Kick Like Tayla reveals another side to Tayla Harris

Famed for her positivity and strong public persona, Tayla Harris only breaks once on camera in the new documentary about her life.

It’s only near the end of Kick Like Tayla, the documentary about AFLW superstar Tayla Harris, that its subject lets her guard down.

Speaking to the camera, Harris starts to address the fallout over her exit from the club she played with for three years, Carlton, and she starts to choke up over her admission that she “didn’t play very well”.

Harris had been dumped by the team at the end of the 2021 season amid a storm over a reported salary demand.

It was ugly business for the then 24-year-old athlete but it’s revealing that the moment during which she is most vulnerable in front of the camera is when she confronts the fact she didn’t play to her own standard.

In her brief time – so far – on the national stage, the preternaturally gifted Harris has had a dramatic tenure thanks to her status as one of Australia’s most well-known female athletes, excelling in both AFL and boxing.

She’s had to endure a lot in the lions’ den, and at such a young age. She is perhaps best known as the target of vicious, revolting and gendered online harassment after her mid-flight image was captured by photographer Michael Willson during a 2019 game.

The incredible photo which kicked off the abuse. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Media

It was a striking and inspiring picture, one which demonstrated the pure athleticism and grace of Harris’ skills. But for some, the photo was an excuse to debase and diminish a young woman who dared to outshine her male counterparts on the field.

The episode exposed a repugnant aspect of Australian culture and was, once again, a reminder of the horrific double standards all professional women are subjected to, especially those in arenas in which a gender imbalance is not just glaring but blinding.

Harris comported herself with strength and dignity at the time and even recalling it now for Kick Like Tayla, it’s clear that it was something that affected but didn’t floor her. She wouldn’t allow it.

And that’s the overriding impression Harris imparts in this story about her life, one of tenacity and positivity.

She smiles in the pieces-to-camera, intercut with footage of her on the field or training in the gym. At almost every moment, the doco wants to convey how formidable she is.

But there is an expectation of sports documentaries that these titans reveal their inner vulnerabilities as a contrast to their outward power. We want our sporting heroes to be multidimensional and relatable.

There are moments of Harris in other parts of her life, at home with her partner and her scene-stealing dogs, with her family at the beach, finally reunited after Covid border closures.

Kick Like Tayla is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.

Her dad tells the camera that Harris hides her emotions well, even though he knows the photograph incident “got to her” – and she does shield it well, like if she can reframe the online abuse as being something that could discourage young girls from pursuing sport, she wouldn’t have to deal with how she may really feel about it happening to her.

Even as she recounts it, she does it with a beaming stoicism, and you start to wonder if Kick Like Tayla is going to show the real Harris, or if the real Harris really is someone who can compartmentalise myriad challenges.

But then that armour drops, and you see, albeit briefly, another aspect of Harris, one whose voice catches in her throat, and one who cries, but then is immediately frustrated at herself for being exposed.

It’s the most striking moment of this competent, likeable and sometimes illuminating documentary.

Perhaps that’s the real Harris we glimpse at the end – not someone who should be judged for being emotional, but as someone who knows that if she puts too much of herself out there, she leaves herself open to those who still subscribe to antiquated binaries of strength and weakness.

And she can’t let them win. She won’t.

Rating: 3/5

Kick Like Tayla is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video

Originally published as Kick Like Tayla reveals another side to Tayla Harris