Prime Minister Kevin Rudd shouldn’t have reacted sardonically to Robin Williams’ quip about Australians being “English rednecks”.
Utterances by comedians don’t warrant a response and can inadvertently open a rhetorical can of worms.
Prompted by radio announcers, Rudd retorted: “Robin Williams should go and spend a bit of time in Alabama before he frames comments about anyone being particularly redneck.”
Alabama Governor Bob Riley responded: “I’m not sure if Prime Minister Rudd has ever been to Alabama. If he has, he would know that Alabamians are decent, hard working, creative people. That’s why Alabama is home to Australian companies like Austal, which employs more than 1000 Alabamians at the world’s largest aluminum shipyard.”
Rudd’s jibe in reply to Williams has achieved nothing constructive. Instead, he implied that Australians don’t have a sense of humor and he offended the people of Alabama (those that can read).
Meanwhile, the English think it’s highly amusing.
While one Alabama blogger described Rudd’s remarks as a “down under blow”, another (including cartoon) says:
Alabamans don’t need much reason to shoot somethin’. Alligator season has been a huge success. Are kangaroos next? Better step up security at the zoos.
Maybe Kevin Rudd was thinking of this joke when he made his comments:
Three dead bodies turn up at the mortuary, all with very big smiles on their faces. The coroner calls the police to tell them what has happened. “First body: Frenchman, 60, died of heart failure while making love to his mistress. Hence the enormous smile, Inspector”, says the Coroner.
“Second body: Scotsman, 25, won a thousand pounds on the lottery, spent it all on whisky. Died of alcohol poisoning, hence the smile.”
The Inspector asked, “What of the third body?”
“Ah,” says the coroner, “this is the most unusual one. Billy-Bob the redneck from Alabama, 30, struck by lightning.”
“Why is he smiling then?” inquires the Inspector.
“Thought he was having his picture taken.”
Whatever his motivation, as an ex diplomat Mr Rudd should have been more diplomatic and let the Williams gag slide. A better response would have been to invite Williams to watch an AFL game after he described it as “rugby with a thong”.
PS: In writing this I discovered that Alabaman newspapers use Alabamian rather than Alabaman.
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I broadly agree that comments by a comedian don’t exactly warrant a rebuke by a Prime Minister (if it was an American political figure saying similar things I would think it is warranted).
Of course to some degree Kevin Rudd may have felt the need to make such a remark in order to appear to the Australian public as ‘standing up for us’, so to speak.
It is interesting though how on some issues, but particularly on issues of race and racial discrimination, nations often hypocritically like to criticise each other and take the moral high ground.
For instance, the issue of the treatment of African-Americans in the USA versus the treatment of indigenous Australians here in Australia.
Most people in both the USA and Australia probably like to think they are less racist than the other and use those examples to demonstrate this.
I know that I like to use Australia’s lack of a history of Jim Crow style segregation as an example of how we are less racist that the USA. I suppose an American could point out that the US government never removed children from their families, based on race, which could be considered far worse.
On the other hand, despite the fact that I’m quite left-wing/progressive and have lots (though not all) of the opinions on racial issues that you might expect from that point-of-view, I do get kind of automatically defensive when someone from overseas criticises Australia’s treatment of indigenous people or refuges/immigrants.
Another rather interesting example is how in the 1970’s/1980’s (don’t know exactly when), both the Australian and New Zealand governments were harshly critical of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
The then New Zealand Prime Minister Robert ‘Piggy’ Muldoon, whilst supporting the fact that Australia had similar policies regarding South Africa as New Zealand did, took little time in pointing out that Australia was being hypocritical, because of how we treated indigenous people until the early 1970’s.
At least I suppose in this case Muldoon was on fairly solid ground, given that New Zealand does have quite a good record regarding its treatment of the Maori population, compared not only to Australia, but also virtually any other English-speaking settler nation.
Michael said: ‘… he [Kevin Rudd] offended the people of Alabama (those that can read).’
I found this quite funny and the joke you included about the Frenchman, Scotsman and the Alabama redneck!
Love a good joke.
If you can’t have a laugh it’s a bit crook, or time to give up on life.
When I think of Pixie it conjures a particular image.
A subservient jester wearing only a pink ribbon and a g-string while mopping the floors of the whitehouse.
You want my stock exchange. Yes master.
You want my media outlets. Yes master.
You want my telecommunications network. Yes master. Let’s call it NBN.
You want my military. Yes master.
Yes master.
Yes master.
Yes master.
May I have my bananas now?
Get rid of this abomination and shoot his horse to ensure he doesn’t ride back into town.
Australia is nothing like alabama! now ain’t that a laugh