This week’s class presentation got me thinking about the difference between identification and recognition. I feel that some people cannot differentiate between these two concepts quite well enough, particularly in terms of analysing representations of Australia in cinema and television, specifically Baz Luhrmann’s “Come Walkabout” Australian tourist television campaign. My main issue is that people continuously ask questions like ‘what do you think this representation of the outback is intended to do?’, ‘why is it that so much Australian film and television focuses on the outback when the majority of the population are urban dwellers who live along the coast?’ or even ‘how do you, or even can you possibly identify with this representation of Australia as the outback?’. Which has in my experience being met with answers such as ‘its intended to play up to global stereotypes of what people perceive Australia to be like’, or ‘because people think in order to make a story so specifically Australian it has to involve the outback somehow’ and most often ‘I don’t identify with it, I don’t and never have lived in the outback and I think it’s an unfair representation of our country and portrayal of our people. Why can’t we just tell normal Australian stories?!’.
For me personally, I have no problems with the portrayal of the outback as representing our nation. I do not identify with it, but I don’t feel I need the outback to be part of my identity to be an Australian. What I’m proposing here is that I can recognisethe motivations behind the saturated use of images of the outback in Australian film and television, but whilst it seems to me others tend to be quite bitter about it, it only increases my level of appreciation. I can recognise that the outback is part of Australia the nation, and that it is part of Australia as my country, and therefore I hold no grudges against the idea. Sure I don’t live there, and there is not as many coastal or urban settings utilised in comparison to the outback, but it is severely beautiful and terrifying at the same time, relatively easy to market and is a major draw card for tourists to come here. I have the ability to accept that it is not part of my identity but I appreciate the role it plays on both national and international scales. And I also particularly like the “Come Walkabout” tourist campaign, although it does play up this characteristically cliché drawcard to Australia, as well as some Aboriginal stereotypes being channelled through the role of the indigenous boy, it is tastefully done and does play up one’s spiritual side, not to mention that Brandon Walters is a beautiful young boy.
For me personally, I have no problems with the portrayal of the outback as representing our nation. I do not identify with it, but I don’t feel I need the outback to be part of my identity to be an Australian. What I’m proposing here is that I can recognisethe motivations behind the saturated use of images of the outback in Australian film and television, but whilst it seems to me others tend to be quite bitter about it, it only increases my level of appreciation. I can recognise that the outback is part of Australia the nation, and that it is part of Australia as my country, and therefore I hold no grudges against the idea. Sure I don’t live there, and there is not as many coastal or urban settings utilised in comparison to the outback, but it is severely beautiful and terrifying at the same time, relatively easy to market and is a major draw card for tourists to come here. I have the ability to accept that it is not part of my identity but I appreciate the role it plays on both national and international scales. And I also particularly like the “Come Walkabout” tourist campaign, although it does play up this characteristically cliché drawcard to Australia, as well as some Aboriginal stereotypes being channelled through the role of the indigenous boy, it is tastefully done and does play up one’s spiritual side, not to mention that Brandon Walters is a beautiful young boy.
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