Even before Germaine Greer’s pointed attack surfaced in the wake of his passing, Steve Irwin’s recent death had me lending considerable thought to the traditional notions, caricatures and stereotypes of the ‘typical’ Australian male character that, it seems, have been so equally celebrated and reviled by people for decades.

The easygoing, ocker Aussie larrikin with a healthy disrespect for authority but an innate ability to nonetheless overcome great obstacles and show heroic strength and fortitude in getting things done is likely rooted somewhere in the history and mythology that accompanied so many different individuals that played a role in shaping the early face of the nation. There were the first convict settlers who hated their English overseers, then the explorers, the bushrangers, the jackaroos, gold miners and the soldiers of Gallipoli. These ‘Aussie battlers of the sunburnt country’ survived in literature, music and film, and even expanded to include ‘new Australians’ to a degree; people like the migrant workers of the Snowy Mountain Scheme. With the success and popularity of Paul Hogan’s ‘Crocodile Dundee’ and, in many ways, Steve Irwin’s ‘Crocodile Hunter’ the traditional ‘traits’ for this typical male from Down Under have remained fairly consistent and alive and well right up to the present.

But as Australia has matured as a nation, some feel that so too should her national identity. Where in the celebrated depictions of the Australian male character are Aboriginals and Asians included? Are we all really sandy-haired surfer types with a love of beer, meat pies and the footy when we’re now so truly a multicultural nation with equally healthy obsessions among many for fine wine, Thai food and soccer? Amid the race riots on the beaches of Sydney in 2005 it was abundantly clear that not everyone considered one definition of what an ‘Australian’ and an ‘Australian male’ should be as adequate. Others wonder where it is in the traditional notions of the Aussie male can we find scientists, artists and forward-thinking statesmen? (Well, statesmen that don’t hold beer drinking records in the Guiness Book of World Records, that is.) They ask if the so-called ‘ugly Australians’ vomiting in the streets of Earls Court, London and chanting ‘Oi, Oi, Oi!’ are really the kind exports we need to help sustain as yet another ‘Shrimp on the barbie’ tourist advertisement hits the airwaves.

At the same time, this is a complicated issue as well. Pinning down exactly one encompassing Australian male identity that we can all agree on as accurate is impossible, though I can accept that while our traditional notions celebrate a very important, vibrant past and history that has helped some Australians mete out a sense of ‘who’ they are, it doesn’t necessarily roll out a welcome mat of acceptance for so many others. The widespread celebration and recognition in recent years of such individuals as Fred Hollows, Albert Namatjira, Victor Chang, and even a broadway show like ‘The Boy From Oz’ must, however, be encouraging to many in dispelling stereotypes and expanding that understanding of what it takes to be a ‘real’ Aussie.

Also frustrating is what John Birmingham, in response to Greer’s attack on Irwin called that “whole class of Australian sophisticates” who cringe at the slightest glimpse of what they see as any perpetuation of the raw, base, and uncultured Aussie character abroad. So often I’ve seen these sophisticates cry -if you’ll pardon the stereotypical language assertion- bloody murder about some ‘terrible bogan’ selling us all short, only to turn around moments later and lay the ‘mates’ and ‘strewths’ on thick while ranting about how tough Aussies are for playing football without padding. Clearly, some like to have it both ways.

At the end of the day, personally, as a Greek born mutt with a Greek father, an American mother, and who was raised and lived in Australia since about the age of three I have a very clear understanding of who I am. I’m proud and connected to many aspects of my Greek and American heritage, but ostensibly I consider myself a fully-fledged Aussie male. Hey, I enjoy meat pies, I say things like ‘mate’ and ‘g’day’, and I love my beer and footy, but I also follow American basketball, love a good moussaka and tend to swear in Greek when I’m out driving. Where the hell that places me in the tapestry of the traditional Australian male identity I’m not sure, but I find I can connect to enough aspects of it that I feel included. Is there room to include more? Certainly there is, but there’s more of an important need to do so, because that same Australian national character we so celebrate was traditionally free from pretension and easygoing enough that we’d be willing to give anyone a fair go because that’s who are so meant to be.

As for Steve Irwin? Hey, love him or not, I figured he was passionate and exuberant, and it’s hard to argue with sincerity. If people found him entertaining and loved him for his boisterous character and antics alone that’s fine, but that he was able to do some extra good in the meantime in terms of spreading a message of conservation then I’ll happily take that as a sophisticated, refined bonus that Ms Greer, in her mean spirited, insensitively ill-timed attack must surely have overlooked.

He sounded like a decent bloke to me.