All countries have their shame. As individuals and as nations, we all have our dark secrets that we refuse to talk about, but few are as hidden as the way Australia's indigenous people have been treated by white settlers since the continent was colonized in 1788. Beyond To this story, there has been a complex and unfavorable portrayal of Aboriginal peoples in Australian and global media. Although the films Walkabout (1970) and Rabbit Proof Fence (2002) come from two distinct eras of Australian history and seem very different, they both discuss the problematic treatment of Aboriginal people throughout history and today. These films show how looking through a patriarchal, Western lens romanticizes the reality of Aboriginal life, distorts the values ​​of Indigenous culture, and dehumanizes people of color. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay 1993 represents a fundamental cultural shift in Australia. The Mabo land rights case that took place in that year was based on the claim that Australia was rightfully colonized by Europeans because no one lived there or owned the land, which is the concept of Terra Nullius. This was obviously not true. Aboriginal people had inhabited Australia for tens of thousands of years before white settlers appeared. After ten years of legal battles the court ruled in favor of the Aboriginal plaintiffs and passed the Native Title Act. This not only brought the Aboriginal people one million square kilometers of land, about fifteen percent of the country, but also caused a cultural change in the perception of indigenous peoples by the Australian population (Williams, 109-110). Walkabout and Rabbit Proof Fence are indicative of this cultural shift, one belonging to the pre-mabo culture while the other belongs to the more open post-mabo culture. Especially when considering the stories told by these films and their production separately, it is clear how Australia and the world are changing their views of Aboriginal peoples. The story of Molly, Daisy and Gracie, the protagonists of Rabbit Proof Fence, and the "Stolen Generation" as a whole is essentially well-intentioned cultural one-upmanship. In one of the film's early scenes, Mr. A. O. Neville, principal protector of the Aborigines , describes his plan to a group of white women in the society, and as claimed by the government of the time, it was his duty to remove children of mixed race, termed "half-caste", and place them in supposedly created settlements. for their own good. The settlers justified this by dehumanizing the Aborigines and willingly describing their way of life as dangerous and barbaric (Pascal et. al, and Western society in general, believe they must protect the Aborigines and other peoples). indigenous to themselves. Mr. Neville plays a semi-paternal role, while the film implies that the Aboriginal characters live in a matriarchal world, we should equate Aboriginal people with femininity and matriarchy. All three main characters are women with absent fathers, and in the brief glimpses we see of their home in Jigalong, it appears that the settlement is populated entirely by women. In one of the film's early scenes, the main protagonist, Molly, says directly to a fence maintenance worker: “This is our part. This is the country of women." For Molly, at least, the fence is not just a simple fence, but a dividing line, protecting "us", the Aboriginal people, from "them", the Europeans who sought to destroy their way of life. Already in the first 15 minutes of the filmwe see the fence starting to become an important symbol. The fence that guides them home can also be seen as a symbol for all mixed-race children. It is, as Doris Pilkington Garimara describes, “a typical white response to a problem of their own making.” The settlers brought the rabbits. Australia prospered, so they built a huge fence dividing the country in half to protect the farmland. These settlers similarly brought disease, violence and rape to Australia and, in the process, many mixed-race children were born. In an attempt to promote white supremacy in an increasingly mixed society, these white settlers resorted to violence; they further brutalized Aboriginal communities, removed their culture, and attempted to slowly eliminate all signs of Aboriginal existence. In Rabbit Proof Fence, the fathers of the mixed-race protagonists are indecisive workers. Considering the prevalence of rape and sexual violence against Aboriginal women, it can be assumed that these men have contributed both to what they consider the "problem" of a biracial Australian population through the fatherhood of the protagonists, and to the "solution" of the dividing fence through their occupation. Yet the fence provides a lifeline home for the girls; it is an irreconcilable part of them. As they touch a fence post, a familiar theme expands in the score and the camera returns to the mother and grandmother touching the same fence singing for their lost children (Williams 117-120). However, the fence, as a symbol of patriarchal colonialism, is fallible. In one of the film's climactic scenes, Molly and Daisy lose track of the fence where it broke. As the girls weaken, a bird that had previously been pointed out by their grandmother flies overhead to guide them home. Here we see the fallibility of patriarchy and the protection of Aboriginal people, and therefore matriarchy. This can be interpreted both as Aboriginal spirituality and as maternal protection who intervenes to save the girls in times of need. Despite being portrayed as a young girl in need of protection from both the government and their families, Molly, the eldest of the girls and main protagonist, is actually close to the age of maturity for girls historically recognized in Aboriginal culture (Cain). She was engaged to be married shortly after returning to Jigalong. Perhaps this wasn't so much an intentional change to the film as a Western misunderstanding. Regardless, it is Western myopia and not his objective age that causes much of his mistreatment and inaccuracies in his interpretation. As we advance in time to the filming of Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout, we continue to see this infantilization, this removal of skills and abilities. By showing that the Aboriginal man is only able to converse with the child and not the “proper and civilized” young woman, the film suggests that the Aboriginal man is also infantile. This is further reinforced when the child is playing with toy soldiers and gives one to the Aboriginal after his sister asks him, "Why don't you share, I suspect he has no such toys." These depictions of Aboriginal people at the cusp of adulthood as mere children, or perhaps more accurately as childish in their perceived primitiveness, are not only inaccurate, but offensive to their very way of life. Walkabout is, in many ways, an ethnographic film. as the Aboriginal is “othered”, his primary function is to act and his culture is described as endangered. It is evident that we, the viewer, are meant to romanticize his carefree life and limited understanding of the world without caringreally about the problems he faces as a member of a culture that is being forcibly eradicated. One aspect of this created spectacle is the exoticism of the Australian landscape and wildlife. Walkabout, one of the first films made on location in Central Australia, exploits viewers' ignorance of the reality of the setting and places animals from across the continent directly next to each other, perpetuating this as truth (Sohat and Stam , 104). Roeg creates exotic settings filled with all kinds of lizards, snakes, birds, mammals and even camels, a species not even native to the continent. Furthermore, he manipulates this wildlife to present the landscape and all its inhabitants, including humans, as overly harsh and violent. Lizards eat each other alive, snakes swarm trees in an instant and vultures surround children as if awaiting their death. At the moment when death seems most imminent, the Aboriginal emerges from the heat haze, strong and mysterious, spearing lizards, clad only in a loincloth, with his dead prey at his side and an ever-present cloud of flies surrounding him. The camera pans over various parts of her body, giving the viewer, through the pretense of the naïve eyes of white children, adequate time to observe her foreign and exotic body, establishing it from the first moments on screen as an oddity, a object of our viewing pleasure. Walkabout was among the first films to feature a real Aboriginal actor, David Gulpilil, just three years after the end of the blackface tradition in Australia (Walker, 98). Roeg Hand chose Gulpilil not for his acting skills, but for his reputation as a dancer. He was essentially hired solely for his body. Gulpilil spoke very little English when he was cast; he and the director communicated through improvised sign language and the few common words they could share, much the same way Gulpilil's character converses with the boy in the film (Salwolke, 20). Also, although he talks quite a bit in Walkabout, there are no subtitles making all of Gulpilil's dialogue meaningless, nothing more than "wild chatter." Structured absences are the intentional exclusions of minorities, with specific regard in this case to their language. Stam and Spence argue that “...the absence of the language of the colonized is also symptomatic of colonialist attitudes...the languages ​​spoken by 'Third World' peoples are often reduced to an incomprehensible jumble of background murmurs...” ( Walker, 93). This early example of structured absence promotes the idea that the Gulpilil Aboriginal should be seen as a 'creature' of action. Throughout the film, Gulpilil's character seems thoughtless, emotionless, and driven simply by action: a key component in the "romantic preservation" of the ethnographic film (Rony, 104). We don't even have the right to understand the little he says. He is not given a real personality or identity. The lack of a name for his character also forces those who wish to discuss the film at length to refer to him simply by his race. Gulpilil might as well be playing himself, and perhaps this was the direction he was given (Rony, 118). Much of his screen presence is spent in acts of “barbarism,” killing and dismembering prey. Even the character's peak emotion, where he seems to beg for the girls' understanding and affection, is conveyed through his physical prowess in the form of dance. This reiterates his superficial existence as a physical and not an intellectual being. After being attacked by hunters and exposed to weapons for presumably the first time, we are broughtinside the young Aboriginal man's thought process as he realizes his culture is on the brink of disappearing. It is, by design, a chaotic and disturbing place, full of repeated graphic images of death and decay. He lies motionless, seemingly lifeless on a pile of bones and rises, naked, painted skeletally to try to persuade the white children to stay with him, and when that fails, he dies. While it is unclear whether he died of exhaustion, heartbreak, or suicide, his death, and the supposed death of his culture, is intended to allay any fear in the public of the “threat” of the prevalence of non-Western culture. In death, the audience and other characters in the story can continue to objectify him in a static and unchanging structure (Rony, 102). Furthermore, the image of this death, placed on a tree with his arms open, immediately recalls the image of the messiah on the crucifix, perhaps implying that his sacrifice was necessary to save white children. The aborigine, as forced to call him, he is truly an idealized figure preserved in the girl's memory. In the epilogue of the film we see the girl in the role of a young housewife several years later. When her husband comes home to tell her about the drama in his office, her eyes glaze over and she begins to fantasize about her experience in the outback. However, the scene he imagines never happened. It would have been against his character, but the memory he chooses to escape to is idealized and free from the binding constructs of civilized society. She imagines herself as a young woman lying on the shore of a pool, in which the Gulpilil swims naked, as strong and silent in death as it was in life. The walkabout clearly tells us that the Aboriginal, both the character and in general, belongs to the bottom of the hierarchy of the gaze and therefore of the global power structure (Kaplan, 64-65). If the act of looking is considered a statement of power and ownership, then the relations of looking in Walkabout are highly complex (Sturken and Cartwright, 76). Shortly after the presentation of the Aboriginal boy, there is a long shot of the young Aboriginal boy's buttocks. He slowly turns to see if the white children are following him and the camera remains at waist level, his genitals separated from our direct view only by a loincloth. We viewers are supposed to interpret this as the girl's gaze, as she shyly looks away and blushes in the following shot. This interaction reads as nothing more than healthy hetersexual curiosity. Compare this to the scene later in the film where the young Aboriginal man sees the white girl change. He opens his eyes wide and begins a frenetic, almost animalistic “mating dance” (as the director himself defined it) while the girl cowers, covering her bare chest and trying to hide from him (Gillard). While similar to the previous scene, it is clear through these interactions that the right to appear in an uncritically portrayed way belongs to the white woman. However, the scene where the young woman swims, naked and serene in a pool of water, showcases the prevalent male gaze of this film. While all three female characters in the film will be subjected to this sexualized gaze, it is this scene, for me, that is the most disturbing. The young woman's pervasive modesty and thought of being alone give this minute of complete frontal nudity a disturbing, voyeuristic feel. Through the eyes of the heterosexual, white, male director and cinematographer, we see her for her intended purpose, as an object. Despite this, she is still allowed to look at the black man in a way that he is not allowed to look at her. Aboriginal people are placed at the base of this structurecandies. It is stripped of individual identity, largely dehumanized and made into a spectacle for the sake of financial gain. The story of Molly, Gracie and Daisy was also distorted to make it appropriate for a wider audience and, in turn, make it more commercially successful. Walk the Rabbit Proof Fence, written by Doris Pilkington Garimara, Molly's daughter, is the inspiration for the film Rabbit Proof Fence. Despite this, upon seeing the film, Molly declared that it was “not her life”. He went on to explain that he meant that his life did not end with that triumphal return to his home and family in Jigalong. The film mentions, in plain text on a blank screen, that Molly and Daisy would be recaptured, that they would return home with Molly's baby in their arms, and that her daughter would also eventually be taken away to Moore River. However, this part of the story, most of his life, is reduced to ten seconds added to the end of the film. The story was obviously also dramatized in order to translate it well to the big screen. Real-life stories, especially that of Molly, Daisy, and Gracie, rarely contain dramatic moments hidden in the woods by the men who hunt you down even once, let alone four times. Nor do they always contain satisfying and lasting meetings. The complex lives of these young women lacked the clean, concise narrative arc necessary for cinematic success. Rabbit Proof Fence also uses structured absence under the guise of audience comfort. These actresses begin the film speaking only in their native dialect. With subtitles, Molly defines some of the historical and personal background of the film. However, shortly afterwards, all the Aboriginal characters switch to English. Once the three girls are taken to the Moore River settlement, one of the women working there makes it a point to tell them that "only the Queen's English is spoken here... none of that chatter" even though they were state, and would continue to speak English even after their escape. Not only is this a plot hole, but it also Westernizes and belittles the specific, individualized pain of Aboriginal Australians and these three women in particular. Noyce assumed, perhaps not incorrectly, that the majority of the audience would be white, would not speak the Aboriginal language and would be upset by having to read two hours of subtitles. This specific knowledge of white audiences and the desire to pander to them runs counter to Noyce's goal of creating an open and honest dialogue about the "stolen generation" and the treatment of Aboriginal people in general. Many also argue that the real violence of this era, the deplorable conditions of the Moore River settlement, and the rampant rape and sexual assault were ignored in order to get a PG rating and broaden the audience (Simmons, 45-46). The only direct reference to the prevalence of sexual violence against Aboriginal women is found in a scene with a mixed-race adult waitress receiving a “night visit” from her white employer. The only direct allusion to his intentions is his plaintive request for girls to say, claiming that "If you leave, he'll come back for me." For a young and naive audience this could easily be misunderstood. Considering that the main purpose of removing mixed-race children from their homes was to integrate them into white society meant slowly eradicating blackness not only from the culture, but also from their appearance, rape was commonplace, accepted. This part, every single part, of the atrocity cannot simply be ignored for the comfort of viewers or for the popularity and accessibility of the film. Perhaps it was edited so that the film would be more comfortable, more palatable to white viewers than to them.