to Raygun, people all around the world were laughing at us. "It's clear that it really touched a nerve around our cultural, athletic identity," Aventi says. "It was our best performing Olympics yet, that was somewhat overshadowed by this routine that looked more eisteddfod than Olympics." There is, of course, a rich tradition of heroic Olympic failures - think Eddie the Eagle, Eric the Eel, the Jamaican bobsled team, even Australia's own Steven Bradbury, who speed-skated to victory, only because all his competitors crashed out. But as Aventi points out, Gunn does not fit neatly into that pantheon of losers. "They have backstories that people respond to really positively because they're hard-luck stories; they're against-all-the-odds stories," she says. "And in this case, we've got a uni professor who doesn't look like a breaker, who's wearing a green-and-gold tracksuit that looks like it's straight out of Lowes. "It just doesn't quite stack up to some of those other stories we love." Raygun competes in the women's breaking dance at the Paris Olympics. Photo: Odd Andersen/AFP Criticism of Raygun's routine did not just come from Australians with a bruised sense of national pride. For some in the international breaking community, her performance was insultingly amateurish. "The anger that came from Raygun's performance at the Olympics comes from a lot of different places," explains New York artist and breaking pioneer Michael Holman. "A slice of that pie came from people who knew what breaking was, saying, 'Wow, you know, that's not great breaking.'" But a bigger issue for Holman - and one that Gunn, an academic interested in the cultural politics of breaking, seemed oddly unprepared for - was that of cultural appropriation and insensitivity. "Part of the magic of hip hop culture is the fact that it was created by marginalised teenagers, poor and working-class black and Puerto Rican kids who came from nothing," Holman says. "So her being white and Australian and jumping around like a kangaroo, that's going to be a loaded gun. "Whether she intended it or not, the end result was mockery." She was ridiculed by US tonight show hosts, eviscerated by countless bloggers, and falsely accused of everything from gaming the system to being responsible for breaking not being part of the 2028 Olympics. There were concerns for her mental health in the days after the event. Australia's Olympic chef de mission Anna Meares defended Gunn publicly, calling out "trolls and keyboard warriors" for their misogyny and abuse. Even Prime Minister Anthony Albanese came to her defence, although "Raygun had a crack" was perhaps not the most ringing of prime ministerial endorsements. Initially, Gunn seemed to handle the situation well. Although the criticism clearly stung, she appeared willing to make fun of herself, breaking into an impromptu routine and throwing kangaroo poses as the Australian Olympic team prepared for the Closing Ceremony. "I think there was a sense that it was a cultural moment," says journalist Jordan Baker, who covered the Paris Olympics for The Sydney Morning Herald . "She gave an unusual performance. It was fun. We'll rally behind her." It was a musical, of all things, that changed all that. Comedian Stephanie Broadbridge didn't even watch Gunn's Olympic routine but became fascinated by how she handled herself in the aftermath. Broadbridge had been through her own social media pile-on in 2023 when a video of her trying not to laugh as a male comedian told a joke was viewed more than 150 million times, provoking a torrent of cruel and misogynistic comments. She was traumatised by the experience and found something admirable in Gunn's refusal to apologise for herself. "Raygun never backed down, and I was like, I love this. This is such an interesting thing from a woman," Broadbridge says. "Women don't usually behave like that publicly, and I was so excited that there was one around my age doing that." Broadbridge looked at the heightened emotion around the Raygun phenomenon and decided it had all the elements of a musical. "She's the hero that Australia needed; the female Shane Warne. The one that's flawed but we love her anyway," she says. "I wanted to tell that story. I wanted an Australian larrikin story that was a woman." And that's when things got weird. Days before the opening performance of Raygun: The Musical, Broadbridge received a cease-and-desist letter from Gunn's lawyers demanding that the show not go ahead because it violated her intellectual property and could damage her brand. "The dance moves were copyrighted, the silhouette was trademarked. Basically, every element," Broadbridge explains. Baker says this was "the point where a lot of people lost sympathy for Rachael". "People who had backed her the whole way felt like this was a betrayal of their support for her," she says. "When the heavy-handed legal threats started coming, it seemed mean-spirited; it seemed like she was no longer even remotely trying to lean into the joke." When Gunn addressed the outcry in an Instagram video, it only made things worse. It seems that in Australia, a far greater sin than athletic underachievement is taking yourself too seriously. "When she's trying to halt a musical, when she's trying to trademark something like a kangaroo hop, that's about her," Aventi says. "I think if she stood for something a little bit bigger - maybe resilience, strength, owning your own truth - that would have given a different centre of gravity to the story. "I know she's been through a lot, but a little bit more vulnerability might have helped people warm to her a bit more. "I feel really uncomfortable saying that. It's like Lindy Chamberlain all over again - why should we expect someone to be vulnerable? But vulnerability is something that connects and opens people up." Now the dust has settled on Raygun's cultural moment, what have we learned? That Australians don't like people who take themselves too seriously? That we like our athletes to win? That we're suspicious of academics? That the internet expects women to behave in a certain way and reacts violently when they don't? Or was it just, as Shakespeare once wrote, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?" In the end, Broadbridge got to keep her musical, albeit with the lead's name changed to Spraygun and the title changed to Breaking: The Musical . And Gunn has her trademarked moves and a great story to tell someday. And after their crash course in public relations, she and her team might get the marketing right when she does. Rachael Gunn declined to be interviewed for this story. - ABC
ABC News
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Raygun's Olympic breaking broke the internet and continues to polarise
Australia achieved its greatest-ever medal haul at the Paris Olympics, but 12 months on, the enduring memory is of a white, middle-class, 30-something B-girl in a cheap green-and-gold tracksuit crashing out of the breaking competition in the first round. Going by the name Raygun, Rachael Gunn seared herself into the collective imagination with a series of moves that failed to impress the judges but launched a torrent of memes, vitriol, and hot takes. Was she punking the Olympics? Was the routine, with its imitations of kangaroos and sprinklers, ironic – a playfully knowing appropriation of Australian iconography? Or was she simply having an off day? Whatever the case, Gunn's routine, the reaction to it, and how she subsequently carried herself, combined to create a confounding cultural moment. "To be honest, I get mental whiplash thinking about this topic," marketing strategist Christina Aventi tells Australian Story. "It's just a confusing mess. And it's hard to make sense of." There are so many strands to the Raygun phenomenon that it's hard to neatly untangle any of them. Even the initial responses to her routine were wildly varied and often contradictory. Back in Australia, some simply saw it as funny – something in the spirit of Roy and HG's The Dream – and didn't care if it was serious or a piss-take. But for others, the Olympics represent a rare opportunity for Australians to punch above their weight on the global stage, and thanks to Raygun, people all around the world were laughing at us. "It's clear that it really touched a nerve around our cultural, athletic identity," Aventi says. "It was our best performing Olympics yet, that was somewhat overshadowed by this routine that looked more eisteddfod than Olympics." There is, of course, a rich tradition of heroic Olympic failures — think Eddie the Eagle, Eric the Eel, the Jamaican bobsled team, even Australia's own Steven Bradbury, who speed-skated to victory, only because all his competitors crashed out. But as Aventi points out, Gunn does not fit neatly into that pantheon of losers. "They have backstories that people respond to really positively because they're hard-luck stories; they're against-all-the-odds stories," she says. "And in this case, we've got a uni professor who doesn't look like a breaker, who's wearing a green-and-gold tracksuit that looks like it's straight out of Lowes. "It just doesn't quite stack up to some of those other stories we love." Criticism of Raygun's routine did not just come from Australians with a bruised sense of national pride. For some in the international breaking community, her performance was insultingly amateurish. "The anger that came from Raygun's performance at the Olympics comes from a lot of different places," explains New York artist and breaking pioneer Michael Holman. "A slice of that pie came from people who knew what breaking was, saying, 'Wow, you know, that's not great breaking.'" But a bigger issue for Holman — and one that Gunn, an academic interested in the cultural politics of breaking, seemed oddly unprepared for — was that of cultural appropriation and insensitivity. "Part of the magic of hip hop culture is the fact that it was created by marginalised teenagers, poor and working-class black and Puerto Rican kids who came from nothing," Holman says. "So her being white and Australian and jumping around like a kangaroo, that's going to be a loaded gun. "Whether she intended it or not, the end result was mockery." She was ridiculed by US tonight show hosts, eviscerated by countless bloggers, and falsely accused of everything from gaming the system to being responsible for breaking not being part of the 2028 Olympics. There were concerns for her mental health in the days after the event. Australia's Olympic chef de mission Anna Meares defended Gunn publicly, calling out "trolls and keyboard warriors" for their misogyny and abuse. Even Prime Minister Anthony Albanese came to her defence, although "Raygun had a crack" was perhaps not the most ringing of prime ministerial endorsements. Initially, Gunn seemed to handle the situation well. Although the criticism clearly stung, she appeared willing to make fun of herself, breaking into an impromptu routine and throwing kangaroo poses as the Australian Olympic team prepared for the Closing Ceremony. "I think there was a sense that it was a cultural moment," says journalist Jordan Baker, who covered the Paris Olympics for The Sydney Morning Herald. "She gave an unusual performance. It was fun. We'll rally behind her." It was a musical, of all things, that changed all that. Comedian Stephanie Broadbridge didn't even watch Gunn's Olympic routine but became fascinated by how she handled herself in the aftermath. Broadbridge had been through her own social media pile-on in 2023 when a video of her trying not to laugh as a male comedian told a joke was viewed more than 150 million times, provoking a torrent of cruel and misogynistic comments. She was traumatised by the experience and found something admirable in Gunn's refusal to apologise for herself. "Raygun never backed down, and I was like, I love this. This is such an interesting thing from a woman," Broadbridge says. "Women don't usually behave like that publicly, and I was so excited that there was one around my age doing that." Broadbridge looked at the heightened emotion around the Raygun phenomenon and decided it had all the elements of a musical. "She's the hero that Australia needed; the female Shane Warne. The one that's flawed but we love her anyway," she says. "I wanted to tell that story. I wanted an Australian larrikin story that was a woman." And that's when things got weird. Days before the opening performance of Raygun: The Musical, Broadbridge received a cease-and-desist letter from Gunn's lawyers demanding that the show not go ahead because it violated her intellectual property and could damage her brand. "The dance moves were copyrighted, the silhouette was trademarked. Basically, every element," Broadbridge explains. Baker says this was "the point where a lot of people lost sympathy for Rachael". "People who had backed her the whole way felt like this was a betrayal of their support for her," she says. "When the heavy-handed legal threats started coming, it seemed mean-spirited; it seemed like she was no longer even remotely trying to lean into the joke." When Gunn addressed the outcry in an Instagram video, it only made things worse. It seems that in Australia, a far greater sin than athletic underachievement is taking yourself too seriously. "When she's trying to halt a musical, when she's trying to trademark something like a kangaroo hop, that's about her," Aventi says. "I think if she stood for something a little bit bigger – maybe resilience, strength, owning your own truth – that would have given a different centre of gravity to the story. "I know she's been through a lot, but a little bit more vulnerability might have helped people warm to her a bit more. "I feel really uncomfortable saying that. It's like Lindy Chamberlain all over again – why should we expect someone to be vulnerable? But vulnerability is something that connects and opens people up." Now the dust has settled on Raygun's cultural moment, what have we learned? That Australians don't like people who take themselves too seriously? That we like our athletes to win? That we're suspicious of academics? That the internet expects women to behave in a certain way and reacts violently when they don't? Or was it just, as Shakespeare once wrote, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?" In the end, Broadbridge got to keep her musical, albeit with the lead's name changed to Spraygun and the title changed to Breaking: The Musical. And Gunn has her trademarked moves and a great story to tell someday. And after their crash course in public relations, she and her team might get the marketing right when she does. Rachael Gunn declined to be interviewed for this story. Watch Australian Story's Break It Down, 8:00pm, on ABCTV and ABC iview.
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How Joni Ernst's ‘We're All Going to Die' Is New Dem War Cry
Save for Catilin Clark and her famous No. 22 jersey, the years between the two Trump terms were bleak for Iowa's premiere T-shirt producer. 'It was kind of lean, so our catchphrase around here was, 'Thank God for women's basketball,' because the whole Caitlin Clark women's basketball thing really like saw us through the Biden years,' Mike Draper, founder of Raygun, told the Daily Beast. But Draper knew he had a winner when a friend emailed his Des Moines headquarters a video clip of Iowa U.S. Senator Joni Ernst going mega MAGA during a May 30 town hall meeting in Parkersburg. 'They're like, 'Check this out,'' Draper recalled. 'And we were like, 'Holy s--t!' And they were like, 'Yeah, holy s--t!'' Ernst had been offering falsehoods such as those spread by Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to justify cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). A constituent had just called out, 'People are going to die!' Ernst's unforgettable response was being printed on t-shirts the very next morning. 'WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE' - US Sen Joni Ernst The $24.95 item flew off the shelves at Raygun's 10 stores. What was listed on the Raygun website as, 'We All Are Going To Die Joni Ernst Quote,' was hot in the way of a No. 22 jersey. Dems could now rally against Ernst just as the whole state had rallied for Clark. Ernst further proved herself a buckeye Marie Antoinette and T-shirt maker's bonanza the next day by posting a sarcastic non-apology video made inside a cemetery. 'I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth,' she said in the video. 'So, I apologize. And I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.' She then took her decidedly unfunny joke to an unholy extreme. 'But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.' Any serious consideration of Jesus would have to include His teachings regarding the poor and the vulnerable. As for the tooth fairy, Medicaid-eligible children in rural Iowa areas such as Storm Lake have to be driven hours to see a dentist who will accept reimbursement levels that have not increased in a quarter century. Buena Vista County Social worker Tracy Gotto told the Daily Beast that youngsters could not get much-needed heart surgery due to untreated dental infections. Ernst's 'apology' was bizarre enough to make for another great T-shirt: 'JONI ERNST IS GOING TO DIE. OFFENDED? WELL, SORRY, THE TOOTH FAIRY ISN'T REAL EITHER. BUT DON;T WORRY BECAUSE JONI BEEHIVES HER LORD AND SAVIOR WILL GIVE HER ETERNAL EVERLASTING LIFE.' Raygun also produced a simpler offering; a variation on the official welcome emblazoned on the state road sign with the slogan, 'Iowa…fields of opportunities.' The shirt reads, 'Iowa - we all are going to die. ' India May, the 33-year-old Town Hall attendee who made the declaration on Friday that started it all is a once- registered nurse, director to the Ionia Community Library and a Chickasaw County death investigator. She also runs the TikTok site, PDA Iowa, for the Iowa chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America. She tried to attend a town hall for Iowa's other senator, Chuck Grassley last month, but the site was filled beyond capacity. She managed to get into the Ernst event, which was held at a high school an hour's drive from home and began at 7:30 a.m. on a work day. She livestreamed it and brought the intense interest of someone with her particular combination of occupations. 'I'm a nurse and a librarian, and my job is to bring people the care and the resources that they need. And those resources are already dwindling as people are getting fired and the funding gets cut, and it's scary and upsetting, so I'm just trying to do everything within my power legally to stop people from getting hurt or worse,' May later told the Daily Beast. May is well aware that numerous studies have found a direct correlation between Medicaid coverage and mortality. A University of Chicago study found that by signing on Medicaid expansion via the Affordable Care Act, 41 states–including Iowa–saved approximately 27,400 lives between 2010 and 2022. Another study found that the refusal of 10 states to sign on cost 15,600 lives between 2014 and 2017. Ernst now wants the whole country to regress in that direction. 'I want my headstone to say, 'People will die,'' May told the Daily Beast on Wednesday. In recent days, May has considered running for the state legislature, if nothing else, to reduce by at least one the number of Republican seats that are uncontested in the next election. The Republicans have had a majority in the Iowa General Assembly (the House of Representatives and the Senate) since 2010. A current member of the Democratic minority in the legislature has been emboldened by Ernst's quote. Rep. J.D. Scholten told the Sioux City Journal that he now intends to oppose her when she is expected to seek reelection next year. As it happens, the State Capital is just a few minutes away from Raygun's flagship store. Draper is all but sure to still be selling 'WE ALL ARE GOING TO DIE' t-shirts when Ernst, Scholten and May may all be on the ballot in November of 2026. Thanks to Ernst and ultimately a returned President Trump, who won the state by 13 points, the lean Biden years are over in the Iowa t-shirt world. 'Now we're kind of back on the, I was going to say 'Trump Train,' but I guess I would just call it the 'Crazy Train,'' Draper said. 'We're back on the 'Crazy Train.'' And it seems even crazier on a personal level when he considers that Ivanka Trump was in his year at the University of Pennsylvania. Her father was at the graduation party in 2004. 'He's there with Melania, and I think Barron was like, this little kid,' Draper remembered. 'We're like, 'There goes the host of The Apprentice.' And if somebody were like, 'You know he's going to be president one day,' we would have been like, 'Donald Trump. Yeah, right.''
