Rabbit Proof Fence

First of two classes on the movie of 2002 based on the book of 1994. Asked by Dr Morrison what we thought of the film when first we saw it (on release) I found myself (surprisingly) letting rip ... didn't trust its story-telling from the moment it started until the end; tells us it's a "true story" but the film doesn't even stick with Doris's re-telling of her mother's story; scenes in the movie that simply aren't in the book - A O Neville never met Molly, no evidence that kids sang Swanee to him, the girls didn't travel south by train in a cage but by boat as passengers, Mavis is fictional, the girls didn't steal on their journey home, they didn't collapse in the desert to be saved by a bird, Gracie's capture at the railway line never took place, Molly and Daisy rode the last section on a family friend's camel. It was, I said, bleeding heart liberalism at its worse. Why couldn't Noyce simply tell the girls' story as they recounted it? Why do the whole Hollywood job on a story with enough drama in it to satisfy anyone?

The (male) movie-maker's gaze upon the precocious, defiant central character idealised her story. There were too many distorting fictions that reinforced conservative portrayals of undifferentiated aboriginality as perceived by the dominant ideology ... white, male, urban, middle-class looking at black, female, childlike, noble savage archetypes fixed firmly in the past. I suggested too that everyone in the room try the Neil Armstrong test ... name the second man on the moon or the third, fourth or fifth ... applied to black Australian actors ... name someone other than David Gulpilil ... big silence then, Ernie Dingo maybe.

But I felt the unfairness of my own argument. Phillip Noyce's movie took the story of the Stolen Generations to millions of people who would never have engaged with it otherwise. RPF raised interest in real issues at home and abroad. This is true for me as much as anyone. I find the book more compelling but I never thought of buying it until tjhe movie was made. that'll make me another bleeding heart hypocrite I guess.

Read the book. Watch the movie. Make up your own mind.

by the way ... read about the fence here. As if it could ever have kept out rabbits. What a monument to the silliness of men.

"Unfortunately, the fence did not stop the rabbits from moving westward. There were parts of the fence which eroded underneath, holes in the wire developed, and sometimes gates would be left open, enabling the rabbits to pass through."
.