bland

Mitch Mitchell and his agent would have you believe the reason they haven’t found a buyer in Melbourne for their Steve Irwin statue is because nobody wants to buy it.

Whilst this is partly true, the far more dominant reason they haven’t found a buyer in 12 months of looking is that the statue is nothing special. Bundled with an $85,000 price tag does Melbourne really need another failed gimmicky tourist attraction, surely the Southern Star Wheel’s colossal failure was enough for our yearly quota?

If you asked Mitchell and his agent Graeme Smith anyone would think Melbourne was missing out on the bargain of the century.

It’s unbelievable. I’m bewildered with the lack of enterprise shown.

If you put that in a central position, the tourism, particularly from Japan and America, would be huge.

We’re talking millions of people. It could be very enterprising and educational.

Oh really? MILLIONS of people are going to jump on planes from Japan and the US just to stare at a statue of Steve Irwin, seriously guys really? There’s a fine line between marketing and complete rubbish and let’s just say I’d feel pretty confident about hiring Smith to collect my bins every Wednesday morning.

Whilst I don’t criticise the time and effort that goes into creating a statue, the statue itself doesn’t appear to be anything special. From Steve’s milkmaid hair, to the bulge in his crotch to the ambiguous disappearing act of his right hand underneath the crocodile the piece doesn’t really do anything. It just sort of walks up to you and shouts, ‘HAY THIS IS A STATUE OF STEVE IRWIN’ and walks away.

For $85,000 maybe Mitchell could have given us something more. A side to Steve Irwin we hadn’t seen perhaps. I don’t know, perhaps Irwin in a business suit teaching a small group of baby crocs infront of him or something.

Now we're talking

Clearly I’m not an artist but there’s got to be something more creative then Irwin kneeling holding a baby croc, I mean it’s not exactly hard to find a photo of practically the same thing. Why this statue is so bland is a bit of a mystery, recently Mitchell was in the news for a sculpture of a woman nailed to a cross.

Whilst I’m not one to just randomly bash Christianity, I can appreciate the thought provoking angle Mitchell took with that artwork. Ironically it only cost $40,000, half the price of the Irwin statue and with none of the cheesiness. At the very least Mitchell could have given us Irwin on a cross, I reckon that’d be worth $85,000 just for the bizzaro factor alone.

Mitchell and Graham are making a big deal about the statue possibly going to an overseas buyer, they reckon that because Steve was born in Melbourne the statue should stay here. Even the Brits seem pretty dissapointed at our lack of enthusiasm;

John Howard would never have stood for this, of course, but I’m afraid it is the sort of thing that happens when the lefties get in, and we can only add our voices to those declaring that the loss of the work would be nothing short of a national scandal.

Personally, I think if Steve was a true Melbournian at heart then he’d probably secretely appreciate the fact we passed on it.

1. How many Taiwanese does it take to photo a statue?
2. The largest freaking Buddha statue I’ve seen in Taiwan