Wendy Tuohy: Commonwealth Games’ cheeky flash revives larrikin spirit

THANK goodness for the young woman now known (temporarily) as “Bottom Girl” who has inadvertently provided Australia with just the flash of self-awareness we needed, writes Wendy Tuohy.

THANK goodness for the young woman now known (temporarily) as “Bottom Girl” who has inadvertently provided Australia with just the flash of self-awareness we needed.

ACCIDENTAL BUM FLASH LIGHTS UP SOCIAL MEDIA

OOPS, I FLASHED THE PRINCE BUT NO POINT CRYING

With all the tears, tearing of clothes and moral panic about what it says of our national character that some cricket players rubbed sandpaper on a ball during game, you would think our sense of perspective had plunged to the bottom of Bass Strait.

In the wake of the Ball-Tampering Scandal (whose immense historical significance has forever elevated it to the status of proper noun), it was looking like we were not only taking ourselves too seriously, but had undergone a collective sense-of-humour bypass.

Then, like a delivering angel, along comes a young woman doing her bit to celebrate the opening of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games to help us remember, as one, that we’re a nation that can have a laugh at itself, our stuff-ups and our disappointments.

How reassuring it was to see the moment a 19-year-old participant in a massed dance performance at the opening ceremony accidentally flashed her cheeks thanks to a wardrobe malfunction while crouching to get under a beach towel during the Rickie-Lee Coulter spectacular Technicolour Love. There was not a groan, a cultural cringe or stuck-up put-down in sight on an unusually benevolent Australian social media.

Instead, the slip-up launched a flotilla of wry quips.

It was as if the sun came out in the darkened room to which we had committed our national soul as punishment, and as time to take a good hard look at who we really are, after our sporting gods were revealed to be “cheats”.

What a blessing it was when one young person reminded us of the good, self-deprecating, sports we are at our best.

“Cracker of a show” and “G’day and welcome to the Gold Coast” were just two among the stream of responses reflecting the great enthusiasm for the return of our real national sport, taking the mickey out of ourselves. It was as if the larrikin, at last, returned, banishing the “woe is me”.

It suits us so much better to be laughing at our own foibles than reading and writing acres of self-flagellatory commentary about a dumb decision by a couple of young men under huge pressure.

One drawback of Australia’s love of jumping on social media to join in on hacking over the latest drama to swamp the 24-hour news cycle is that the significance of an event such as a not-that-freakish fiddle with a cricket ball can be blown into a national identity crisis.

To hear one radio host swept into the self-loathing last week to the point of declaring that, what with the ball tampering, the pollies rorting funding and the resignation of Assistant Commissioner Brett Guerin after being outed as a social media troll, we had to wonder if we were in the midst of end-of-days-level moral decay.

All of this stuff counts, of course. It all matters in its own way and needs to be adequately examined, dissected and addressed.

But what a blessing it was when one young person reminded us of the good, self-deprecating sports we are at our best.

So good for you, Georgia Lear, with your jokes about the accidental TV flash being “all behind me now”, and your wish that everyone had a “cracking” good time.

Your Instagram reaction — “last night I was really BUMMED ... BUTT that’s all BEHIND me now” — was perfect. Thanks for snapping us out of the media misery we’ve been soaking in, and for letting a chink of brightness dispel what’s been quite the haze of doom.

Wendy Tuohy is a Herald Sun columnist

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