What I Will Talk About

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.

Identity is often constructed based on affiliations with particular groups. When one identifies with a group, one mimics the perceived qualities of that group (Swann, Jetten, Gomez, Whitehouse & Bastian, 2012). For Indigenous Australians, they may conform to the above negative stereotypes partly because of how they are represented in the dominant culture. Forrest notes that dominant cultural perspectives bombard Indigenous Australians (Forrest, n.d.). Therefore, prevailing negative stereotypes and conformity with those stereotypes can be attributed to the dominant culture.

In contemporary times the Indigenous are stereotypically represented as being violent and aggressive. Sen is creating a stereotypical image of young Indigenous boys as criminals and dominative. An extreme close up of Vaughn behind jail bars show the separation between Vaughn and society. The stereotype of Indigenous Australians as criminals is shown in a negative light and acts as a false stereotype. The jail bars act as a physical and metaphorical barrier and the use of non diegetic music sets a mood of extreme sadness. Domestic violence is also suggested in the car ride. The women with the child is seen as submissive and this violence acts as usual practise. However, Vaughn does not appear to this stereotype of all males being dominative. Sen’s use of camera angles highlights the stereotypical nature of indigenous people and

Australian landscapes have long been used to place fear and anxiety in the Anglo-Australian’s psyche. This anxiety and the requirement for Indigenous peoples to negotiate white ideals is reflected in current Australian literature and cinematic identities. This essay will discuss the critical arguments of what makes the chosen texts Australian literature. This discussion will be restricted to the critiques of the film Lantana directed by Ray Lawrence and the novel Biten’ Back written by Vivienne Cleven. The will firstly look at the use of landscape as a crime scene and how this links to the anxieties caused by the doctrine of terra nullius and the perceived threats from an introduced species. It will then look at the Australian fear of a different ‘other’ followed then by a discussion around masculinity and the need for Indigenous people to negotiate white ideals. The essay will argue that Australian literature and film reflect a nation that still has anxieties about the true sovereignty of the land and assert that Indigenous people have a requirement to fit in with white ideals.

This Assessment will be my personal reflection and analysis of contemporary issues raised for post-colonial Indigenous Australians through two programs on the National Indigenous Television station (NITV), Living Black and NITV News. I will reflect on how these issues have impacted on the relationships between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians, and how Indigenous culture impacts 21st century Australia. Through this I will also consider my own feelings and opinions on how these issues are raised and considered.

The non- standard pronunciation, ‘gunna’ and ‘ya’ in place of ‘going to’ and ‘you’ accentuate the abuse. The swearing emphasises the passion and exhibits the emotional power that these attitudes hold over May’s vulnerability.

Misrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in the media, as seen in the Courier Mail (Article A) and the Koori Mail (Article B), shows a different side of Tony Abbott’s comments. Each with their own biases and by comparing the two articles it shows that good representations in the media still have a long way to go.

The representation of Indigenous Australians in fiction and nonfiction texts are influenced by a range of factors. In the contemporary world of multicultural Australia, there has been a variety of ways groups of people are represented in texts. The Indigenous population is often portrayed in ways that strengthen harmful stereotypes. However, there are also a variety of positive outlooks and portrayals expressing their strength and achievements. In texts studied in year 8 English, the representation of Indigenous Australians in Crow country are characterized as outcasts and reflect cultural distinction. Newspaper articles regarding “Adam Goodes” demonstrates how preconceived thoughts from many Australians destroys sporting stars outlook upon

This representation of the Maori Culture implies that the majority of the Maori society is like what is shown on "Police Ten 7" and this contributes to the ‘hood’ stereotype for the Maori Culture. This stereotyping is not the representation itself but in fact the result of the representation, and could explain why "Police Ten 7 is such an iconic program for many New Zealanders - it is something they can identify with being documented on the New Zealand Police. Although the majority of the Maori society are not like the individuals presented on "Police Ten 7" in terms of the way they present themselves or act the way in which "Police Ten 7" instruct, New Zealand society identify with this representation of the Maori Culture due to it being a developed attitude or stereotype of society based on the media portrayal of the Maori Culture.

One of the main sources of knowledge comes from writing and books, but as Linda Smith brings forth the phrase of one Maori writer Patricia Grace “Books are Dangerous” (Smith 35). And she describes four ways why books are dangerous to indigenous audience “(1) they do not reinforce our values, actions, customs, culture and identity; (2) when they tell us only about others they are saying that we do not exist; (3) they may be writing about us but are writing things which are untrue; and (4) they are writing about us but saying negative and insensitive things which tell us that we are not good” (Smith 35).

Almost everyone has watched or read the book “Once Were Warriors” whether it be in an English class or on your own time. It tells the story of a New Zealand family going through difficulties but what some may not know they were indigenous peoples of New Zealand called the Maori and this essay will tell you all about their culture, traditions

The film “Once Were Warriors” is a brutal and hard-hitting film, both physically and mentally. The film gives us hard-hitting and unsentimental description of indigenous people who are trying to find their roots. The film's first image shows us a beautiful landscape in New Zealand with water, mountains and nice colors. Of course: You hear Maoris to!

This article examines the attitudes that New Zealanders have developed in response to immigration patterns and policy. Exploring how social hierarchy and ethnicity shape immigration tolerance through economic inequality concerns, perceptions of threat and protection of Maori rights. Douglas gives substantiated arguments relevant to discussions on the bicultural environment of New Zealand politics and argues for the importance of political recognition for Maori.

Mana wahine is “a theoretical and methodological approach that explicitly examines the intersection of being Maori and female” (Simmonds 11). Mana wahine isn’t to be confused with Maori feminism, as this may confuse ideas with the Western concept of feminism. Key elements included in mana wahine are the concepts of whakapapa, wairua, and whanau (Hutchings 36). Many indigenous artists in Aotearoa New Zealand engage with mana wahine as inspiration, some with ties to decolonisation. These artists/designers use their work in reply to the dominant Pakeha culture and the history that is shared. Art/design that engages with mana wahine is often linked to decolonisation narratives – the process by which the changes brought about under colonialism are undone. For mana wahine, it is a reclamation of indigenous narratives, like Maori women’s narratives in cosmology.

The Maori Renaissance period refers to the flourishing of the Maori race in terms of writing and publishing, which commenced from the 1970’s onwards. This movement was contributed to by the resistance of Maori to the effects of colonisation enforced by the Pakeha; Maori were strongly encouraged to “embrace Pakeha ways” as discussed by Witi Ihimaera and D.S Long in their article Contemporary Maori Writing: A Context (1982). Many works of literature including poetry arose from this period, where authors tended to dramatize the negative effects of Pakeha arrival and intervention towards the Maori culture. There have been numerous texts which portray the Maori race as being a ‘vanished’ or dying culture (Derby 2014). Ihimaera and D.S (1982) argued that traditional Maori culture needed to be reclaimed if the people did not want to end up as just a group of ‘brown Pakeha’, and that one way of facilitating this was to produce Maori writing that featured Maori culture from their point of view.