Controversy as John John Florence cosplays “genocidal” Captain Cook on Hanalei shopfront

“They cooked Mister Cool!”

For those of us who may be unaware, the Briton Captain James Cook was an eighteenth century explorer, navigator, and cartographer whose voyages shaped our understanding of the world.

His accomplishments were so numerous, so important, five hundred books on his legacy aren’t even close to enough.

Want a little history lesson?

Cook was a key figure in advancing celestial navigation and astronomy – if you’ve ever read the wonderful book Longitude you’ll know how revolutionary his observations were. Cook worked closely with the naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander (Cape Solander was subsequently dubbed Ours by surfers) who cataloged thousands of plant and animal species previously unknown to European science, enriching botanical and zoological knowledge.

He pioneered measures to combat scurvy, a deadly disease caused by vitamin C deficiency that plagued long sea voyages by enforcing  a diet including fresh fruits, vegetables and sauerkraut, along with strict hygiene standards. It was this success in keeping his crew healthy—losing remarkably few men to scurvy—that set a new standard for naval expeditions.

More importantly, and before he was killed by locals in Hawaii which muddied his popular-with-the-natives rep, Cook approached indigenous peoples with a degree of respect wildly uncommon for his time. He aimed to establish peaceful relations, often trading goods and recording detailed accounts of their cultures, languages, and customs.

His journals provide some of the earliest European documentation of Polynesian, Maori, Australian Aboriginal, and Native Hawaiian societies.

Thing about Cook is he’s since been downgraded by the anti-colonial crowd. Even though he didn’t colonise anywhere, he was an enabler, as they say, the detailed charts he produced on the east coast of Australia, were later used by the British government to justify establishing a penal colony at Botany Bay in 1788.

It’s rare to find a Cook statue in Australia that hasn’t been smeared in paint, graffitied (“No pride in genocide!”) “, legs sawn-off, toppled, stolen, nose chopped off etc.

Cook’s statues, see, serve as lightning rods for historical grievances, in Australia’s case, for the theft of the great southern land from the indigenous peoples who’d existed there for sixty thousand years.

And, now, the three-time world champ, who is as Hawaiian as a haloe boy can get, has been cast as a sort of pirate James Cook in a mural for Florence Marine X on Kauai.

The mural, which can be seen at the excellent Slow Yourself Down store at 5-5070 Kuhio Hwy, Hanalei on Kauai, was posted by John John’s surfer of the year brother Nathan on Instagram with the line, “They cooked Mister Cool.”

This may refer to John John or the little brother Ivan.

Ivan Florence, who turns twenty-nine in May, you see, has emerged from the shadow of his overachieving oldest brother and Prince Harry-lookalike middle bro in the past couple of Hawaiian seasons, proving magnetic in the water as well as the skate park.

Question to dwellers below the line.

Is the cosplay of John John Florence as Captain Cook a thumb in the eye to the woke or a tribute to a great navigator with a permanent connection to the gorgeous Hawaiian isles?