Rabbit Proof Fence Mistreatment Analysis

Respect for Aboriginal culture and traditions which is part of the Aboriginal reconciliation and integration movement in Australia is highlighted many times throughout Crow Country and illustrates the best and worst of Australians. The way different characters show respect towards aboriginal culture and feelings contrasts two different attitudes. Today, opinions about aboriginal life and culture are shared through politics, social media and protests. Kate Constable’s book portrays extreme behaviour with racism and provides the reader with a perspective on just how cruel people can be. We have a very superficial understanding about aboriginal culture and this novel encourages readers to explore aboriginal culture and beliefs.

“Many Aborigines removed from their families complained of harsh conditions, denial of parental contact and cultural heritage, harsh punishment and physical and sexual abuse” (Buti), the ruthless encounters the australian aborigines faced were just as violent as the Canadian aborigines. The teachers in the Australian schools were also taught to instil the christian religion and strip the children of any aboriginal cultural identity. The children explain their experience in these schools and describe the authority that is supposed to be taking care of

The film, Rabbit-Proof Fence, is directed by Phillip Noyce, and it is a film about three young Aboriginal 'half-caste' girls (Molly, Daisy, and Gracie) who were forcibly taken away from their families and taken to the camp at Moore River Native Settlement to be taught to become servants. A couple of days after arriving at Moore River Settlement, the girls run away from the camp and go through a terrible journey of one thousand five hundred miles trying to find their way back to their family. An Aboriginal tracker, Moodoo is called to find them. The girls cover their tracks and avoid Moodoo, getting help from village people. “She pretty clever girl. She wants to go home.” They experienced fears and doubts along the way to Australia to make it back to their family. Throughout the film, Noyce uses many effective film techniques to analyze the emotions and characteristics of important individuals to show specific scenes such as camera angles, lighting, filters, and dialogue.

the incessant brutality of racism in the 1920s. Rolf de Heer’s 2002 art house feature film The Tracker, represents one of the most “unspeakable aspects of Australian history” (Smaill, 2002, 31), explicitly depicting the extreme racism, violence and inhumanity the egotistical European invaders inflicted on Aboriginals, whilst at the same time glorifies and treasures aboriginal culture and intelligence through film.

The film "Rabbit-Proof Fence" conveys the importance of home and country to indigenous peoples. The director Phillip Noyce refers to home in different ways. He has symbolised home by repeatedly showing images of the Spirit Bird and the Rabbit Proof Fence, since it is a connection to their home. The movie shows Molly's determination to get home and back to her family by escaping from Moore River and finding her way back home to her country, Jigalong.

In the texts Redfern Now and The Rabbits, similar ideas about cultural relationships and power positions are conveyed through many different textual contexts and conventions. Whilst some of the ideas explored in these texts are comparable, many contrast the different ways that euro centricity and “white” dominance function within societies, especially with regard to Indigenous Australians. Through the clever use of camera angles and symbols in Redfern Now, and symbolism and written text codes within The Rabbits, the ideas of disempowerment and power relationships between Indigenous Australians and European settlers is examined. In the television drama Redfern Now, the creators explore the undermining racism within modern-day society. The values

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 early 20th century, the Australian public was led to believe that Aboriginal children were disadvantaged in their communities, and that there was a high risk of physical and sexual abuse. Aboriginal children were being removed in order to be exposed to ‘Anglo values’ and ‘work habits’ with a view to them being employed by colonial settlers, and to stop their parents, families and communities from passing on their culture, language and identity

When European colonists settled in Australia they treated the Aboriginal people extremely different to that of their fellow white men. The Aboriginals were not seen as first class citizens through the European eye and as a result were victims of extreme oppressions and had nearly no rights or freedoms. Since then Aboriginal people have fought to be treated equally to the white men through various different ways. I will discuss the previous struggles faced by the Aboriginals, the Australian strife for equality and finally the level of success and degree of rights and freedoms given to Aboriginals in modern Australia.

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.

The rabbit proof fence is the central motif. It runs from North to South of Western Australia and was built to keep rabbits away from farmland. It is very symbolic as when it was built it kept the Aboriginals in one place and therefore shows how they were restricted in their movement, unlike the freedom of the spirit bird. It symbolises the division between the Aboriginals and the Europeans. The girls are pictured as frightened rabbits trapped on the wrong side of the fence, the same feeling as

The Aboriginies were documented as ‘the miserablest people in the world’ by William Dampier in 1688 (Brasch, 2007). The Indigenous people were perceived as an inferior cultural group prior to Australian settlement. This seed of hostility and arrogance was planted within the

‘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.

Composers of texts use a number of individual (and combinations of several) techniques to reprensent the concept of the physical journey and specifically that it is the journey, not the destination that matters. Noyce has used a number of filimic and literary techniques thoughout “Rabbit Proof Fence” to ddo this. The use of symbolism, lighting, characterisation and camera angles all enable Noyce to express the physical journey being explored. The cover of Kellehers’ novel ______ uses visual techniques such as colour, blending and dark patches to convey the type of journey being explored through his text. “Sweet Home Alabama” uses literary techniques such as symbolism, repetition and rhyme to express the journey being undertaken by

It presents the different perspective of the occurrences, both the aboriginal point of view and the Australian. Rabbit-Proof fence switches among these two point of view cunningly, and one may not realise it. Told from the girl’s point of view, the story seemingly show their side, yet one also learn about the Australians side. Together with Molly, Daisy and Gracie, the audience travels around in the Australian nature; experiencing storms, hunger and dessert. Through a tale of experiencing lightning and motions, one learn about the courageous girls taking a stand against the authorities and the Aboriginal tracker to find their way