Australians are represented as people who discriminate
Have you ever seen an Australian movie where the Australian was the bad guy and afterwards you just though to yourself. The Australian film industry has a long history dating back to 1955, in creating Australians represented as people who discriminate. These two films particularly are perfectly set up for the underdog type of story. In Wayne Blair’s 2012 Film of the year, The Sapphires, presented 4 young talented aboriginal females that have a goal of performing in Vietnam War Troops while constantly being looked down upon by the white community. While in Phillip Noyce’s 2002 film Rabbit Proof Fence, three aboriginal young girls are taken away by an organization that takes I in young aboriginal children also known as the re-education camp and teaches them to grow up as “proper white”. Rabbit Proof Fence and The Sapphires uses many film devices such as character construction, mise en scene and sound techniques to make the main protagonist as the underdog.
Although both these films have very different protagonist from one another, both protagonist have a similar mission. In Rabbit Proof Fence, the girls Molly, Daisy and Gracie are running for their lives having escaped the camp forcing the whites to use all their resources to get them back. While in
…show more content…
Rabbit Proof Fence is set in the western outback of Australia, 1934. Throughout the film the towns visible are incredibly undeveloped and all the technology used by the White Australians were very old fashion, making it easier for the audience to understand that the movie was set a lengthy time ago. As for The Sapphires which was set in 1968, after the Stolen Generation and during the Vietnam War. In this gap between the two movies it is easily detectable that mankind has become a more sophisticated species but yet they still class people by their
Since the revival of Australian cinema in early 1970s, Australian films have focused on certain themes of social perceptions and representations of masculinity. We see dominant, recognisable male images in our cinema – the bushman, the larrikin, the ‘mate’, and the ‘battler’. Masculinity stereotypes are projected in both Two Hands (1999) and Strictly Ballroom (1992) to varying degrees. Australia has a reputation for aggressive masculinity. This has its roots when the first settlers, mostly male convicts landed in Botany Bay who raised ‘hell’ when drunk.
As with most works of literature, the title Fences is more than just a title. It could be initially noted that there is only one physical fence being built by the characters onstage, but what are more important are the ideas that are being kept inside and outside of the fences that are being built by Troy and some of the other characters in Fences. The fence building becomes quite figurative, as Troy tries to fence in his own desires and infidelities. Through this act of trying to contain his desires and hypocrisies one might say, Troy finds himself fenced in, caught between his pragmatic and illusory ideals. On the one side of the fence, Troy creates illusions and embellishments on the truth, talking about how he wrestled with death, his encounters with the devil, later confronting the d...
The idea that indigenous Australian communities are underprivileged and do not receive the same justice that the white community accrues is represented through Jay Swan and his interactions with the corrupt white police officers and the indigenous locals of the town. My empathetic response to the text as a whole was influenced directly by way the text constructs these ideas as well as my knowledge of the way indigenous Australians are represented in the mainstream media and the behaviour of the police force as an institution. These contextual factors and the way Sen has constructed ideas influenced me to empathise with the indigenous
In Australia the Aboriginals face discrimination daily. The film opened with four young Aboriginal girls singing on a makeshift stage facing their community. When the camera panned to show the smiling faces in the crowd it gave a feel of unity and love. Later it showed two sisters who were trying to hitch a ride into the city from the main road. Yet every vehicle passed them by; once they saw who they were, frustrated the older sister. Gale stated it was because they ‘were black’. When in the town playing their song on the stage in a bar, the youngest sister turned up and took
Over the years Australia has had many different problems with racism and racism affecting peoples’ lives. Many racial groups have been affected, most significantly the Aboriginals. The end of world war two in 1945 marked a huge change in types of racism. Australia went from the ‘superior’ white Australians dominating over immigrants and aboriginals. To a relatively multicultural and accepting society that is present today.
The Indigenous youth of Australia still face many challenges growing up in a world dominated by white Europeans. This essay will discuss the stereotypes and marginalisation that young Indigenous teenagers must face. After viewing Yolngu Boy and Black Chicks Talking, there will be examples from the two movies on the stereotypes, marginalisation, interdependent and the connection the characters of the movies have with the Aboriginal culture and the dominant white culture.
“The more you know, the less you need.” The attitude from White Australians towards Indigenous Australians was extremely unfriendly, and due to the fact that Aboriginal Australians had knowledge about things the European settlers believed did not matter they treated as if they were uneducated nuisances. The aboriginal people believed that the land they had lived on for generations belonged to them; however the White Australians came and took the land. This also means that the Europeans took what the Indigenous people valued most, and that was their land. Authors and directors convey different attitudes, values and beliefs in different ways, however it still has the same impact.
Throughout Australian history a racist attitude towards Aboriginals has been a significant issue. From the moment the early settlers arrived on our shores and colonised, the Aboriginals have been fighting for the survival of their culture. The Aboriginals haven been take in and dominated to bring them in line with an idealistic European society. These themes have been put forward by Jack Davis in his stage play, No Sugar, the story of an Aboriginal family’s fight for survival during the Great Depression years. Admittedly Davis utilises his characters to confront the audience and take them out of their comfort zone, showing them the reality of Aboriginal treatment. This is an element of the marginalisation that Jack Davis uses through out the play this starts from the beginning where he discomforts the audience by using an open stage. One character that Davis uses through out the play is A.O. Neville, Davis uses him to portray the issue of power, this is a very important issue that is carried through out the play.
The book and the movie are alike in the portrayal of a young girl, Winnie Foster, on the verge of womanhood, who feels discontent with her sheltered life. She comes upon the Tuck family, Mae, Angus (referred to as Tuck), Miles and Jesse, who share a surprising secret, everlasting life, the source of which is a spring found in the woods belonging to Winnie’s family. Winnie is kidnapped by them until they are sure she will not reveal their story. The Tucks are being searched for by a mysterious man in a yellow suit who suspects their secret. The man in the yellow suit desires to own the woods and exploit its contents for personal gain. He discovers where Winnie is held and offers to tell her family in exchange for ownership of the woods. Winnie’s family agrees and the man in the yellow suit leas the sheriff to the Tuck’s home. Mae, the mother of the Tuck family, hits the man in the yellow suit over the head when she discovers his plan. Mae is then taken to jail and sentenced to hang when it is discovered that the man in the yellow hat died from his injuries. The Tucks are extremely concerned because Mae will not die when she is hung and their secret will be revealed....
Within Australia, beginning from approximately the time of European settlement to late 1969, the Aboriginal population of Australia experienced the detrimental effects of the stolen generation. A majority of the abducted children were ’half-castes’, in which they had one white parent and the other of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. Following the government policies, the European police and government continued the assimilation of Aboriginal children into ‘white’ society. Oblivious to the destruction and devastation they were causing, the British had believed that they were doing this for “their [Aborigines] own good”, that they were “protecting” them as their families and culture were deemed unfit to raise them. These beliefs caused ...
These two films are not only similar on these surface levels, but also in their narrative structure and intent as well. Dorothy and Alice, both find themselves trapped in a world of their own fantasy, but with no context on how to navigate their way home. They are then lead by an array of strange characters who guide them on their journey. Dorothy meets the scarecrow, the tin man, the cowardly lion, and so on. While Alice crosses paths with the white rabbit, the cheshire cat, the mad hatter, and so on. With the assistance of their companions, both heroines maneuver their way through the challenges each fantasy presents. Perhaps the biggest similarity these films share narratively, is the underlying emphasis on empathy and perspective. Both
Throughout both ‘Rainbow’s End’ and ‘The Rabbits’, the audience discovers the plights that the Aboriginal Australians faced, due to discrimination and assimilation, in intensely confronting, yet intensely meaningful ways. We see how the discrimination and forced assimilation of cultures was common in the lead up to modern times because of composers like Harrison, Marsden and Tan reminding us of these events, allowing us to discover and rediscover our past wrongs through their works, in order to pave the way for a brighter, harmonious future. Without these documentations and retellings of events such as these, history would repeat itself, conflicts would be more apparent and we as a species would not be able to thrive and prosper due to our prejudices and superiority complexes.
Hooper’s compelling and strategically written text paints an Australian context where a distinct racial divide separates the country; one where racism is rife and where white supremacy is rampant. Hooper urges the reader to accept that in the context of colonial Australia, Aboriginals faced such extreme oppression that they resorted to summoning spirits to doom their cruel white colonisers. She recounts a walk to a cave in Cape York, where she intentionally selects paintings depicting destructive images of white colonisers being “doomed”, highlighting the rifles which the white troopers brandished. The marginalised Aboriginals resigned to using “purri purri” (sorcery) against the police, which emphasises the idea that in this context, the Aboriginals felt so oppressed that they resorted to conjuring spirits for protection. Hooper describes a painting in which under a white man’s shirt, “he was reptilian”, and the adjective “reptilian” allows the audience to understand that in this context, the Aboriginals felt so threatened that they had to draw the trooper as a snake.
After the release of Rabbit Proof Fence, many `politically right' white Australians tried to promote that the film was based on myth and misunderstanding but in facet is not as the film itself promotes the openness of racism. Racism was not only a problem is Australia but throughout the world and is continuing to stay a problem, even in our own backyard. The racism between the white Australians and the Aborigines is quite similar to the racism shown in schools and even in parliament here in New Zealand between the Maori and Europeans, or once again between the `white' and the `black'.
Racism is defined as, “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races” (Merriam-Webster). Director Philip Noyce conveys Webster’s definition of racism in his 2002 film, Rabbit-Proof Fence, by examining Aboriginal racism of the 1930s through the eyes of three young girls: Molly, Gracie and Daisy who are forcefully taken from their mothers by the Australian government; and a man, Neville, who believes that giving half-castes a chance to join his “civilized society” is the virtuous thing to do, even if it means stripping them of their family, traditions and culture. The film follows the girls as they escape from the Moore River Native Settlement, an indentured servant training camp for half-castes, and walk 1,200 miles back to their home in Jigalong. Noyce weaves story progression and character development throughout the film to demonstrate the theme of racism and covey the discriminations that occurred to Australia’s stolen generation and Aboriginal people during the 1930s.