Analyse the way notions of masculinity and mateship are represented in Australian film as part of our cultural identity
National cinema is an important platform for the representation of identity, involving both the way the nation sees itself, and the way the nation wants to portray itself to a global audience. Australia’s national cinema does just this, through both direct and indirect ways, creating an identity within every film that is made, but it is the characteristics that are commonplace and socially relevant that work in conjunction together to create a stronger sense of the nation and of nationalism, therefore helping us in defining our identity. Two of the most prominent themes of our cultural identity are the representations of masculinity and mateship, often two characteristics used to describe both Australia as a nation, and Australians as individuals. These notions are featured heavily in many Australian films, particularly Peter Weir’s Gallipoli (1981), George Miller’s Mad Max (1979), Ted Kotcheff’s Wake In Fright (1971) and Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (2008). Each of these films plays their own individual role in the history of Australian cinema and in the creation of cultural identity in film. Although they are obviously not the only Australian films to portray this type of identity, they will here be analysed in terms of the techniques used to create these representations including the utilisation of the landscape and characterisation within the films and the relationships they portray, as well as features such as the dominance over females, the difficulty of hardship and the roles alcohol, violence and gambling play in the films and their contexts. The social and historical contexts of these films also play a large part in the creation of identity, made following a time when film was recognised as a medium possible of portraying these ideals to the public. “Film-making and film industry policy sustains both kinds of national definitions. The agitators for Australian cinema in the 1960s and early 1079s sought national political support for Australian cinema as a national cultural institution concerned with identity and self expression – ‘dreaming our own dreams, telling our own stories’. A measure of a self-respecting mature nation was the possession of a national cinema”[1].
Masculinity has always played an essential role in the way we think about our cultural identity, not just through it representation in film, but also because male exclusivity and dominance was a feature of society itself for a very long time. The main ways that masculinity has been, and continues to be illustrated onscreen is through the depiction of the landscape and its isolation, the hardship of working on the land, the dominance of the male over the female (and virtually everything else) and a strong sense of anti-authoritarianism.
Australia’s landscape has always consistently played one of the foremost roles in depictions of our nation, in any medium, but post prominently in film, as it has an uncanny way of capturing our landscape in its essence. These representations work strongly on both visual and metaphorical levels, and will feature in virtually any film made in or about the Australian outback, (as a particular landscape) among others. When the audience is exposed to visuals like that in Wake In Fright when we see Gary Bond’s character John Grant standing alone at the Tiboonda train station, surrounded by desert, the scene portrays a very masculine feel, one of isolation and of survival, that it takes a tough male to be able to not only endure what the landscape throws at him, but also fight it, and even in some cases, tame it. Another scene that portrays this same sense of remoteness and endurance is in Peter Weir’s Gallipoli, when Archie and Frank are walking across the salt plains, and there is nothing else in the horizon. These are strong cinematic messages of masculine power and dominance, and we rarely see a female character in the same position, either physically, or within the storyline, making this type of narrative and scenario, a typically male one. The land itself within Australian cinema can be used in this argument of masculinity, where the harshness of the land, in film and in reality, means that it is almost exclusively a male dominated domain, as such courage and strength is needed to work it. This hardship is often used as a chip on many of the characters’ shoulders, and can sometimes even mean that in the glorification of this masculinity, the male himself has to suffer the hardship, a defeat, and Katherine Biber argues that this process of making the male a hero can also be completed by death. “Australian cinema appears to have a narrative fascination with defeat. Heroism in our national iconography is predicated upon the failed attempt, the inordinately stacked odds, a preponderance of bad luck. Australian heroes queue up to have ago, fight the good fight and courageously, selflessly, good-naturedly, lose”[2]. This failure is a prominent option in the fate of Australians on film predominantly because they are in a position of hardship, coming from the situation of the underdog, and in most of these films; this is in some way attributed to their relationship to nature. Even on a more thematic notion, Gallipoli is representative on a larger scale that it took a national defeat in war at Gallipoli for us to become proud of our nation, and acknowledge and commend the courage and bravery shown by our solider as well as the sacrifices made by all parts of the community. And whilst the actual historical event prompting this national outpour of pride at the time, Peter Weir’s Gallipoli, creating the same stirring feelings of national honour with the release of the film, again because of defeat, and even though Archie dies at the close of the film, he is somewhat of a sacrifice that needed to be made to provoke the response from the audience. “Every national cinema attempts at some point to turn its national distinction into as asset, not a liability. It strives at some point to be locally attached”[3].
It is also within some scenarios of this hardship that we are exposed to the value that the male and his body hold within representations in Australian film. These scenes are often in conjunction with the landscape as well, and there is often a large emphasis placed on the body itself, as if wanting to prove to the audience it is evidence of how strong and masculine the characters are and need to be. In Luhrmann’s Australia, there is an infamous scene of the Drover character pouring a bucket of water over his shirt-less self to wash off the dirt from a long days work on the land.When compared to the feminine representations within Australian film, males are a much more dominant part of our cultural identity on film, and their physical representation differs greatly. We often see the men out working on the land, wearing working clothes, covered in dirt with sun darkened brown skin. This often the complete opposite to the typical female, who is normally properly dressed in unconventional attire, with neat hair and pale white skin from spending all her time inside. Again, Luhrmann has a great comparison in Australia, as the Drover and Lady Sarah Ashley, are quite physically opposites. Drover portrays the classic, rugged, work weathered, tanned man of the land, whereas Lady Sarah Ashley is fresh out of English, with her porcelain skin and rose tinted cheeks, inappropriate clothing and an attitude to match, albeit in this film, we do witness a change in her character, both in personality and in appearance, where she learns to adapt to this Australian way of life. The representation of the females to compare to the males in Wake In Fright is also a contentious issue. As there are only two women throughout the narrative involved with John Grant, one his girlfriend in Sydney, who we are only ever exposed to in his daydreams about her running along a beach, here as the unattainable goal, and then the issue that is Janette, and her promiscuity and nymphomania place her completely on the other side of the accessibility spectrum, so much so that it actually makes John physically sick. These are both here fairly twisted portrayals of women, and the purpose of these representations could be argued to be to favour the males (who are really just as twisted, if not more so) within these situations. It could even be claimed that all of these illustrations within film are not just about representing what masculinity is, as much as they are about representing what masculinity is not. “The images by which Australia is instantly recognisable in the world at large are of me, of white men, and the establishment and promotion of these images has had certain corollaries, both in cultural products and in the life of the country. Among these corollaries have been the suppression of women, relegated to the sidelines in most recent Australian films, neglect of the country’s aboriginal population and its history, and a playing up of the Australian male’s engagement with a demanding natural environment”[4]. The other major argument in the representation of masculinity as so integral to Australia’s cultural identity is that it pretty much excludes to a large degree, any other demographic, not just women, but also indigenous people too. If indigenous persons are represented in an Australian it is often to fulfil a particular purpose such as advising white fellas about the land (the indigenous elder giving Archie and Frank warnings not to go across the salt plain in Gallipoli), to represent discrimination (in Australia, where the issues of the stolen generation and equality are raised) or even just virtually no representation at all, the ability to portray a complete narrative without any substantial role for or acknowledgment of the indigenous community (such as in Gallipoli and Wake In Fright). Meaghan Morris also explores this notion of whiteness as the normal in her essay White Panic Or Mad Max And The Sublime, stating that it is somewhat attributed to our lack of acknowledgement in real society. “’White Australia’ was not only a policy valorised by a set of beliefs instilled in people over decades, but a wild array of stories, myths, legends, rumours, images, factoids and ideas not necessarily coherent with the policy’s aims or with each other – and always taking a life of their own”[5]. So again, we are placed with questioning how much of the content within these films is actually of the purpose to portray what masculine Australia consists of, or portraying what it does not or should not consist of. This male dominance is represented in Wake In Fright, even more so in the kangaroo hunting scene, illustrating the supremacy of man over nature and beast, and this is heightened by the joy and pleasure we witness some of the male characters getting from this experience. And another slightly left of centre story of domination is Mad Max, where the males show severe control over their machinery (motorcycles and cars) and their dominance over the road. This is really a two-fold notion because by having a road at all is representative of man’s domination over the land, and with Max’s triumph in revenge at the close of the film, we feel as if he has dominated not only the road, but also the bad guys and justice as well.
The other major part of our cultural identity to be analysed in conjunction with masculinity is mateship. “The sentimental ideal of mateship may well be Australia’s chief contribution to the history of human relationship. Like most images which together constitute a national identity, the image of men as mates derives from that blurred territory between myth and reality”[6]. It is what most people would call typically Australian, and there is no shortage in the various ways to has been portrayed within Australian film: through attitudes of anti-authoritarianism, loyalty to friends and family not the authorities, and then, some would argue most importantly, represented through alcohol consuming, gambling habits and violence.
Anti-authoritarianism is rife in Australian film, and is could be contended even within Australian society. In many ways it can be acknowledged by loyalty to friends, family, nation etc instead of to any form of authoritative figure, such as an employer, parent, or a police or army officer. In Gallipoli, this is illustrated in a couple of ways, firstly we see Archie disregarding the law of age to join the Australian army, and applies, lies about his birth date and gets in through a love of and loyalty to his country, and desire to fight for her on the front line. In this same process, he is also defying the requests of both his parents and uncle, who have insisted that he doesn’t go. But, this anti-authoritarianism, works on another layer within Gallipoli: Frank. “Being anti-authoritarian breaks down more specifically into being anti-rules and anti-laws, anti-boss, anti-European, and anti-British. It has concomitants such as affection for the underdog who suffers oppression by any foregoing objects of anti-feeling and love of a hero who breaks the rules”[7]. So this rule-breaking applies to Archie’s position, and the anti-British sentiment applies to Frank, who uses this as his basis for not joining the army, not wanting to fight Britain’s war for them, eventually he does could around, again, because of mateship, and loyalty to his friends. So Gallipoli in these ways helps our ideas of cultural identity in relation to the mateship shared between the characters and the re-positioning of where their loyalty lies. “Gallipoli is not so much about Australians at war as it is a celebration of the national ideology. It is largely about what is intrinsically Australian – mateship, endurance, the outback and a nationalistic belief in an as yet unrealised potential – sacrificed to an alien cause”[8]. Anti-authoritarianism is also enacted by Max’s character in Mad Max, when he chooses to leave the highway patrol squad in order to carry out revenge in ways that are outside the law, therefore leaving him with no option but to do it himself, out of his former work environment.
Three absolutely essential aspects to these male dominated films are their recreational activities and the pleasure they receive from them, these being alcohol, gambling and violence, all of which tend to be quite the bonding process for our main male characters. The consumption of alcohol is prevalent in virtually nearly every Australian film ever made, and it is no exception for these films. In Luhrmann’s Australia, we have Sergeant Callahan who is stuck to the drink, and his demise does not take long in the scheme of the film, only after he tries to redeem himself by quitting the drink of course. In Wake In Fright, the audience could be forgiven for feeling intoxicated themselves, upon seeing the amount of alcohol consumption the males are capable of, and enjoy experiencing. Within this film in particular, this consumption of alcohol acts as a bonding process between the men and companies nearly any other activity then undertake. Particularly illustrating its value to the male community is also the scene at the beginning of the film where John Grant declines a drink with a guy who gave him a lift, and his reaction is as if he has been personally insulted. As well as the Doc’s unashamed admission to being an alcoholic, and that he has even changed his life to suit his addiction, “I'm a doctor of medicine. And a tramp by temperament. I'm also an alcoholic. My disease prevented me from practicing in Sydney. But out here it's scarcely noticeable”. Also indicating that the norm is everyone is an alcoholic in this rural town. Wake In Fright is also the perfect example of males gambling, most predominantly through the two-up scene itself, and within the narrative that it great when John wins in the game, but is tempted by greed to play again and then looses everything, therefore destroying his life, leading him to make all the decisions for the rest of the film, placing him in unforgiveable positions. Competitiveness is also seen in Gallipoli, as well as gambling, but in the context of running races, where we see Frank back himself and then lose out to Archie. Violence is another concept evident in probably nearly every Australian movie ever made, here in Gallipoli, it is the violence of war, and the temperamental affects this has on men involved in war, both physically and mentally. In Wake In Fright, the violence is unbelievably confronting within the kangaroo hunting scene, as well in many other scenarios which can be analysed from many different perspectives, because they can be playful fights between the men when they are drunk that turn nasty or situations where their intent is questionable. Australia represents its violence also through war, but more effectively through the discrimination of the indigenous population and the death of its members, particularly of Nullah’s mother, and David Ngoombujarra’s character of Magarri. And the violence represented in Mad Max ties in with the previously mentioned, dominance of the road, and of whoever/whatever is on it. The killings also play a major role in the post-apocalyptic film, specifically Max’s wife and child, and even the graphic desecration and abuse of the young couple and their car at the beginning of the film. As all of these violent undertaking are part of the man’s world within Australian film, they are often indicators of mateship, again the kangaroo hunting scene representative of male bonding, and the need to fit in with the circle, to prove oneself.
All of these filmic techniques contribute to one’s sense of Australian cultural identity, mainly because the points here are so common and in the majority of Australian films, we have learnt to live with them. The two main ones most people identify are masculinity and mateship, and these are representative of cultural identity in Australian film in many ways, including through the representation and relationship with nature, the hardship faced by the male on the land, the dominance the male has over everything in the films, the typically male stance of anti-authoritarianism, and the obsessions with alcohol, gambling and violence.
“Film, above all other cultural forms, has the means to give Australia an image of itself. It is the most powerful medium for projecting a national identity”[9].
Bibliography
Biber, Katherine, “’Turned Out Real Nice After All’: Death and Masculinity in Australian Cinema”, in Playing The Man: New Approaches To Masculinity, ed. Biber, Katherine, Sear, Tom and Trudinger, Dave, Pluto Press Australia Limited, Australia, 1999
Freebury, Jane, “Screening Australia: Gallipoli – A Study of Nationalism on Film” in Media Information Australia, Feb, 43, 1987
Hatlof, Marek, “In Quest Of Self Identity: Gallipoli, Mateship and the Construction of Australian National Identity” in Journal of Popular Film & Television, Spring, 19993, 21, 1, Academic Research Library, pg 27
McFarlane, Brian, “Mates And Others In A Wide Brown Land: Images Of Australia” in Australian Cinema 1970-1985, McFarlane, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1987, page 47
Morris, Meaghan, “White Panic OR Mad Max And The Sublime” in Kuan-Hsing Chen ed., Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, London, Routledge, 1998, page 239
O’Regan, Tom, “A National Cinema” in The Film Cultures Reader, ed. Graeme Turner, Routledge Publishing, USA, 2002
Youlden, Tricia “Wake In Fright”, in Education, Jul 6, 2009, 90, 7, ProQuest Education Journals, pg 29
Filmography
Australia, (Nov 26, 2008), Baz Luhrmann, 165 mins
Gallipoli, (Aug 13, 1981), Peter Weir, 110 mins
Mad Max, (April 12, 1979), George Miller, 88 mins
Wake In Fright (1971), Ted Kotcheff, 114 mins
Annika Drew | 3254844
[1] O’Regan, Tom, “A National Cinema” in The Film Cultures Reader, ed. Graeme Turner, Routledge Publishing, USA, 2002, pg 157
[2] Biber, Katherine, “’Turned Out Real Nice After All’: Death and Masculinity in Australian Cinema”, in Playing The Man: New Approaches To Masculinity, ed. Biber, Katherine, Sear, Tom and Trudinger, Dave, Pluto Press Australia Limited, Australia, 1999, pg 27
[3] O’Regan, Tom, “A National Cinema” in The Film Cultures Reader, ed. Graeme Turner, Routledge Publishing, USA, 2002, pg 155
[4] McFarlane, Brian, “Mates And Others In A Wide Brown Land: Images Of Australia” in Australian Cinema 1970-1985, McFarlane, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1987, page 48
[5] Morris, Meaghan, “White Panic OR Mad Max And The Sublime” in Kuan-Hsing Chen ed., Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, London, Routledge, 1998, page 240
[6] McFarlane, Brian, “Mates And Others In A Wide Brown Land: Images Of Australia” in Australian Cinema 1970-1985, McFarlane, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1987, page 54
[7] McFarlane, Brian, “Mates And Others In A Wide Brown Land: Images Of Australia” in Australian Cinema 1970-1985, McFarlane, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1987, page 57
[8] Freebury, Jane, “Screening Australia: Gallipoli – A Study of Nationalism on Film” in Media Information Australia, Feb, 43, 1987
[9] Freebury, Jane, “Screening Australia: Gallipoli – A Study of Nationalism on Film” in Media Information Australia, Feb, 43, 1987
Masculinity has always played an essential role in the way we think about our cultural identity, not just through it representation in film, but also because male exclusivity and dominance was a feature of society itself for a very long time. The main ways that masculinity has been, and continues to be illustrated onscreen is through the depiction of the landscape and its isolation, the hardship of working on the land, the dominance of the male over the female (and virtually everything else) and a strong sense of anti-authoritarianism.
Australia’s landscape has always consistently played one of the foremost roles in depictions of our nation, in any medium, but post prominently in film, as it has an uncanny way of capturing our landscape in its essence. These representations work strongly on both visual and metaphorical levels, and will feature in virtually any film made in or about the Australian outback, (as a particular landscape) among others. When the audience is exposed to visuals like that in Wake In Fright when we see Gary Bond’s character John Grant standing alone at the Tiboonda train station, surrounded by desert, the scene portrays a very masculine feel, one of isolation and of survival, that it takes a tough male to be able to not only endure what the landscape throws at him, but also fight it, and even in some cases, tame it. Another scene that portrays this same sense of remoteness and endurance is in Peter Weir’s Gallipoli, when Archie and Frank are walking across the salt plains, and there is nothing else in the horizon. These are strong cinematic messages of masculine power and dominance, and we rarely see a female character in the same position, either physically, or within the storyline, making this type of narrative and scenario, a typically male one. The land itself within Australian cinema can be used in this argument of masculinity, where the harshness of the land, in film and in reality, means that it is almost exclusively a male dominated domain, as such courage and strength is needed to work it. This hardship is often used as a chip on many of the characters’ shoulders, and can sometimes even mean that in the glorification of this masculinity, the male himself has to suffer the hardship, a defeat, and Katherine Biber argues that this process of making the male a hero can also be completed by death. “Australian cinema appears to have a narrative fascination with defeat. Heroism in our national iconography is predicated upon the failed attempt, the inordinately stacked odds, a preponderance of bad luck. Australian heroes queue up to have ago, fight the good fight and courageously, selflessly, good-naturedly, lose”[2]. This failure is a prominent option in the fate of Australians on film predominantly because they are in a position of hardship, coming from the situation of the underdog, and in most of these films; this is in some way attributed to their relationship to nature. Even on a more thematic notion, Gallipoli is representative on a larger scale that it took a national defeat in war at Gallipoli for us to become proud of our nation, and acknowledge and commend the courage and bravery shown by our solider as well as the sacrifices made by all parts of the community. And whilst the actual historical event prompting this national outpour of pride at the time, Peter Weir’s Gallipoli, creating the same stirring feelings of national honour with the release of the film, again because of defeat, and even though Archie dies at the close of the film, he is somewhat of a sacrifice that needed to be made to provoke the response from the audience. “Every national cinema attempts at some point to turn its national distinction into as asset, not a liability. It strives at some point to be locally attached”[3].
It is also within some scenarios of this hardship that we are exposed to the value that the male and his body hold within representations in Australian film. These scenes are often in conjunction with the landscape as well, and there is often a large emphasis placed on the body itself, as if wanting to prove to the audience it is evidence of how strong and masculine the characters are and need to be. In Luhrmann’s Australia, there is an infamous scene of the Drover character pouring a bucket of water over his shirt-less self to wash off the dirt from a long days work on the land.When compared to the feminine representations within Australian film, males are a much more dominant part of our cultural identity on film, and their physical representation differs greatly. We often see the men out working on the land, wearing working clothes, covered in dirt with sun darkened brown skin. This often the complete opposite to the typical female, who is normally properly dressed in unconventional attire, with neat hair and pale white skin from spending all her time inside. Again, Luhrmann has a great comparison in Australia, as the Drover and Lady Sarah Ashley, are quite physically opposites. Drover portrays the classic, rugged, work weathered, tanned man of the land, whereas Lady Sarah Ashley is fresh out of English, with her porcelain skin and rose tinted cheeks, inappropriate clothing and an attitude to match, albeit in this film, we do witness a change in her character, both in personality and in appearance, where she learns to adapt to this Australian way of life. The representation of the females to compare to the males in Wake In Fright is also a contentious issue. As there are only two women throughout the narrative involved with John Grant, one his girlfriend in Sydney, who we are only ever exposed to in his daydreams about her running along a beach, here as the unattainable goal, and then the issue that is Janette, and her promiscuity and nymphomania place her completely on the other side of the accessibility spectrum, so much so that it actually makes John physically sick. These are both here fairly twisted portrayals of women, and the purpose of these representations could be argued to be to favour the males (who are really just as twisted, if not more so) within these situations. It could even be claimed that all of these illustrations within film are not just about representing what masculinity is, as much as they are about representing what masculinity is not. “The images by which Australia is instantly recognisable in the world at large are of me, of white men, and the establishment and promotion of these images has had certain corollaries, both in cultural products and in the life of the country. Among these corollaries have been the suppression of women, relegated to the sidelines in most recent Australian films, neglect of the country’s aboriginal population and its history, and a playing up of the Australian male’s engagement with a demanding natural environment”[4]. The other major argument in the representation of masculinity as so integral to Australia’s cultural identity is that it pretty much excludes to a large degree, any other demographic, not just women, but also indigenous people too. If indigenous persons are represented in an Australian it is often to fulfil a particular purpose such as advising white fellas about the land (the indigenous elder giving Archie and Frank warnings not to go across the salt plain in Gallipoli), to represent discrimination (in Australia, where the issues of the stolen generation and equality are raised) or even just virtually no representation at all, the ability to portray a complete narrative without any substantial role for or acknowledgment of the indigenous community (such as in Gallipoli and Wake In Fright). Meaghan Morris also explores this notion of whiteness as the normal in her essay White Panic Or Mad Max And The Sublime, stating that it is somewhat attributed to our lack of acknowledgement in real society. “’White Australia’ was not only a policy valorised by a set of beliefs instilled in people over decades, but a wild array of stories, myths, legends, rumours, images, factoids and ideas not necessarily coherent with the policy’s aims or with each other – and always taking a life of their own”[5]. So again, we are placed with questioning how much of the content within these films is actually of the purpose to portray what masculine Australia consists of, or portraying what it does not or should not consist of. This male dominance is represented in Wake In Fright, even more so in the kangaroo hunting scene, illustrating the supremacy of man over nature and beast, and this is heightened by the joy and pleasure we witness some of the male characters getting from this experience. And another slightly left of centre story of domination is Mad Max, where the males show severe control over their machinery (motorcycles and cars) and their dominance over the road. This is really a two-fold notion because by having a road at all is representative of man’s domination over the land, and with Max’s triumph in revenge at the close of the film, we feel as if he has dominated not only the road, but also the bad guys and justice as well.
The other major part of our cultural identity to be analysed in conjunction with masculinity is mateship. “The sentimental ideal of mateship may well be Australia’s chief contribution to the history of human relationship. Like most images which together constitute a national identity, the image of men as mates derives from that blurred territory between myth and reality”[6]. It is what most people would call typically Australian, and there is no shortage in the various ways to has been portrayed within Australian film: through attitudes of anti-authoritarianism, loyalty to friends and family not the authorities, and then, some would argue most importantly, represented through alcohol consuming, gambling habits and violence.
Anti-authoritarianism is rife in Australian film, and is could be contended even within Australian society. In many ways it can be acknowledged by loyalty to friends, family, nation etc instead of to any form of authoritative figure, such as an employer, parent, or a police or army officer. In Gallipoli, this is illustrated in a couple of ways, firstly we see Archie disregarding the law of age to join the Australian army, and applies, lies about his birth date and gets in through a love of and loyalty to his country, and desire to fight for her on the front line. In this same process, he is also defying the requests of both his parents and uncle, who have insisted that he doesn’t go. But, this anti-authoritarianism, works on another layer within Gallipoli: Frank. “Being anti-authoritarian breaks down more specifically into being anti-rules and anti-laws, anti-boss, anti-European, and anti-British. It has concomitants such as affection for the underdog who suffers oppression by any foregoing objects of anti-feeling and love of a hero who breaks the rules”[7]. So this rule-breaking applies to Archie’s position, and the anti-British sentiment applies to Frank, who uses this as his basis for not joining the army, not wanting to fight Britain’s war for them, eventually he does could around, again, because of mateship, and loyalty to his friends. So Gallipoli in these ways helps our ideas of cultural identity in relation to the mateship shared between the characters and the re-positioning of where their loyalty lies. “Gallipoli is not so much about Australians at war as it is a celebration of the national ideology. It is largely about what is intrinsically Australian – mateship, endurance, the outback and a nationalistic belief in an as yet unrealised potential – sacrificed to an alien cause”[8]. Anti-authoritarianism is also enacted by Max’s character in Mad Max, when he chooses to leave the highway patrol squad in order to carry out revenge in ways that are outside the law, therefore leaving him with no option but to do it himself, out of his former work environment.
Three absolutely essential aspects to these male dominated films are their recreational activities and the pleasure they receive from them, these being alcohol, gambling and violence, all of which tend to be quite the bonding process for our main male characters. The consumption of alcohol is prevalent in virtually nearly every Australian film ever made, and it is no exception for these films. In Luhrmann’s Australia, we have Sergeant Callahan who is stuck to the drink, and his demise does not take long in the scheme of the film, only after he tries to redeem himself by quitting the drink of course. In Wake In Fright, the audience could be forgiven for feeling intoxicated themselves, upon seeing the amount of alcohol consumption the males are capable of, and enjoy experiencing. Within this film in particular, this consumption of alcohol acts as a bonding process between the men and companies nearly any other activity then undertake. Particularly illustrating its value to the male community is also the scene at the beginning of the film where John Grant declines a drink with a guy who gave him a lift, and his reaction is as if he has been personally insulted. As well as the Doc’s unashamed admission to being an alcoholic, and that he has even changed his life to suit his addiction, “I'm a doctor of medicine. And a tramp by temperament. I'm also an alcoholic. My disease prevented me from practicing in Sydney. But out here it's scarcely noticeable”. Also indicating that the norm is everyone is an alcoholic in this rural town. Wake In Fright is also the perfect example of males gambling, most predominantly through the two-up scene itself, and within the narrative that it great when John wins in the game, but is tempted by greed to play again and then looses everything, therefore destroying his life, leading him to make all the decisions for the rest of the film, placing him in unforgiveable positions. Competitiveness is also seen in Gallipoli, as well as gambling, but in the context of running races, where we see Frank back himself and then lose out to Archie. Violence is another concept evident in probably nearly every Australian movie ever made, here in Gallipoli, it is the violence of war, and the temperamental affects this has on men involved in war, both physically and mentally. In Wake In Fright, the violence is unbelievably confronting within the kangaroo hunting scene, as well in many other scenarios which can be analysed from many different perspectives, because they can be playful fights between the men when they are drunk that turn nasty or situations where their intent is questionable. Australia represents its violence also through war, but more effectively through the discrimination of the indigenous population and the death of its members, particularly of Nullah’s mother, and David Ngoombujarra’s character of Magarri. And the violence represented in Mad Max ties in with the previously mentioned, dominance of the road, and of whoever/whatever is on it. The killings also play a major role in the post-apocalyptic film, specifically Max’s wife and child, and even the graphic desecration and abuse of the young couple and their car at the beginning of the film. As all of these violent undertaking are part of the man’s world within Australian film, they are often indicators of mateship, again the kangaroo hunting scene representative of male bonding, and the need to fit in with the circle, to prove oneself.
All of these filmic techniques contribute to one’s sense of Australian cultural identity, mainly because the points here are so common and in the majority of Australian films, we have learnt to live with them. The two main ones most people identify are masculinity and mateship, and these are representative of cultural identity in Australian film in many ways, including through the representation and relationship with nature, the hardship faced by the male on the land, the dominance the male has over everything in the films, the typically male stance of anti-authoritarianism, and the obsessions with alcohol, gambling and violence.
“Film, above all other cultural forms, has the means to give Australia an image of itself. It is the most powerful medium for projecting a national identity”[9].
Bibliography
Biber, Katherine, “’Turned Out Real Nice After All’: Death and Masculinity in Australian Cinema”, in Playing The Man: New Approaches To Masculinity, ed. Biber, Katherine, Sear, Tom and Trudinger, Dave, Pluto Press Australia Limited, Australia, 1999
Freebury, Jane, “Screening Australia: Gallipoli – A Study of Nationalism on Film” in Media Information Australia, Feb, 43, 1987
Hatlof, Marek, “In Quest Of Self Identity: Gallipoli, Mateship and the Construction of Australian National Identity” in Journal of Popular Film & Television, Spring, 19993, 21, 1, Academic Research Library, pg 27
McFarlane, Brian, “Mates And Others In A Wide Brown Land: Images Of Australia” in Australian Cinema 1970-1985, McFarlane, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1987, page 47
Morris, Meaghan, “White Panic OR Mad Max And The Sublime” in Kuan-Hsing Chen ed., Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, London, Routledge, 1998, page 239
O’Regan, Tom, “A National Cinema” in The Film Cultures Reader, ed. Graeme Turner, Routledge Publishing, USA, 2002
Youlden, Tricia “Wake In Fright”, in Education, Jul 6, 2009, 90, 7, ProQuest Education Journals, pg 29
Filmography
Australia, (Nov 26, 2008), Baz Luhrmann, 165 mins
Gallipoli, (Aug 13, 1981), Peter Weir, 110 mins
Mad Max, (April 12, 1979), George Miller, 88 mins
Wake In Fright (1971), Ted Kotcheff, 114 mins
Annika Drew | 3254844
[1] O’Regan, Tom, “A National Cinema” in The Film Cultures Reader, ed. Graeme Turner, Routledge Publishing, USA, 2002, pg 157
[2] Biber, Katherine, “’Turned Out Real Nice After All’: Death and Masculinity in Australian Cinema”, in Playing The Man: New Approaches To Masculinity, ed. Biber, Katherine, Sear, Tom and Trudinger, Dave, Pluto Press Australia Limited, Australia, 1999, pg 27
[3] O’Regan, Tom, “A National Cinema” in The Film Cultures Reader, ed. Graeme Turner, Routledge Publishing, USA, 2002, pg 155
[4] McFarlane, Brian, “Mates And Others In A Wide Brown Land: Images Of Australia” in Australian Cinema 1970-1985, McFarlane, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1987, page 48
[5] Morris, Meaghan, “White Panic OR Mad Max And The Sublime” in Kuan-Hsing Chen ed., Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, London, Routledge, 1998, page 240
[6] McFarlane, Brian, “Mates And Others In A Wide Brown Land: Images Of Australia” in Australian Cinema 1970-1985, McFarlane, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1987, page 54
[7] McFarlane, Brian, “Mates And Others In A Wide Brown Land: Images Of Australia” in Australian Cinema 1970-1985, McFarlane, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1987, page 57
[8] Freebury, Jane, “Screening Australia: Gallipoli – A Study of Nationalism on Film” in Media Information Australia, Feb, 43, 1987
[9] Freebury, Jane, “Screening Australia: Gallipoli – A Study of Nationalism on Film” in Media Information Australia, Feb, 43, 1987
