Movie : Rabbit Proof Fence

Hello and welcome to Real Time discussion show. Tonight we will explore the topic 'Representations of Indigenous Australians' in the iconic Australian films 'Rabbit-Proof Fence' and 'The Tracker'. This is an important topic as society can learn from past mistakes presented in these films that will be discussed tonight. On the panel tonight we have Rebecca Long who will be discussing negative representations in 'Rabbit-Proof Fence', and myself, Sarah Christensen, and l will be exploring the negative representations in 'The Tracker' that prompt a positive reaction.

Rabbit Proof Fence has been published both as a book and as a movie. Being a reader or a viewer entirely changes our point of view on the story. As a reader, we get descriptive insight on the situations and emotions of the characters. We are then able to re-create these visually using our imagination and have endless freedom doing so. As a viewer, our creativity is somewhat restricted. We do not imagine the characters’ physical appearance, the locations or the overall situations in the same way as in a book. These elements are already given to us. Throughout this essay I will be exploring how the music and the filming creates a contrast between reading the book with elaborate descriptions.

A comparison of the text, ‘Us Mob, Walawurru’ written by David Spillman and Lisa Wilyuka and the film “Rabbit Proof Fence” directed by Phillip Noyce reveals that social attitudes in Australia between the 1930’s and the 1990’s have changed enormously. In the film ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ set in 1931, Aboriginal children, more specifically half-castes –who are children with an Indigenous and Caucasian descent- are taken away from their families and to ‘Moore Rive Settlement’, where they are trained to fit into mainstream Australian society and be domestic servants. Later, the novel “Us Mob Walawurru” which takes place over the time period between the 1960’s to the 1990’s, demonstrates the changes that have taken place over the last fifty years. European Australians are more accepting and respectful of indigenous culture and the government has changed the laws regarding Terra Nullius to give the Aboriginal

Throughout the process of colonization, the Native people in Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, Silas Hagerty’s documentary Dakotah 38, and Phillip Noyce’s film Rabbit-Proof Fence, all cope with the on going struggles of being colonized against their will. All three of these sources tell their own, different stories about their same struggles. In both Things Fall Apart and Dakotah 38, the colonizing people create a sense of doubt in the Natives’ cultures; whereas in Rabbit-Proof Fence, the people fight to hold their beliefs by continuing to practice their own traditions.

Discuss the symbolism and motifs in the ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’. What do they represent and how do they contribute to the story?

‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ was the story of a 3 young Aboriginal girls who were taken from their homes because they were ‘half castes’ and then their long walk home following the rabbit proof fence. The idea of the government taking children from their homes and placing them into the care of white people in the hope of them losing their cultural beliefs was stronger. This idea of them being changed was evident with quotes such as “This is your new home. We don't use that jabber here. You speak English” providing the idea of whites being dominant through their values.

For Sheila Jack the constant mental torture was too much to handle and eventually she shut down psychologically. This did not only happen to Jack but many others as well. Other children did not shut down mentally as she did but felt that the bullying was too much to handle and felt no other option than to commit suicide. “I saw bodies hung from rafter on thin ropes. I saw writes slashed and the cascades of blood on the bathroom floor and one time, a young boy impaled on tines of a pitch fork that he’d shoved through himself.” (Wagamese 55). Sadly numerous children committed suicide during their time at residential schools. Individuals who had left from the residential schools carried a large weight on their shoulders from the things they had experienced and saw. Some of the experiences aboriginal children endured at residential schools, such as the physical abuse, did contribute too many psychological issues such as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), major depression, anxiety disorder, and borderline personality disorder. As way to deal with their psychological trauma, Aboriginal peoples turned to drugs and alcohol after departing residential schools and entering adulthood. The average of Aboriginal men who admit that they have a drinking problem (16%) is doubled from the average of the general Canadian male population (7.9%). The average of First Nations women who admit they had issues with alcohol (10.2%) is much greater than the rest of the general female population (3.3%). In addition 77% of the First Nations population admits that they struggle with drug abuse. Once Aboriginal children had left these schools they didn’t know how to deal with all the stress of what had happened to them and what they had seen. As a result, many of

In this article, Professor King says loss of culture, land and language all play a part in poor health. Having an identity, he says, is especially important for mental health. As for example, many native children in Canada were taken from their families and sent to live at the residential schools. They were educated in the european system, they never had a normal chance to develop a cultural identity. The schools’ so-called purpose was to provide education for native children. But the real purpose was to eliminate native culture from Canada. As Reverend A.E. Caldwell of his school in 1938 said “The problem with the Indians is one of morality and religion. They lack the basic fundamentals of civilized thought and spirit, which explains their childlike nature and behavior. At our school we strive to turn them into mature Christians who will learn how to behave in the world and surrender their barbaric way of life and their treaty rights, which keep them trapped on their land and in a primitive existence. Only then will the Indian problem in our country be solved.” Caldwell view of aboriginal culture and how they should be assimilated to the european culture is how most ministers of the schools thought about native culture. Students were forbidden to speak their language or practice their culture, and were often punished for doing so. All these awful acts at residential schools made natives suffer loss

The film Rabbit-Proof Fence by Philip Noyce takes place in 1931 in a small town named Jigalong in Western Australia. Along the town is a rabbit-proof fence that runs for miles through the Australian Outback. The film focuses on three aboriginal girls, 14-year-old Molly, her younger 8-year-old sister Daisy, and their 10-year-old cousin Gracie. The officers removed the girls from their family and forced them to assimilate into white society. The chief A. O. Neville legally removed the aboriginal girls from their family because they were half-castes which means they are half one white parent and one Aboriginal parent. In this case, the girls had an aboriginal mother and a white father who was a worker near their area, but the father in not take part in the girl’s life. The Chief wanted to take away all the half-castes from the Aboriginal homes so they could eventually breed the aboriginals out of existence as well as give the half-caste a better life in their modern society. These camps held lots of indigenous children and trained the children to become laborers and servants for the white families. Soon after arriving at the Moore River camp, the three girls escaped after the first night and made a 1,500-mile journey home. Molly, Gracie, and Daisy left as soon as it began to rain so their tracks could be covered. Although at the camp, the workers soon noticed the girls had escaped and sent the Aboriginal tracker to go find them and return them back to Moore River camp. The girls later found the rabbit-proof fence and followed it north to find Jigalong. On their way back to home, they met an aboriginal man who told the girls that Gracie’s mother was in Wiluna and she could take a train to meet her. Soon after Gracie parted ways, the tracker captured Gracie and they returned back to Moore River. Daisy and Molly continued to follow the fence and finally arrived home to meet their mother. Although, the family had to leave to go hide in the desert in order for the family to stay together. After the movie ends, there is a short clip of the real Molly and Daisy in 2002. The captions said that Gracie did not survive her way back to Moore River Camp and she was never seen again. Molly also stated that the government took

Topic #3 Thesis Statement: In the book The Ragged Company by Richard Wagamese, Amelia One-Sky’s life was ultimately shaped through the entanglements of discrimination of the aboriginal people and poor childhood development which lead her to a life of homelessness. Introduction: With the economic and social deprivation of substandard housing (p.149) One For The Dead had lost her parents at a very young age, this then leads her and her brothers to residential schools where she loses her younger brother, Harley. The mingling of events eventually pulls Amelia One Sky and the rest of her brothers into socially inflicted traumas of residential schools, causing her to hear “Voices of the dead” (p.12) and her brothers rebelling with “rage and resentment”

As a result, illnesses such as tuberculosis, small pox, and measles went uncured which led to the death of many Indigenous students (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2012). This was illustrated in Wenjack where it is mentioned how Chanie had developed a lung infection, tuberculosis, which he had failed to receive treatment for. It is noted by Boyden (2016) that “tuberculosis and similar diseases had taken thousands of Indian children’s lives” (p. 11). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2012) state how the high mortality rates of students caused devastation within families hoping their children would return home. As a result, they spent their lives grieving never knowing how their child died or where their body was placed. Thus, it is no surprise that the statistics demonstrate that the Aboriginal population has higher rates of premature death (Pederson et al., date). Unfortunately, neglect in Aboriginal’s health care still continues to occur to this day. In particular, Pederson et al. (date) mentions how poor economic and social conditions in the Indigenous community exist which contribute to these individuals viewing their health status as low. Additionally, the neglect in this population has resulted in a reduction in their social determinants of health. For instance, Pederson et al. (date) recognize how physical neglect has resulted in “poverty, poor housing and substance abuse” (p. 297). As a result of being neglected, the Aboriginal population is continuing to suffer which further leads to consequences in their health. Thus, Wenjack enables the reader to acknowledge how neglect continues to play a role in harming the lives on the Aboriginal

The recent Australian film, Rabbit Proof Fence, similarly condemns the social, political and cultural mores of colonial and post-colonial Australia in relation to its past treatment of indigenous Australians. Like To Kill a Mockingbird, it too, is set in the 1930’s and reflects similar attitudes and values whites have to black people. The film is a true story based on the book by Doris Pilkington Garimara, the daughter of one of the half-caste children in the film who, together with two other Aboriginal girls, was forcibly removed from her family in Jigalong, Western Australia. These children form part of what is now known as the “Stolen Generation”. They, like many others who lived in the first part of the 20th century, were the victims of the official government assimilationist policy which decreed that half-caste children should be taken from their families and their land in order to be made “white”. The policy was definitely aimed at “breeding out” Aboriginality, because only half and quarter caste children were taken.

Firstly, write down a few of your own thoughts about the film Rabbit- Proof fence. How did you react to the film? Did you enjoy it? Why or why not?

The land and resources Aborigines depended on for survival were no longer available and they had to adapt to new ways of life. European diseases were introduced that the Aborigines had no resistance to, decimating the population and impacting the traditional close family structure. Most far-reaching, though, were the ethnocentric and racist attitudes of the European settlers regarding the Aboriginal culture and people. The repercussions of European colonization are still being felt today, especially on traditional family life. "All aspects of Aboriginal society have been directly affected by the arrival of British colonists…but it is arguable that traditional Aboriginal family life and the supporting kinship structures have taken the maximum disruptive effect…" (Bourke 104).

To me, a Post-Colonial identity stems from cultural remnants left behind by imperialist, predominantly European, nations. When worldwide superpowers assume control of a land, they impose certain aspects of their own culture on the local populace. During and after the Columbian exploration era post-1492, for example, Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, Dutch, etc. colonialism left major vestiges of their reign on the indigenous populations of the supposed “New World.” In User’s Guide to Postcolonial and Latino Borderland Literature, Frederick Luis Aldama amplifies upon how the “capitalist mode of production” in the “New World” that sparked either complete eradication or forced migration for the indigenous populations of the Americas (18). Therefore, new people migrated from Europe to the Americas, and thus the contemporary population consisted of either former Europeans, native populations that were forced to acculturate European heritage, or mestizos who were children of multiple ancestral lineages (i.e. son of American Indian mother and Spanish father). Language is a prime example of this Post-Colonial identity that was transferred from these European superpowers to the native people of South and Central America, as evident in the Portuguese spoken in Brazil, the English that dominates the Caribbean, and the Spanish primarily spoken in South America.