'Crocodile Hunter' death brings unscripted danger into sharp relief

Perhaps it shouldn't have come as a surprise. This was, after all, a man who made a career of teasing death. Captured on camera, indelible images of Steve Irwin being spat at by venomous cobras, leaping onto the backs of writhing crocodiles, or grappling with monitor lizards have become imprinted on the popular imagination.

This was a man who, in his own exuberant words, had been "gored, clawed, chomped, bitten, savaged, jumped on, whacked, peed on, and even groped" by the wildlife he so lovingly provoked.

And yet somehow the Crocodile Hunter's death did come as a crushing surprise. As news reports circulated Monday – Web traffic was so frantic that a number of sites crashed under the interest – the response seemed universally to be one of utter shock.

Under the headline "Crikey," for the antiquated Australianism resurrected by native son Irwin, Slate's daily newspaper roundup called his death "tragic news." In a reaction echoing so many others, the online magazine went on to say this was an outcome it "naively believed was simply impossible."

Something about the medium of television, the act of viewing Irwin's exploits, each laced with dramatic bits of showmanship, through that small box, made him seem invincible. Television personalities may, as Irwin did, tempt fate, court danger, cheat death. But dying – that was never in the script.

"Probably, a lot of people think of the Crocodile Hunter as fictional, a sort of mythical character not permitted to die in real life," says Keith Semmel, a communications professor specializing in pop culture at Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Ky. "It has a little bit to do with our inability to see the difference between reality and fictional programming."

Blame genre-blurring reality TV. Blame entertainment costumed as education. Blame Irwin's shows, predicated on the theater of near misses and narrow escapes. Perceptions became distorted. Risk came to feel normal. Rote. And in many ways unreal.

"We're willing to play the game, excited to watch 'Fear Factor' for the very reason that someone might get hurt," says Robert Thompson, a professor of TV and pop culture at Syracuse University in New York, referring to the reality show. "But we've come to believe it's not going to happen."

One fan reportedly left a note at the gate of the Australia Zoo, where Irwin lived with his wife and two children, that read: "I thought you were immortal. How I wish that was true."

The one truth for those who handle wild animals is the constant possibility of the unexpected. Television may be highly scripted, even when promising "reality," but the wild kingdom defies the containment of a tidy story line.

"People underestimate the power of these animals and the unpredictability," says Steve Russ, who relocates dangerous snakes around Fort Collins, Co. "I never know if a snake is going to change its mind and totally surprise me with something different than it's done before."

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