Australia is considered as a young country when comparing to other countries as it has been founded around 200 years ago. Today, it is still in the trouble of some sort of identity crisis, trying to find its true identity. To try to define what really is considered as Australianness means one will have to take the plunge. For instance, in Australia the movie, director Baz Luhrmann made a great effort in telling an epic story of Australia but it still falls into the category of imprudent cliché of Australianness. Now we will look at the poster of Australia the movie then analyse it to interpret in what ways it represents the Australianness. Let us take a look first at the main colour of the poster, it is kind of a mix mostly between red and orange with a bit of black. This is the colour of the outback; South Australia. It is the largest and most remote part of Australia which made up of dry, dusty deserts and few of streams and rivers. This place is called “the dead heart” by the early explorers due to its hostile to the inhabitants here (Erinn Banting, 2002). This area is an interesting place, contains the history of gold rush time and the history of those Indigenous people which is also known as Aborigines who were forced to move to live here. They were being driven away by the white European colonists by all sorts of reasons. According to Peggy (1993, p.1), these reasons varied from economic to political reasons. In the movie, there are a lot of scenes that filmed in wide angle to show the vast nature of Australia, including the outback, successfully describe the wild and imposing beauty of this land. So along with the scenes, the choice of the main colour in the design of the poster has made a great work to mention one famous... ... middle of paper ... ... of Australian culture when the fact that those white European colonists came from England. In those racist bad jokes, Australia is always seen as a country with culture and history of convicts and criminals deported from England. Together with the issues, the wave of immigration is creating a so-called multicultural, makes it even harder to define what will be the real culture of Australia: the aborigines, the English or the immigrants. One can think that it is an impossible task to embody the Australianness in one image only such as a person, a symbol or an idea. It may be easy to assume that Australia as a whole country is trying hard to find its true self but on second thought, this diversity in culture has made Australian really Australian. The definition of Australian also known as the Australianness will still be an interesting issue to solve in the future.
The Australia Outback is portrayed in films as vast and red. Of Course Australia is not completely this description. In the film, Crocodile Dundee, Sue Charlton (heroine character) is a New York journalist visiting Sydney. The Irony is the complete contrast between the desert landscape, shown as a bird’s eye view in the helicopter (Scene 2 Crocodile Dundee). In Priscilla, Queen of the Desert the imagery of a “never-ending” road reaffirms the idea that Australia is an isolated place. Similarly to Crocodile Dundee, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert exposition began in Sydney. The main difference between the films the ‘outback’ where both film plo...
The 2014 Walkley Award winning documentary, "Cronulla Riots: the day that shocked the nation" reveals to us a whole new side of Aussie culture. No more she’ll be right, no more fair go and sadly no more fair dinkum. The doco proved to all of us (or is it just me?) that the Australian identity isn’t really what we believe it to be. After viewing this documentary
Jedda, Australia’s first colour film, created in 1955 by Charles Chauvel deals with an Aboriginal child adopted by a white grazing family. As she grows up, Jedda is tempted more and more to return to her people. Seduced by the wild Marbuck, she partakes in the film's tragedy, played out against a spectacular landscape. This essay seeks to discuss the representations of the Australian landscape as portrayed in the film Jedda, highlighting the use of filmic techniques in these representations.
The National Picture gives a completely different idea to the original, now showing instead of the Indigenous Australians being a more prominent culture and population in Australia, it instead shows a more mixed culture but a majority of white Europeans, which is true in the time of the painting, being in the 1980’s. This shows the journey of diversity in Australia, for better or for worse is debatable as to get to where we are now took a long and unfortunate process for the Aboriginal culture which was mostly lost due to the many deaths caused due to many political
stage for the development of Australian cultural identity and the values, attitudes and beliefs of
The Australian Aborigines society is relatively well known in Western society. They have been portrayed accurately and inaccurately in media and film. Dr. Langton has attempted to disprove common myths about the infamous Australian society, as has her predecessors, the Berndt’s, and National Geographic author, Michael Finkel; I will attempt to do the same.
Australia has the terrible condition of having an essentially pointless and prefabricated idea of “Aussiness” that really has no relation to our real culture or the way in which we really see ourselves. We, however subscribe to these stereotypes when trying to find some expression of our Australian identity. The feature film, The Castle, deals with issues about Australian identity in the 1990’s. The film uses techniques like camera shots, language and the use of narration to develop conflict between a decent, old fashioned suburban family, the Kerrigans and an unscrupulous corporation called Airlink. Feature films like The Castle are cultural products because they use attitudes, values and stereotypes about what it means to be Australian.
The film Australia by Baz Luhrmann displayed numerous misrepresentation of Indigenous Australians. King George or better known as the “magic man” according to Nullah demonstrates an inaccurate and stereotypical view of Aboriginal Australians as being mysterious and spiritually powerful. Australia depicts Aboriginal Australians as being in touch with nature which is a positive stereotype. Nature plays an important role in the Aboriginal culture since they live off of the land by hunting, gathering, and farming the land. Aboriginal Australians were also portrayed as the “other” in this movie and their culture was viewed as being primitive compared to that of the white culture. Movies portraying Aboriginal Australians as being exotic, mysterious,
The Australian flag was chosen in 1901, when a competition was held to design our country’s flag. The guidelines of this competition included that the Union Jack and Southern Cross should appear on the flag. However, I believe that in the year 2001, the Australian flag needs to be changed. During the course of this essay, I will show that the Australian flag does not represent all Australians, in particular, Aboriginal Australians and that the symbols on our flag are no longer relevant and are not unique to Australia. I will also show that the present flag is not instantly recognisable and is too similar to flags of other countries.
Something fun about Australia, Australia’s primary language is English and we have 2 main cultures here, the Torres Strait Islander people and the English. While the English
This research will only concentrate on the extent of Americanisation in Australia through the influence on television and the film industry as the aspect of Americanisation covers a wide range from fashion to language. To fully understand the topic of the hypothesis, proper exploration of the definitions of ‘identity’ and ‘culture’ are of relevance. ‘Identity’ and ‘culture’ play an integral role in what an Australian represents as well as how the world views Australians. The meaning of ‘identity’ can be summarized as; ‘The collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing is definitively recognizable or known’ as well as ‘the set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group’ (Meriam-Webster 2003).
Australia was originally a collection of six independent colonies and due to many reasons discussed in this essay, they drew together and became a Federation. Although the States still retain their own identities, it is as Australian's that we are united and identified against the rest of the world. Australia has become a recognized nation with political and military standing.
Australia is a very unique place, along with our multiculturalism there is also a strong heritage surrounding us. At first thought of Australian heritage we think about such landmarks as Uluru, The Sydney harbour bridge and The Sydney opera house, The Great Barrier reef and other internationally recognised places. But our heritage goes much deeper than that; it is far more than outstanding icons. Along with these icons there are also unsung places like the old cattle stations, Aboriginal missions, migrant hostels, War memorials, our unique wetlands and the towns and cities we have built. Adding all of these things together, helps to tell the story of who we are and how we have shaped this land in the unique identity it has today.
With the evolution over the past century of Australia’s screen culture, the industry through both its success and failures has fostered “An Australian film industry, [which] enables Australia to talk to itself, recognize itself and engage the attention of the world in doing so” (Dermody & Jacka, 1987, p 17). Three impactful films within Australian screen culture have been Muriel’s Wedding (House, Moorhouse & Hogan, 1994), Bra Boys (Abberton & DeSouza, 2007) and Samson and Delilah (Shelper & Thornton, 2009), which through their story, funding, release strategies and audience have become influential films for defining “Australian-ness” within Australian screen culture.
Through numerous poetic techniques Paterson has shown that the Australian diversity is as diverse as the country itself. The Australian identity concerns the way Australia is viewed by other people. There are a variety of different aspects that contribute to this identity of Australia which include historical icons. Paterson recognizes how lucky we are to live on a land notorious for its diverse landscape. He is signaling that we are missing out and we need to cherish the great land we were given.