Video summary
The video review focuses on the Netflix documentary "Ray Gun: Breaking Badly," which chronicles the story of Rachel Gunn, also known as Ray Gun, who became infamous for her performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The reviewer notes that this event was a historic moment as breaking dance made its Olympic debut, but it quickly turned into an embarrassment for both the athlete and the sport itself. Consequently, the decision was made to remove breakdancing from future Olympic programs. The documentary attempts to explore Ray Gun's background, her journey into the sport, and the specific events leading up to her controversial performance, though the reviewer feels the film fails to adequately address why the sport was subsequently dropped or how she displaced other talented athletes.
From a production standpoint, the reviewer praises the documentary for its glossy, polished look, well-lit interviews, and creative use of graffiti-style fonts that fit the urban aesthetic of breakdancing. However, he criticizes the lack of actual footage showing high-level breaking performances, suggesting that editors deliberately avoided showcasing skilled athletes to prevent Ray Gun from looking even worse by comparison. Despite the visual appeal, the reviewer argues that the film's primary purpose is unclear; it does not successfully rehabilitate her image nor does it provide deep insights into her character beyond noting that she is pleasant but perhaps too carefree about her situation.
The core of the reviewer's critique lies in Ray Gun's lack of genuine dedication and skill, which he illustrates through anecdotes about her husband's loyalty versus his own skepticism regarding her training regimen. He points out that her preparation was lax, involving basic exercises like pull-ups and bench presses rather than the intense, early-morning grueling routines required for elite competition. The documentary reveals that she faced veteran competitors who were far superior, performing complex flips and spins while she struggled to keep up. The reviewer emphasizes that while mocking her performance with memes is acceptable, personally attacking her and her family is never justified, drawing a parallel to the tragic bullying faced by the "Star Wars Kid" online years ago.
Ultimately, the reviewer concludes that the documentary is a well-made but ultimately pointless production that highlights Ray Gun's inability to compete at the Olympic level rather than offering a compelling narrative of redemption or growth. While Ray Gun has managed to embrace her notoriety and found some positive attention from fans dressing up as her for Halloween, the reviewer insists that she took a spot away from more gifted dancers simply because there was no other viable candidate available in Australia at that specific time. The film serves as a painful reminder of how she slid into the Olympics on a technicality without the necessary talent or drive, leaving the audience with the realization that her participation was an anomaly rather than a legitimate athletic achievement.
Read the full video transcript
The sprinkler, the kangaroo jack, the
swimmer. These are but morsels of a few
of the offerings that Ray Gun, the
professional checks notes Olympic break
dancer brought to the table. The year is
2024 in Paris at the Olympic Games and
one breaker will go down in infamy as
not only the first year breaking will
become an Olympic sport, but also the
year that history was made. Herstory, I
should say, as Rachel Gun aka Ray Gun
took to the stage and performed perhaps
the most embarrassing feat of strength
people have ever bared witness to. Not
only that, but the Olympic Games has
decided this is the only year we will be
offering break dancing and I think a lot
of it has to do with that insane
performance presented by Ray Gun. Fast
forward two years later.
>> [crying]
>> And here we are with a Netflix
documentary that's only an hour and 20
minutes long, but might as well have
been summarized in a quick email. This
is a series on Netflix called Untold and
this episode is titled Ray Gun Breaking
Badly. What will this 80-minute offering
tell us about the person? What makes her
tick? What sort of insights can we
unearth that will make this embarrassing
display at the Olympics kind of make
sense? Well, I'm here to tell you today
that this is the most unnecessary
documentary I've ever seen to this day.
Let's talk about it.
Uh I did not have a green tracksuit in
my closet. This is as close as I get to
that ensemble. I'm here to represent
rocking a B-boy stance and if you think
this looks uncool, I should remind you
of that performance she did. I remember
that fateful day when the tweets were
coming in after her performance and
people are making fun of her, posting a
bunch of memes online, superimposing her
into different scenes of films. It was
hilarious, and that performance was an
embarrassment to not only the individual
performing, but also to the sport
itself, which is I'm sure a big reason
why they just nixed the whole thing in
years to come. The film is actually not
going to even address the fact that they
got rid of the sport altogether in the
Olympics, but it's more going to focus
on Rachel, how she kind of got into the
sport, how she made a name for herself,
the tryouts to get to the Olympics, and
then the masterpiece that was the
breakdancing she performed. I saw better
breakdancing in Zoolander. Now, before I
get into the contents of the
documentary, I just want to point out
from a production standpoint, very
well-crafted, looks very glossy, very
polished. All the interviews with
Rachel, with her folks, with her
friends, are lit very well. They got
some cool backgrounds, they have
different camera angles. It's all
working for me. They're tagging titles
and names of people with graffiti font.
It works, it feels like it belongs in
this universe. There's also tons of
footage being presented. I did notice,
however, that there is a pretty large
lack of breakdancing going on, or
breaking as they call it. We're we're
talking about the sport, we're talking
about this person that was in this
world, and yet there's really not a ton
of footage of her and other people
performing these feats, and my guess is
because they don't want to make her look
worse than this documentary already
makes her look. The few slices of
athletes doing flips and spins on their
head already showcases just how weak of
a performer Raygun is in this field. So,
I'm sure they were thinking in the
editing room, "Yeah, let's not show a
ton of the professional athletes doing
this, because in comparison, it makes
her look so terrible. But, don't worry,
even with that lack of footage, that's
the exact vibe I got anyways, regardless
of that's what the documentary was going
for.
I'm going to be straight with you, I
don't actually know what the purpose of
this was, because if they were trying to
kind of clean up her image or make her
look better, mission failed. I went into
this documentary thinking that was going
to be the case. She was going to tell
her side of the story. We'd find out
that she's a very pleasant, fun
individual who kind of laughs herself
and just the situation she got herself
into. Some of that's real. Some of
that's true. She is definitely pleasant
to listen to. She's fun, little bit
carefree. Maybe too carefree, honestly.
But, I do think she missed an
opportunity to laugh at herself more, to
take, to use a dated reference, the
William Hung approach from the early
seasons of American Idol. He came on,
he's saying "She bangs, she bangs" by
was that Ricky Martin, I think.
He did a terrible job. He was a laughing
stock, but he embraced it. And and he
kind of made a name for himself as this
singer of sorts. He was in Arrested
Development in a cameo on one episode,
it was great. They referenced him on The
Office at one point. If Raegan would
have embraced this public shaming, I
think she could have gone way further in
this. You know, go the Hawk Tu girl
route. Although, I don't know if Hawk Tu
is really doing all that well these
days. Regardless, the reason I'm
pointing out that the documentary does
not make her look very good is the
following. So, she's in Australia where
we we learn that there's B-boys and
B-girls, which are are breakdancing, you
know, guys and women. And there's not
like a huge scene here in Australia
specifically for the female side. They
do interview some of the ladies that
have been doing this for a while. none
of them really have a kind thing to say
about Ray Gunn.
>> [laughter]
>> I mean, the nicest thing someone says
is, "She's very nice. We're friends."
But that said, watching her Olympic
performance was insulting and it was
embarrassing to the sport. Even Ray
Gunn's parents, who were both very
pleasant to listen to, kind of laugh off
the fact that she was an Olympian. They
they couldn't believe it. It was kind of
again, to bring up Arrested Development,
"Her?" Towards the way end of this
documentary, it also goes into how there
was this controversy online about how
she cheated her way into the Olympics
because her husband was also her
manager/coach/on
the board that approved her. That's not
true. At least according to the
documentary, he was not a judge. He had
nothing to do with that, and I believe
it. There's so many [ __ ] conspiracy
theories out there. All it takes is one
person to shout out a story, and you
have all these different outlets run
with it without doing any sort of
background due diligence. I think this
is simply a case, and that's what's
presented in this documentary, if you
believe it or not, that there just
wasn't a lot of talent to choose from in
Australia the day of the tryouts for the
Olympics. She went up against a much
younger individual who was clearly
pretty new into the sport, and some of
the veteran performers either A had no
interest in trying out for the Olympics
or B were on their way out of the sport.
So there was no way they were going to
be able to compete on a realistic level
one year from the approval process to
the Olympics. Ray Gunn though, decided,
IN HER
INFINITE
WISDOM, THAT JUST because she doesn't
have any real natural abilities or
skills in the department, and just
because her training ethics aren't
really top-notch, nor is her husband the
guy that's really going to push her. In
fact, her husband, holy [ __ ] props to
that guy. He's the most loyal
cheerleading individual I've ever seen
for a significant other. Well done, man.
You You definitely get some props from
me because you are ride or die. I don't
think if I watch my wife perform at the
level Reagan did leading into the
Olympics, I would cheer her on. I think
I'd say, "Yeah, let's get the [ __ ] out
because this is going to be an
embarrassment." And that's going to take
us to the training process of this [ __ ]
show. There was a really funny line that
stood out to me where her husband said,
"You know, she was getting up at 6:30 in
the morning and out the door. I didn't
even get to say goodbye to her because
she was going to train. What
dedication?" And all I'm thinking is,
"6:30 in the morning? [ __ ] a lot of
people get up at that time. A lot of
people get up earlier to avoid traffic.
6:30's not impressive. If you would have
told me she's getting up at like 4:00 in
the morning cracking like 12 eggs, then
she goes to work out for 6 hours or
something, then I would be like, "Wow,
okay.
That sucks that she trained this hard
and failed." But they're so
laissez-faire about the whole thing.
Like, "Yeah, yeah, we were doing some
strength training. It wasn't really
working out, so we decided, why don't we
go a different route 2 months before the
big event and try to make it like an
homage to Australia. You know, we'll
we'll do some swimming moves. We'll do
this kangaroo stuff. We'll We'll We'll
just kind of like, you know, live it up
in the moment." Rachel was talking about
some of the exercises she was doing and
I could not help but roll my eyes
because she said it with such a straight
face and with such conviction. She's out
here going, "You know, I was doing
pull-ups every day. I was doing bench
press. I was doing this." Like, all
these basic ass things that I actually
do most days of the week in the morning
for no reason at all, just to stay in
relatively decent shape. I'm certainly
not trying out for the [ __ ] Olympics.
If I was, I would be up at 4:00 in the
morning cracking eggs, hitting in gym,
hitting the Bowflex, trying different
move sets. And I think that's the
biggest insult to all of this is
it's one thing if she was just really
blood, sweat, tears all the way through
this thing, and she thought she could be
a good representation of Australia. It
doesn't seem like that was ever really
the case though. The the training was
kind of
here and there, pretty lax. The
representation seemed like she was kind
of putting on a show, and she never
believed in her heart of hearts that she
even had a chance at winning or really
competing at the same level as these
other people. And on top of that, the
documentary does show that she went to
different events, and she went up
against people before the Olympic Games,
the these champions in the industry, and
they were freaking destroying her.
They're doing flips, they're spinning on
their head a bunch, they're cartwheeling
around, going into B-girl poses. It's
just night and day difference. So, at
that point, I I don't care what kind of
ego you have, you you got to pull the
plug and say, "Listen, this this is not
for me. This is not for my country. It's
not a good look." This isn't some Eddie
the Eagle [ __ ] where she's night and
day sleeping and dreaming about this
sport, and doing everything in the power
to make it happen. This is a far cry
from a Jamaican bobsled team. No, this
is just some chick with a PhD who
thought it would be fun to dance
fancy-free. That said, was the bullying,
was the the mean comments, was were the
attacks on her personally justified?
Absolutely
not. I'm joking. Absolutely not. It's
one thing to make memes and to poke fun
of the performance and all that. It's a
completely different thing to like name
call her, to attack her and her family
personally. This stuff is never
acceptable. I remember way back at the
founding of the internet. Well, maybe
not that far back, but once YouTube
became a thing, and people were
uploading videos, we had the Star Wars
kid. This might have been pre- Was this
even YouTube he was on? I think might
have been something else. Either way,
he's in the garage, you know, swinging
around his bow staff, and he was mocked
so badly. He was doxxed as well to the
point where the family had to move
several times to different schools just
so he could get away from the ridicule.
And that's why I once again spin things
around to just point out you got to
embrace it. If you embarrassed yourself
publicly, if you're being shamed, they
can't shame you if you're doing it to
yourself. You got to rabbit this thing
from eight mile. You got to reverse M&M
card. You got to throw that Uno out and
say, "Hey, yeah, I looked like an idiot.
Okay, laugh. I'm part OF IT NOW. I'M
PART OF IT. YOU CAN'T HURT ME."
>> [laughter]
>> YOU CAN'T HURT ME. YOU can't hurt me.
The documentary ends with her kind of
embracing the whole situation, coming to
terms with the fact that this was a
disaster, but I don't think there's any
regrets in her mind. She has a folder
she said of of positive comments that
she gets all the time from people. And
overall, they've taken this now to be a
just an overall positive thing because
look it, there's people dressing up as
her at Halloween. She did make a name
for herself at the Olympics for better
or worse. She's in the conversation. She
sparked controversy.
I mean, like yeah, okay, there there is
definitely positives you can take from
it. But again, they did leave out the
fact that the breaking is no longer
going to be at the Olympics. And they
conveniently leave out the fact that she
did take away a slot. She took away an
opportunity for someone far more gifted
in the sport to make a name for
themselves. So, my overall takeaway from
this thing is it was a overall very nice
glossy production that was also equally
pointless. The only thing it really
offered me was the fact that she was
completely out of her league and had no
reason to be competing in these games in
the first place. She slid in kind of on
a technicality, I suppose. Just She was
at the right place at the right time and
they didn't have a pool of people that
could compete. So, she was the best
person for the job in that specific
location on that specific day. But, when
she started to compete, she should have
realized and well, she did realize and
so did her husband that she was in no
way, shape, or form even remotely on the
same level, on the same playing field as
these others. All right, there you have
it. My thoughts on this I I suppose
their episodes uh it's kind of a
long-running series. This is one of the
first ones I've seen. I'll try to cover
more as they come in. I am starting to
cover more Netflix stuff that's outside
of just movies, going into the
documentary stuff, some of the crime
stuff. And uh I hope you enjoy it. Let
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>> [music]
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