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Working Matilda: The representation of women and their working lives in Australian cinema
Anderson, Majda Kristin, M.A.
The American University, 1991
Copyright ©1991 by Anderson, Majda Kristin. All rights reserved.
UMI 300 N. ZeebRd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106
WORKING MATILDA:
The Representation of Women and Their Working Lives
in Australian Cinema
by
Majda Kristin Anderson
submitted to the
Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences
of the American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree of
Masters of Arts
in
Interdisciplinary Studies/Cinema Studies
Signatures of Committee:
Chair:
Dean of|the College
1991
The American University
Washington, D.C. 20016
THE A1EHICAN UlilVEHSITY LIBRARY © COPYRIGHT
by
MAJDA KRISTIN ANDERSON
1991
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WORKING MATILDA:
THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN AND THEIR WORKING LIVES
IN AUSTRALIAN CINEMA
BY
Majda Kristin Anderson
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the representation of women in
Australian films with particular emphasis on the portrayal of
women's work. Work-force and domestic roles are compared and
contrasted over the historical scope of the Australian film
industry. The paper demonstrates that roles have changed only
marginally since the incorporation of Australia as a penal
colony for Great Britain, although advances have been made in
portraying independent, self-sufficient and self-fulfilled
female characters. The few films which do break away from
stereotypical role models of women are identified, and reasons
for their differences are postulated (female directors, etc.).
This reflection of Australia's archly conservative patriarchal position can be attributed largely to the oppressive society which has encouraged male bonding from the earliest days of the penal colony, yet has consistently devalued and discouraged feminist solidarity, resulting in the consistent
images of "damned whores and god's police."
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge several of the debts I have
incurred over the years while I completed this project.
First, I want to thank my friend, Mary Beth, for her home, her
car, her VCR and her company while I spent many happy hours
watching movies in Melbourne. In addition, I wish to express
my gratitude to Ken Berryman and Lynn Gloury at the National
Film and Sound Archive in Melbourne. They gave me invaluable
help, obtaining rare films and offering me a comfortable place
in which to watch them, while they struggled with the
inevitable chaos which resulted from relocating their own
offices.
I would also like to thank Walter Morton for reading the
nine million rough drafts he is convinced I slipped through
his fingers when he wasn't looking, and for giving me sound,
albeit often unconventional, advice. And, finally, I must express my appreciation for my incredibly patient Masters
Committee at American University, Dr. Eric Smoodin, Dr. Ron
Sutton, and especially Dr. Roberta Rubenstein who spent many hours reading and critiquing my work, when she had so much of her own to finish. Thank you. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ...... ii
Acknowledgements ...... Iil
Chapter
1. Introduction ...... 1
2. Silent Women, Historical Wives ...... 15
3. The Modern Wife: Better Half or Ball and Chain? .. 31
4. The Labour That Never Ends ...... 52
5. Conclusions ...... 71
Appendix ...... 77
Bibliography ...... 86
iv CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This paper will focus on the representation of women and
their work in Australian film. By examining film texts which
reveal women in their most varied work roles, I will show how
film, as an ideological vehicle, reinforces and perpetuates
the limited participation of women in the ultra-patriarchal world of Australian culture. I have chosen a representative
number of films to demonstrate how pervasive the roles which
do fall to women have become and how slowly they are changing within this repressive society. A brief overview of
historical precedents set in convict Australia reveals the
genesis of patriarchal repression which can still be discerned, in altered yet recognizable forms, today.
My background material includes historical references and
Australian popular cultural texts as well as film histories and, of course, the films themselves. For the most part, I have confined my study to films made in the past twenty years
(the 1970s and 1980s), the years of Australia's cinematic revival. However, I will make references to films from the early silent period in order to make historical connections to later representations.
When I began this project, several years ago, I had a very limited perception of Australian film and culture. Due 1 to the restricted exposure most Americans have to Australian cinema, I believed that the majority of Australian films revealed the type of progressive female characters created by
Gillian Armstrong and Miles Franklin in My Brilliant Career
(1979). I also expected most Australian productions to reflect the cinematic expertise demonstrated by Peter Weir.
After spending many months within the past five years in repeated visits to Australia, and investigating both the films and the culture, I now realize just how naive my earlier perceptions were. Gillian Armstrong's character ization of Miles Franklin's autobiography remains an anomaly
— the exception to the rule, rather than the rule itself.
And although Peter Weir does have equals within the
Australian film industry, there are less skilled directors working there as well.
Historical Background
To complete a coherent argument using Australia's national cinema as accurate cultural representation, the unique history of Australia becomes essential in understanding its peculiar colonial development. Australia was initially explored and settled by Britain in the latter half of the 18th century for the purpose of increasing the scope of the "empire" and providing a much-needed penal colony for English citizenry convicted of a wide variety of crimes. A tradition begun with colonial America in the 17th 3
century, "transportation" involved sending undesirable
British subjects to the new world and thus providing a built-
in, virtually unpaid, work force to labor under primitive
conditions.
As a result of this form of colonization, Australia soon
became occupied by a predominantly white, lower class
collection of men, supervised by paid jailers, former
convicts and professional military leaders. Although this
society had a distinctly hierarchical system which paralleled
Britain's own, a career move to Australia was not considered
a desirable posting. This led to an absence of true
aristocracy — the upper classes were not anxious to pack up
their families and test out life in this new colony.
Australia was a country which dictated a very harsh, physical
existence — farming, ranching, sugar cane harvesting, etc.
Hence, the country was populated by an excessive number of males — both in leadership positions as well as inmates.
Women were not numerous among the early settlers (or convicts), nor was this gender imbalance corrected for many generations, which allowed a history of male-bonding, or
"mateship," to develop to an exaggerated degree — a tradition which carries over into present-day Australia.
Mateship... automatically excludes women because it is based on the idea o£ men as workmates and companions, [while] the most important form of enduring relationship between the sexes is marriage, which conflicts directly with all-male relations.1
The idea that women have no competitive place in a working world controlled by men extends questions of gender equality
into the workplace, especially as they relate to issues of
paid work (as opposed to the abundant unpaid work women have
always executed within the home).
Within the 18th century prison community, hierarchies of domination both inside and outside the penal system were quickly formed. The only social positions lower than convict status fell to women, especially female convicts (and of course, the local aboriginal population since racism was then, as now, widespread). Miriam Dixson, in her key text on women in Australian culture, The Real Matilda (1976), notes that the historical background for such treatment of women typically occurs in situations which involve what she refers to as the "casual poor" — those who fall lower on the economic scale than everyone else — which easily applies to the new Australians:
one last consolation was left to the casual poor and naturally enough they tended to clutch at it: their women could be more demeaned, more lowly, than they.2
This attitude remained true for the Australians who had served their prison sentences and were released to start new lives in the colonies — the stigma of "transportation" was
1 Professor Sol Encel, as quoted in Miriam Dixson, The Real Matilda : Women and Identity in Australia 1788 to the present. (Victoria: Penguin Books Ltd., 1983), p. 81. 2 Miriam Dixson, p. 79. not easily overcome and thus those Australians who began
colonial life as inmates continued to demean their women.
However, the systemic devaluation of women did not end with
the eventual dismantling of the penal system: . instead, it carried over into future generations, fuelling a national misogyny, long after Australia terminated its role as
Britain's overseas prison.
In order to make the transition to productive colony
(versus mega-penitentiary) the need for white women soon became apparent: if the colony were to become a successful satellite of the British empire, it would require the
"civilizing" influence of virtuous women. Australian men, exposed only to glimpses of sequestered military wives and
"inferior" Aboriginal and convict women, had become used to treating females more as remote appendages of the penal system, mythically perfect virginal figures, or lowly objects useful for sexual gratification. Women had seldom been regarded as independent, self-reliant people.
The exclusion of male-female interaction, except on the most abstract and ignoble levels — literally, the sexually- based dichotomy between the madonna and the whore stereotypes
— led to what became, in later centuries, a battle for equal consideration (which continues to be waged in corporate, as well as lesser venues throughout contemporary Australia).
Anne Summers, in her ground-breaking work on women in
Australian culture, Damned Whores and God's Police: The 6
stereotypical roles women have been assigned within this
culture — as she refers to them, "damned whore" and "God’s
police." She maintains that:
These concepts are, of course, ideological in nature, and are therefore constantly reproduced by the cultural conditions of Australian patriarchy.3
Women, according to Summers' model, are defined solely by their conformation to the nuclear family; and, whether or not they fulfill their roles as wife/mothers determines society's perceptions of them as basically good or evil.
Although this situation is common among Western cultures, in Australia it is extreme. Not surprisingly, in the pursuit of historical material for a project concerning women in a culture which focuses on men, I have encountered limited sources. As one Australian historian bluntly states:
In my opinion, women in Australian history became important about five years ago, when they started making a noise, and started getting difficult.4
F.K. Crowley's statement reinforces the generally held belief that Australian women have been ignored throughout their country's history: a situation feminist historians have been attempting to correct for a number of years.5 In an essay on women in Australian history, Anne Summers writes:
3 Rob Pascoe, The Manufacture of Australian History- (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 111-112. 4 F.K. Crowley, as cited in Rob Pascoe, The Manufacture of Australian History. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 107. 5 See Patricia Grimshaw, "‘Man's Own Country': Women in Colonial Australian History," in Australian Women: Mew Feminist Perspectives. Edited by Norma Grieve and Alisa Burns. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989). Grimshaw discusses 7
Most Australian history works are so closed, so suffocating, so self-assured in their preoccupation with the activities of men that such questions could not even occur to the reader. To read [these histories] is to be lulled into the false assumption that women did not even exist.6
Consistent with other conventional Western histories,
Australia's dependence upon the "great man" tradition is not
unique.
The major impediment to female rebellion, and that which keeps women physically and psychologically bound to their family-centred [sic] roles has been the absence of any cultural tradition which approved of women being anything else.7
Thus, occupational possibilities available outside the home remain fairly non-existent and contradictory when the continuing approval of Australian society is also required.
Cultural Examination of Film
As Diane Collins, among others, acknowledges film has tremendous power as a tool for propaganda, which makes "the cinema the most powerful component of popular culture."8
Film thus remains a useful artifact for exploring ideological beliefs within a given society. In this study, I will expose
Australian fiction films for the negative reinforcement they representations of women in standard Australian historical texts, or rather their lack thereof, calling upon an array of feminist historians who hope to correct the misconception that women did not even exist in colonial Australia. 6 Anne Summers, from "An Object Lesson in Women's History," in J. Mercer (ed.), The other Half: Women in Australian Society. (Victoria: Penguin Books Australia Ltd., 1975), p. 51, as cited in Patricia Grimshaw, "Man's Own Country," Australian Women: New Feminist Perspectives, note 2, pp. 377-378. 7 Anne Summers, Damned Whores and God's Pol ice: The Colonization of Women in Australia. (Melbourne: Penguin Books Australia Ltd., 1985), p. 33. 8 Diane Collins, “The Movie Octopus," in Australian Popular Culture. Edited by Peter Spearitt and David Walker. (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1979), p. 105. 8
most often provide concerning women and their work. Although
film allows information to be disseminated through largely
unconscious means, and filmmakers and viewers might deny that
such prejudice exists, Australian films have consistently
devalued the female position in society. This attitude can
be traced and developed via film productions from the silent era to the present.
In an examination of Australian film texts, an initial analysis reveals an overt lack of female characters, not only in working situations outside the home, but anywhere at all.
Though this is similar to the situation found in many other
Western societies and contexts (Hollywood included), the
Australian case is extreme, as I have noted earlier.
Patricia Edgar states the situation in Australian cinema distinctly:
the key relationships are between men. Women, if they are included at all, serve only as whores, mothers, sisters and irrelevant wives. Women are present as background extras to forbear, be ignored, slapped or raped.9
Resisting and exposing these portrayals remains of central interest to feminist film theorists. Throughout the history of film production, women have most frequently taken on the role of "object" within the patriarchal world of the film text. In her essay summarizing the development of feminist film criticism, Christine Gledhill traces early
9 Patricia Edgar, "Raped, Slapped and Ignored," Cinema Papers, March/April 1975, p. 39. 9
arguments which question the "phallocentric" nature of
representation within the cinema.10 Historically, film has
constructed women in terms of their phallic difference (i.e.
absence, rather than presence). Women, lacking phallic
authority, are usually portrayed without narrative power —
they do not control the story.
Femaleness is manifest in characters who are ciphers to aspects of the male or to 'maleness'; Australian women suffer a characterless 'non-male' existence of one kind or another, with brief moments of reprieve if the plot permits them to enact a small revenge.11
The female has typically been constructed in terms of male pleasure and male representation, leaving "woman as woman"
somewhere in the void.
Women become significant only in their relationships to the male characters within the narrative:
What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance.12
Gledhill calls attention to missing subjects: "women at work, home as a workplace, struggles to change legal and economic structures, the issues of sexual politics, expressions of women's sexuality and so on." However, she also notes the
10 See Christine Gledhill, "Developments in Feminist Film Criticism," in Re-Vision; Essays in Feminist Film Criticism. Edited by Mary Anne Doane, Patricia Mellencamp and Linda Williams. (Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America, Inc., 1984). 11 Susan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka, The Screening of Australia, Volume 2; Anatomy of a National Cinema. (Sydney: Currency Press Pty Ltd, 1988), p. 86. 12 Budd Boeticher, as quoted by Laura Mulvey in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Movies and Methods: Volume TI. Edited by Bill Nichols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), p. 309. 10
difficulty in providing a simple alternative to fill these
gaps.13 Clearly, issues of representation for women and
their work transcend cultural boundaries.
Part of the problem must of necessity be the lack of
alternative representations on the screen and the abundance
of culturally compliant images. Australian film has revealed
the supposedly "correct" female position over and over again,
and the Australian viewer easily recognizes the woman's place
as subservient to the male. This female stereotype is
cultivated in all film genres, revealing its pervasive
nature.
Australian Film History — A Very Brief Overview
A flourishing industry both domestically and
internationally during the silent era (1906-1930), Australian
film production, for a variety of reasons, disappeared almost
entirely during the years following World War II. During the war years themselves very few films were made, except for newsreels and the occasional documentary; narrative production all but vanished. The following decades produced the sporadic British or American co-production, but rarely used any domestic creative talent, importing directors, writers, camera operators, and stars.
In the early 1970s with the establishment of the
Australian Film Development Corporation, the Australian film
13 Christine Gledhill, op. cit., p. 21. 11
"renaissance" began. As Susan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka
recount in their history of Australian film, the industry
developed through three phases: a prototype era (1970-1975),
an era of "respectability" (1976-1980), and a more
commercially-oriented contemporary phase (1981-present).14
Although these three phases of film production reflected a
renewed interest in issues of nationalism, they did, for the most part, exclude women from the production process itself.
The years of silent film production, by comparison, saw
the inclusion of several well-regarded, though now forgotten, women filmmakers, as well as notable actresses, producers, etc. The inclusion of women into a male-dominated industry appears unusual in retrospect, although similar exploration
into Hollywood's past would likely reveal the same sorts of female participation. With the near-demise of the Australian film industry, such possibilities for women did not reoccur until the late 1970s, in part due to the international success of My Brilliant Career (1979).15 As Brian MacFarlane notes in his book Australian Cinema 1970-1985,
mainstream Australian filmmaking, despite the presence of strongly individual actresses such as Wendy Hughes, Judy Davis, Noni Hazelhurst, Helen Morse, and Judy Morris, has nevertheless tended to uphold the values of male- dominated, heterosexual, monogamous family life. This may
14 Dermody and Jacka, op. cit. 15 Early filmmakers such aB Kate Howarde and Lottie Lyell are celebrated in Andree Wright's Brilliant Careers; Women in Australian Cinema. (Sydney: Pan Books Australia Pty Ltd, 1986). Wright continues her history through the contemporary efforts of women writers, producers and directors like Gillian Armstrong and Margaret Fink. 12 well be due to the scarcity of women scriptwriters and directors in Australian mainstream filmmaking.16
The initial "prototype era" of production had been dominated by male-focused narratives — war genre films or sexploitative comedies — which made later female-centered productions appear that much more disparate. My Brilliant.
Career recounts the story of Sybylla, a young woman living in the early twentieth century, who decides to sacrifice romance and a conventional marriage, in order to pursue her aspirations as a writer. Career not only deals with an independent female heroine; it was created through a distinctly female collaboration — Gillian Armstrong
(director), Margaret Fink (producer), Judy Davis (actress) and Eleanor Witcombe's adaptation of Miles Franklin's novel.
Renewed interest in cinema had arisen, in part, as a result of the political upheaval which galvanized Australia during the Vietnam War. Film provided an opportunity for dealing with questions of Australian nationalism, post colonial politics, and the women's movement, among others.
Hence, many of the early 70s films concentrated on "ocker" culture, a truly "national" identity of Australia which, although not particularly flattering, strongly opposed cultivated perceptions of British culture. These films asserted an "Australian-ness" desperately needed to restore
16 Brian McFarlane, Australian Cinema 1970-1985. (Victoria: William Heinemann Publishers Australia, 1987), p. 133. 13
and rejuvenate national pride and culture which carries
through even today. Rather than functioning as the bastard
child of Britain any longer, Australia flaunted its own
heritage and uniqueness.
As production moved away from the "ocker" and into more
refined images of Australia, the unusual landscapes and
histories of this country became fodder for film. Foreign productions such as Walkabout (1971) had delivered uniquely
Australian vistas and situations to the world, opening
international avenues of exchange. Overseas markets,
receptive to Australian film, have now posed the myriad questions currently facing Australian filmmakers — in particular, which audiences they want to capture, those at home or those abroad?
The recent overwhelming success of Crocodile Dundee
(1986) suggests the imminent return of "mateship" values and the bush heroine. In the first of two "Crocodile Dundee" films, the quintessential Australian hero asserts his mythic nationalism, both at home and in the wilds of New York. He provides fascinating reading for the American audiences within the film, while reasserting the supremacy of the white
Australian male in the wilderness. Although the American female protagonist exhibits many qualities of the "bush heroine" — for example, she can shoot a gun with great accuracy — she is repeatedly "saved" by the masculine hero. 14
Female characters, once again, are important only as they
relate to the male, in what they provoke in him, not in and of themselves. CHAPTER 2
SILENT WOMEN, HISTORICAL WIVES
Early Australian cinema concentrated on "bush values," stories which idealized courage and heroism, and capitalized on the difficulties inherent in settling the outback. These popular narratives retold Australia's taming of the wilds, featuring men, and allowing women entry in limited, peripheral roles. Idealized historical representations showed working- class squatters who diligently pursued their ambitions with the assistance of their faithful and resourceful, but uninteresting wives. As John Tulloch comments in his history of Australian cinema,
the Australian 'bush' films in particular were dominated by independent, suffering women who finally marry rather colourless males.1
Tulloch's observation at least suggests that the women are no more bland than the men with whom they share the screen.
Although film historians readily agree that Australian films specifically about women are rare, several examples reveal the traditional representations of those women who do find their way to the screen.
The "bush wife" grew naturally out of the youthful "bush heroine/daughter" who remained a popular narrative figure
1 John Tulloch, Australian Cinema — Industry, Narrative and Meaning. (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin Australia Pty Ltd., 1982), p. 39. 15 16
well into the 1940s and 1950s. In his article on the future
of Australian cinema, Andrew Pike succinctly describes the
role of the bush heroine in Australian society and her
depiction in film:
The squatter's daughter recurred in numerous films from the earliest years until the late 1940s, embodying a suburban ideal of Australian womanhood in a romantic rural context. The character had striking ability as a horsewoman and was capable of working hard as the equal of men in the heavy duties of station life, whether cattle mustering or sheep-shearing. At the same time she lost none of her 'femininity' and was never a 'tomboy': she remained demure and pretty and moved easily into a traditional 'female' role after the day’s work was done, to wear beautiful dresses and sing by the piano, or flirt coquettishly with an eligible suitor.1
This well-established dichotomy was appropriated by early
silent film makers who created an enduring film called,
fittingly enough, Silks and Saddles (1921).
The title of the film immediately reveals the dilemma
facing the young heroine. Bobbie spends half of her time as
her father's right-hand 'man' (far more capable of managing
the workings of their station than her elder brother); she
then spends the other half dressed in elegant gowns,
entertaining neighboring gentlemen, as her father's
eligible/desirable daughter, Roberta. This quasi
schizophrenic split in Bobbie's dual role, initiated by the
title and its references to riding equipment and feminine
fabrics, is further emphasized by the two different names
attached to this quintessential "bush heroine."
1 Andrew Pike, "Australian Feature Films: Towards a Local Cinema," Meanjin, Vol. 38, No. 2, July 1979, p. 209. 17
During the course of the film, Bobbie agonizes over her
father's threatened circumstances and her brother's financial
ruin, determining to save the day by riding her own horse in
the local derby — which she naturally wins, in keeping with
cinematic fantasy.2 This atypical narrative allows Bobbie to
choose an unusually active role in rescuing her male
relatives, rather than opting for a convenient and
advantageous marriage with a neighboring station owner. Much
of her apparent freedom admittedly arises from Roberta's
class position. As the daughter of the owner, rather than a
working class ranch hand, Bobbie has far more independence
than another female of similar age would have. This
situation however, does not override the fact that Bobbie's
aggressive solution is fundamental to the notion of the
squatter's daughter — a woman who has the ability to compete within a man's world, but only when absolutely necessary.
Roberta's situation as the owner's daughter may remove
her from the typical narrative constraints of the bush
heroine (who is normally of the working class), yet she demonstrates the legendary abilities of Australian women to take matters into their own hands when circumstances demand drastic action. At first, Roberta seriously considers her neighbor's proposal — the legitimate, socially acceptable
2 An interesting aside - this film predates Enid Bagnold's novel. National Velvet, by fourteen years. The book was first published in 1935. Given the success of Australian films in Britain during the silent era, Silks and Saddles (1921) might very well have been influential in providing the premise for Bagnold's book. 18 choice — before she resolves to perform her daring ride.
She recognizes her inevitable destiny as a wife and mother; however, she decides to hold out for the myth of "true love," rather than settling for her father's marital choice. 3 By the film's end, Bobbie has been safely tucked away into the patriarchal fold, and the audience has no illusions about the kinds of escapades in which she will participate from now on
— minor adventures at best, centered around household management and childbearing — certainly no more horse races.
The Sentimental Bloke (1919) by comparison, celebrates the little woman who domesticates her 'bloke' and devotes herself to keeping him on the straight and narrow, rather than the bush heroine who requires domestication herself.
This female portrayal is by far the more typical in
Australian film — we follow Bill on his adventures and meet
Doreen, almost in passing, as she fits into his exploits, reinforcing Boeticher's ideas regarding the ancillary role of women.4 Doreen, the main female character in this earlier
3 See Anne Summers, Damned Whores and God's Police: The Colonization of Women in Australia. (Victoria: Penguin Books Australia Ltd., 1975), p. 149. "Marriage for most women is not a matter of choice but a desperate necessity — their only means of survival. This absence of choice is also disguised by the romantic myths of marriage, myths which are so persuasively propagated that each generation of gullible girls grows up believing that the best thing they can do with their lives is devote them to marriage and motherhood, and that following this vocation will bestow its own rewards of satisfaction and happiness." 4 See Budd Boeticher on the importance of women to male narrative, as cited earlier in this paper (p. 8-9), and as quoted by Laura Mulvey in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," 19 film becomes a worthy member of Anne Summers' "God's Police" force.5 An enduring classic, "The Bloke" (whose traditions begin in 19th century verse) recounts the tale of an average fellow who meets a special girl.
Doreen, consistent with her working class upbringing, toils in a pickle factory, gluing labels on jars. However, she quickly gives up her career (not surprisingly) to devote herself to Bill. Although Doreen's job choice might appear unusual, in her essay on women in Australian history,
Patricia Grimshaw elaborates on the profusion of trades adopted by women of the working class. Women played important roles as everything from shopkeepers and printers to the more conventional female occupations in the service industries — those of laundress, barmaid, cook, babysitter, housekeeper, et al.6
Doreen not only cares for Bill's physical needs, she also refines his various crude behaviors, admonishing his alcoholic tendencies and his penchant for gambling, while she introduces him to the finer things in life (e.g. sobriety, thrift, and proper "theatre," as opposed to the Vaudeville he prefers). With a benevolent uncle to give the couple his fruit orchards, Doreen is clearly the proper influence, just in M ovies and Methods:__Volume II. Edited by Bill Nichols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), p. 309. 5 Summers, Damned Whores and God's Police, see especially chapter 9 (pp. 291-316). 6 Patricia Grimshaw, "'Man's Own Country': Women in Colonial Australian History," in Australian Women: New Feminist Perspectives. Edited by Norma Grieve and Alisa Burns. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 182-209. 20
what Bill needs to improve his life. Thus the "bloke" and
his wife provide suitable role models for a predominantly
working class audience in 1919. The Sentimental Bloke
demonstrated the opportunities for mutual happiness provided
by marriage to a "good" woman.
"God's Police," however, are only half of the equation
Summers refers to in her study, leaving "Damned Whores" to be
explored. Although later films will indeed involve explicit
prostitution, early silent films did employ the questionably
"vamp-ish." In Silks and Saddles, Roberta's brother, Dick,
is involved with a Mrs. Myra Fane, a woman of ill-repute.
Her dark and clingy attire, along with her scheming demeanor,
contrast so directly with Roberta/Bobbie that the audience is
certain, long before they know by example, that she has evil
intentions for this family. She seduces and dupes the naive
Dick and, after Myra fails to convince him to forfeit his
sister's horse in the Cup race, she shoots Dick.
Myra is obviously another side of female representation, a woman who uses her talents and sexuality not to domesticate the uncivilized male (as does Doreen and to a lesser extent,
Roberta) or hold a respectable job, but to acquire wealth without having to attach herself legally to a man (she does have a male partner in crime in this particular film). As
Summers notes in her discussion:
The Damned Whore stereotype is a negative one; it is used to describe women who do not appear to be engaged in maintaining existing authority relations and is most 21 often applied to women who are seen as actively contravening these relations — especially those governing women themselves.7
Myra's role undermines patriarchal expectations, including those of basic Christian morality with her undeniably questionable marital circumstances, and cannot be condoned within the film text. Her occupation is also illegal, further offending the patriarchal laws which govern proper behavior.
Although there are myriad films which depict women on the fringes of Australia’s colonization, I have chosen two examples to demonstrate modern representations of the squatter's wife and her role in Australia's development.
Among such films as Break of Day (1976), The Chant of Jimmie
River (1981), The Mango Tree (1977), My Brilliant Career
(1982) provides an excellent example of the bush wife and her role within the rugged Australian outback while Newsfront
(1978) reveals urban women in a much later period.
In We of the Never Never, Angela Punch-McGregor plays
Jeannie, a young woman who marries a station master who has taken a position "at the back of nowhere." After her arrival in the bush, Jeannie finds herself in a living situation so primitive and foreign to her that she hardly knows how to
7 Summers, Damned Whores and God's Police, p. 154. 22
respond. She quickly realizes that, although her husband is
glad of her company, the men who work for him are not. They
refer to her as a "problem" — or, in the words of critics
Dermody and Jacka,
The stockmen react with fear and contempt at the idea of a white woman owned by the boss on The Elsey [the cattle station], threatening the foundations of their kingdom, disturbing the simple privileges of being white males.8
Mastering horsemanship and learning to communicate with the
largely aboriginal staff, Jeannie quickly proves that she is fully capable of participating in the day-to-day workings of the station, reinforcing the myth of the bush heroine.
Grimshaw sums up this often overlooked position of women in her essay on women and work:
The frontier was male dominated, and from it emerged an ethos stressing male bonding and a specific definition of masculinity that excluded a sympathetic role for women. In reality, however, women were neither absent, nor simply victims of men, in frontier settlements.9
Exemplary of this idea, Punch-McGregor presents a female character who not only learns to cope with frontier life and its domination by white males, but also attempts to forge connections with the neighboring aboriginal population, in an effort to find solidarity with the only other women present.
The emphasis on Jeannie's bonding with local black women reflects the universality of the patriarchal order, and its overriding of racial difference. For these women, Jeannie
8 Susan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka, The Screening of Australia, Volume 2: Anatomy of a National Cinema. (Sydney: Currency Press, 1988), p. 207. 9 Grimshaw, p. 208. 23
included, the central issue is female disempowerment and disregard, not race.
As a result of her struggle to adapt, the local men — however grudgingly — come to accept Jeannie's authority (at
least in the vicinity of her home and its immediate environs) and respect the efforts she has made to become a viable member of their isolated community. The reputation Jeannie earns reinforces the stereotype of the bush heroine, once again elevating her character to the realm of the exceptional, rather than the norm. In her discussion of squatters' wives, labour activist Edna Ryan refers to them as
"the women who became legendary as 'the women of the west,' and none would deny their courage nor their significant contribution."10 Ryan goes on to reveal that these women were indeed visible in history, as their husbands, fathers, and brothers referenced them in letters and journals, but never in statistical records. The men of Australia were undoubtedly out conquering the wilds of the outback, but the tale which is rarely told is that of the woman who stayed back in the camp, foraging for food, washing clothes and raising children under exceedingly difficult circumstances.
For this reason, Jeannie Gunn's story provides an appropriate example of women who worked in rural Australia,
10 Edna Ryan, "Women in Production in Australia," in Australian Women: New Feminist Perspectives. Edited by Norma Grieve and Alisa Burns. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 260. 24
domesticating the land, along with their men. We of the
Never Never also reveals the fact that there is no room for
female representation which is not sanctioned by a male
presence, no matter how often that male might be absent. As
soon as Jeannie's husband, Aeneas, succumbs to an exotic
fever and dies, she is forced to leave the back country and
return to the city. She cannot be allowed to continue
running the station, without a man to back her up — even
though the men respect her authority by this time. Arguably
the situation might have been different had Jeannie's husband
owned the station. Perhaps then she might have been considered competent to continue running the ranch. As it
stands, the station owner refuses to entertain the idea of
Jeannie staying on after Aeneas' death.
Summers reviews this type of narrative in her discussion of the myths surrounding the bush wife and "the idealization of Australia's women pioneers." She elaborates:
This standard theme in Australian literature and history occurs as a token subsidiary to the romantic idealization of outback life which is the basis of the Australian Legend. There are countless tales of the hardships endured by bush wives...11
Jeannie Gunn's story is part of a long tradition of heroic bush wife narratives. Such stories glorify the hardships women endured as they followed their men to the outback and worked to settle Australia. What these narratives gloss over are the very real dangers present for women isolated from the
11 Summers, Damned Whores and God's Police, p. 311. 25
female society which could have been part of life in an urban
community. And, although a story like Mrs. Gunn's is
refreshing for its unusual subject matter, it still fails to
reveal the very real working conditions encountered by women
who chose this difficult existence.
Allusions to the loneliness and male hostility met by
bush wives are fleeting and inadequately explored in
Australian film, especially as a given accompaniment to the
hefty contribution such women made to the founding of
Australia. However, such omissions or ambiguities are consistent with the minimal space allowed for women and representations of their working lives in Australian cultural artifacts — the bush wife, and the difficult work she performed day after day, has rarely if ever been brought to the screen. Rather, glorified versions of her story, especially as it relates to the hero, have been substituted.
A very different, urban view of Angela Punch-McGregor can be seen in a film made several years earlier, Newsfront
(1978). She plays a suburban Catholic housewife, Fay, who exists uneasily in the turbulent years following World War
II. Many other films reveal glimpses of Australian women and their working lives; however Newsfront provides effective examples of the apparent dichotomy between the representation of women who work inside the home and those who work
"outside," even though the story centers on newsmen. The 26
film addresses many of the same issues raised in the depictions of women living in earlier periods — namely those of class and gender. Self-reflexively using actual documentary footage, Newsfront focusses on the development and subsequent demise of the newsreel industry in Australia.
Within this community of filmmakers and newsmen, however, is one female news assistant (played by Wendy Hughes) who is conspicuously and frequently contrasted with the more conventional (read "unemployed") wives of the other men (such as Fay).
Hughes, who often plays single, independent, career- oriented women, becomes Amy McKenzie, a newswoman of the
1940s. She is introduced early in the film and her first task is predictably that of taking notes and serving refreshments to the hardworking newsmen in the office. Amy's initial importance is assumed with her relationship to one of the newsmen, Frank, who later defects, leaving to work in
America. Historians Dermody and Jacka express their disappointment at Amy's limited involvement in the central action:
She is a frustratingly unrealised and neglected character, whom the script makes strong in odd moments. She is the independent, attractive woman, but one who functions too much as a pawn in the male-centred plot.12
Amy appears essential, not in her potentially enviable role as a career woman, but as Frank's girlfriend, and then his
12 Dermody and Jacka, p. 133. 27 brother, Len's. She doesn't seem to particularly care which brother she gets; however, what becomes obvious is the unspoken desire she seems to have for a more conventional male-female relationship, namely marriage.
Amy is effectively juxtaposed with Len's wife, Fay, on many occasions. She accompanies the newsmen to a room construction party at Len's house and endeavors to join the other wives in the kitchen while the men sit outside and drink beer. It becomes obvious that she has little, if anything, in common with these women, whose conversation centers on the antics of their myriad children, and the price of groceries and diaper service. She stands awkwardly between them, self-consciously smoking a cigarette (seen as a very masculine ritual among this group of women), while the others make no attempt to include her. Amy obviously doesn't fit into this housewives circle, and yet she doesn't fit into the male crowd either.
As evidenced by the film, neither Amy's position as a single, unmarried woman, nor Fay's portrayal of a model wife, appears desirable or praiseworthy. Fay personifies the "bad" wife — a shrewish, castrating mate who prevents her husband from enjoying his conjugal "rights" by both refusing to use birth control or take a chance on becoming pregnant again.
She rejects and belittles his sexual advances, announcing that they cannot afford more children due to his inadequate income, and that she doesn't believe he is faithful to her 28
anyhow. Her attack on Len’s salary reveals an uncomfortable
dissatisfaction with their middle class existence, proving
her aversion to her expected role as a supportive spouse.
This depiction is a far cry from the 1953 Catholic Weekly
article extolling the virtuous woman's role within marriage:
A young woman becoming a wife should think of her new state not as one that is to make her happy but as one in which she is to make her husband happy. Her own happiness will be a by-product of that determination, and will be assured in no other way... In the marriage contract she handed over the right to her body for the actions of marriage; she does not try to take that back again. She contracted to make a home for her husband in whatever place his work might call him...13
Fay has obviously not followed these guidelines for a "happy"
and productive relationship with her husband, which results
in the inevitable demise of their marriage.
Amy, by comparison, suffers the malicious attitudes of
those who envy her relative freedom, and offers herself to
Len as a sexually available woman without the burden of
matrimony. Hence, she becomes the most questionable of
females, a woman who supports herself financially and is not
contained within the patriarchal confines of marriage. Her
punishment for this arguably advantageous arrangement appears
in her evident dislike of either situation. She is not given much in the way of authority or responsibility at work, so
she remains unfulfilled there; and, although she does not have the disadvantages of marriage, she does not have any of
13 Catholic Weekly (26 February 1953) as cited in Summers, Damned Whores and God's P olice, p. 145. 29
the benefits either (namely, children). Later, when she is
finally living with Len after his divorce from Fay, Amy's
situation, rather than improving, seems to have gone from bad
to worse — she now exists to look after Len and appears to
have overlooked herself and her own needs.
Rather than achieving an egalitarian arrangement, which
could ostensibly have been the result of Len and Amy's
cohabitation, the couple settles for a marriage-like
existence. For example, Len arrives home from work late in
the evening and without even acknowledging Amy's presence,
takes the beer from her hand and leaves the room. Critic
Anne Hutton asserts that,
by the end of the film, [Fay and Len] have both become involved in new relationships that [have] meant the gradual denial of some of those old beliefs. The act of compromise is in itself a comment on the deflation of the Australian identity that was worn away with the changing times.14
Newsfront does indeed represent the changing attitudes of
Australians towards the contemporary political situations to which Hutton refers, as well as traditional Catholic ideals of marriage and fidelity. However, I would argue that the
Australian attitude towards the domestic woman hasn't changed at all. It appears that Australia's "old beliefs" are still alive and well and living over at Len's new place. Amy, far from becoming a model for the newly liberated working woman of the 60s, has fallen into a relationship without personal
14 Anne B. Hutton, "Nationalism in Australian Cinema," Cinema Papers, No. 26, April/May 1980, p. 98. 30 fulfillment, a situation which closely matches her professional situation. She has traded her freedom for a minimal commitment from Len — no marriage, no children — while maintaining a marginal career for herself. Neither situation provides much in the way of enviable independence or gratifying challenge.
Confined by the patriarchal system in which she lives,
Amy has effectively denied herself the potential comforts of marital happiness, as well as professional satisfaction; instead she is left in a working woman's limbo. By way of
Newsfront's example, a logical analysis reveals that Amy's initial choice to pursue a career rather than the domestic life society expects her to choose, has resulted in her unfortunate situation. She has neither family nor profession, and certainly not both — a stiff penalty to pay for choosing a different, more independent route through life. CHAPTER 3
THE MODERN WIFE: BETTER HALF OR BALL AND CHAIN?
The primary, and most overlooked place in which a woman labors is within her own home. Inexorably linked with images of working women, the role of the housewife cannot be denied its central importance, although the efforts of the little woman have often been discounted. The so-called "modern" housewife was created after World War I with the advent of labor-saving conveniences for the home. With washing machines, carpet sweepers and gas ovens, a wife could potentially raise her status from domestic drudge, and might then have something more to talk about than her household bills. Unfortunately, Australian men continued to feel that their women were "paralytically boring to be with."1 Thus, such improvements did not alleviate the fundamental disparity pervasive in Australian society, and between the sexes in particular. Women were still confined to issues of the home, while men found their workplaces, and the pub, more stimulating.
Regardless of the changes made around the turn of the century with women's suffrage and equal wage efforts, feminism came late to Australia. The Australian Women's Movement
1 Miriam Dixson, The Real Matilda; Women and Identity in Australia 1788 to the present-, p. 16. 31 32
emerged in the 1880s with the formation of the Women's
Christian Temperance Union (1882), an organization devoted to
equal rights and the promotion of women's suffrage which then
led to the formation of the Women's Suffrage Society (1884).1
Although women were federally enfranchised in 1901 (by error more than intent), they did not actually acquire the right to vote in state elections until 1908. Also during this period, women laborers outside the home (specifically tailoresses) held their first organized strike for equal wages, a move which sparked the creation of other women’s unions among domestic servants, textile workers and laundresses.2 Women were mobilizing to make dramatic alterations in their societal positions.
Yet, modern household machinery and early feminism notwithstanding, women found their roles as primary care givers and household mainstays virtually unchanged. As a reflection and confirmation of this stasis within society, the portrayal of wives and mothers changes very little over time in Australian cinema. Films depict older, more traditional models, along with newer versions of the Australian wife — women who remain subservient and obedient, always ready to cook, clean, raise children and supply sexual favors.
Portrayals of this almost generic wife shift only
1 Sources: Dixson, Sumners1 Damned Whores and God's Police: The Colonisation of Woman in.Australia, and For Love or Money: A HiBtory of Women and Work in Australia (documentary film, 1983). 2 Success did not come until 1973 with the Equal Pay Decision. slightly as feminism finally does invade Australian culture in
the late 60s. Though Australian women delay in joining the
feminist battle (other Western societies have supported Equal
Rights movements for quite a while by the time Australia
becomes more vociferous), they eventually catch up, as
demonstrated by the Australian Women's Liberation Movement
established in 1969.3 Feminists align with labor groups to
lobby for equal pay in 1971, with both groups benefitting from
their combined political force — the Equal Pay Decision
itself becomes law in 1973. The women's movement, dormant for
so many years after its initiation with workplace reform and
the struggle for suffrage around the turn of the century,
begins to gain momentum, and women's rights are eventually,
albeit gingerly, explored in Australian cinema.
AustralianCinema and the Representation of "Housewives”
The "new," post-feminist Australian wife often makes
known her desires, both sexual and more career-oriented, but
these are rarely shown as positive aspirations. One example
can be seen in the character Patricia (Wendy Hughes), from
Petersen (1974).4 Patricia is a university teaching
assistant who indulges in extra-marital sexual activity.
3 See references made by Summers in Damned Whores and God's Police and Dixson. Also, references in the documentary film, For Love or Money. The American National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded in 1966. 4 Wendy Hughes often plays similar roles as independent females in such films as
Hear You (1984). 34
Remarkably, the film does not suggest that Patricia's
infidelity is as disturbing as her later decision to take an overseas teaching position. Despite her lover's agreement to leave his wife and start a family with Patricia, she'd rather have the career. Her physical desires are condoned within the narrative, in part, because she is married to a bookish, unattractive man, as opposed to her lover, the excessively virile Petersen (Jack Thompson).5 Nevertheless, when her aspirations do not include a husband and a child, the film cannot support Patricia's decision and presents her as an extremely unattractive, and suspiciously independent female.
When Petersen confronts Patricia about her decision to move overseas, she becomes positively shrewish, and completely insensitive to his overtures. He reacts by slapping, and then raping her — a response which hardly seems justified.
Petersen's behavior appears inappropriate within the film but reflects the way such decisions might be viewed, metaphorically, within Australian culture. Patricia's ambitions, and those of women like her, detract from the traditional wifely duties so essential in maintaining the balance of power as viewed through patriarchal eyes.
5 Thompson has made a career of such macho characters as Petersen, a man who spends nearly the entire film having sex with whomever is available. Thompson appears, in fact, to be more comfortable with roles in films which completely marginalize women, or eliminate them altogether — or at least this is the way he has been typecast in such films as Wake in Fright (1975), The Family Man (1973, from the anthology film Libido), The chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1975), Sunday .Too Far Away (1975), The... Journalist 35
Despite the essential position of the housewife within
Australian society, Australian women have always played
prominent roles within the workforce, a fact often overlooked
by male historians, but explored and emphasized by Edna Ryan's
essay "Women in Production in Australia." Ryan calls
attention to the "myth" "that women have not played a
significant role in the economy, or that women's contribution
to production has been negligible," quickly disproving such
assertions.6 However, as Anne Summers notes:
Even though many married women now have jobs outside the home, this is a recent development and is still not institutionalized as part of the female role. For women, family life is a primary means of 'self’-definition and their family responsibilities persist even if a woman decides, or is forced, to take on an additional job.7
Naturally, this coincides with the true historical value of
women in Australian society — they are the unpaid "working"
class which keeps the Australian economy in business by
providing for the care and feeding of the male workforce.
An early attempt to show a somewhat modern version of the
Australian wife can be seen in Two Thousand Weeks (1968) and
its depiction of Sarah (Eileen Chapman). The film introduces
Sarah as she showers, objectified before a male gaze, and hence immediately disadvantaged within the narrative.8 Her
6 Edna Ryan, "Women in Production in Australia," in Australian Women: New Feminist Perspectives■ (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 258. 7 Summers, nairinerf Whore and God’s Police, p. 96. 8 Sarah's position is a common one for women in film, as outlined by Laura Mulvey in her seminal essay on "Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinem," reprinted in Movies and 36
secondary position, both in society and within her marriage,
is reinforced by her positioning in this initial sequence, as
the object of voyeuristic pleasure. Sarah is the faithful
wife of the film's protagonist, Will (Mark McManus): a woman
who endeavors to help her husband through his mid-life crisis
by pretending to ignore the very flagrant affair he is having
with a mutual friend. She denies her own needs, including
those for a husband more committed to his family and career
than chasing his fantasy life, and steps aside while Will
attempts to recapture his youth and fuel his writing
aspirations through his association with a younger woman,
Jackie (Jeanie Drynen).
Self-sufficient and resourceful, Sarah is the mainstay of
her family — her husband even refers to her as his "rock."
And yet, she becomes a completely submissive, although
nurturing, female, taking care of her children while
attempting to understand and sympathize with her husband1s
emotional confusion. She ignores her personal desires and
only gently reminds Will of their former intimacy. Sarah's
reaction to Will's emotional adultery can be seen as the ideal
in a country which prides itself on its overwhelming
indulgence where masculine appetites are concerned. Sarah merely fuels Will's diffidence by enabling him to ignore the
other responsibilities he has already engendered. She asks
edited by Bill Nichols. (Berkeley; University of California Press, 1985), pp. 303-315. 37
about his longing to begin over again with Jackie, listening
to his response regarding the young woman's neediness and
vulnerability. Will finds Sarah's apparent self-sufficiency
disturbing. His depressed and despondent reaction to her
independence, rather than appearing unusual or surprising,
could be applied to the entire culture, well outside the
context of the film. Instead of exalting in the great strides
made by women in Australian society, that male-oriented
enclave is threatened by the prospect of future generations of
self-sufficient women and hence, very resistant.
It is precisely this shortsighted attitude toward women
which Director Gillian Armstrong attempts to address in her
short film, The Singer and the Dancer (1977). Realistically,
however, she presents both sides of the wife-question — the
traditional versus the "modern" wife — and leaves the partial
ambiguity of the film's conclusion to speak for itself. The
film focuses on two women, one considered senile by her family
and the other a young woman just beginning a married life — two different generations of women dealing with the same personal dilemmas. Mrs. Bilson (Ruth Cracknell) has never overcome the bitterness initiated by her husband's abandonment over thirty years earlier, and has learned to survive by becoming almost completely unresponsive to her environment.
The film opens with her face, trapped behind the window of her room, looking out on a world in which she takes very little 38
interest. Mrs. Bilson's self-imposed catatonia keeps her from
exhibiting the rage she still harbors these many years later.
When she meets young Charlie (Elizabeth Crosby), Mrs. Bilson
finally has a reason to vent some of her anger in an effort to
save Charlie the same sort of heartache and anxiety she
herself has experienced.
Charlie is eager to leap into a quasi-marital
relationship with her boyfriend, continuing to give him the
benefit of the doubt until it becomes clear to her that he has
no intention of honoring their commitment to one another.
Even as she doggedly pursues their marriage-like existence,
Mrs. Bilson reminds Charlie that men are often not to be
trusted, and that she must find strength and independence
within herself.9 Charlie listens to Mrs. Bilson relate the
particulars of her failed relationship, but continues to
believe that her situation is different. Charlie's reaction
exemplifies the choice often made to ignore the inequity between men and women in society by asserting that particular
situations are "different." Historically, one defense to attacks on the material inequality between the sexes has been to raise individual cases — i.e. exceptions to the rule — in order to prove such allegations as completely unfounded.
In The Singer and the Dancer, Armstrong reveals her rather unique view of Australian life, a view which is always
9 Charlie's very name implies a new, more masculine and independent possibility for the future as it blurs the lines drawn between genders. 39 a part of her films. As one of the only woman directors in an extremely male-dominated business, she has, for years, provided a lone female cinematic voice.10 Too much the realist to allow her character, Charlie, to take Mrs. Bilson's advice completely to heart, Armstrong exposes Charlie's hesitation once she makes the decision to leave her boyfriend. The final sequence of the film reveals Charlie, suitcase in hand, standing in front of the little house she thought would become her home, trying to decide whether to stay or go. Eventually, she turns toward the house and goes back inside. The last image of the film shows Charlie's face, trapped behind the glass of the kitchen window, and the audience knows which choice she has made. Charlie's decision to stay appears pathetic, but understandable — Australian society dictates that home and family are essential, and if she leaves, Charlie will be giving up those possibilities, however temporarily.
Although Armstrong does not leave the viewer wondering about Charlie's decision, the question about the wisdom of such choices still weighs heavily. Armstrong received myriad complaints from viewers, especially women's groups and potential American distributors, because they couldn't understand why Charlie didn't leave. Armstrong responded in an interview with Sue Mathews: "it was too easy for her
10 This situation has changed in recent years with the acknowledged critical success of New Zealand director Jane Campion. However, for years Armstrong was nearly alone in her ability to make films within the commercial confines of the Australian film industry. 40
[Charlie] to go. She should come back. And it fitted [sic] the pattern of going round and round in circles."11 In a sense, the generational differences between the two women can be seen as inconsequential. As the movie makes clear, the same things which happen to Mrs. Bilson are merely replicated, with variation, in Charlie's life.12 Even the title, The
Singer and the Dancer, alludes to the childhood aspirations of both women (very similar despite their age differences), and the dreams each one ignored to fit into the patriarchal society from which they could find no escape.
Coming out of an era of so-called sexual freedom, The
Singer and the Dancer portrays a couple who live together without benefit of marriage. On the heels of the "sexual revolution," seemingly different lifestyles are often explored in Australian films from the early to mid-seventies, although usually to focus attention on excessive male sexual activity.13
Society would appear to agree that change is essential in the rather staid and stuffy life patterns of most Australians, but the only fantasies which appear to be gratified on the screen are those of middle-aged men. Petersen, as mentioned earlier,
11 Gillian Armstrong replies to Sue Mathews in 35 mm Dreams. (Victoria: Penguin Books Australia Ltd., 1984), p. 137. 12 Armstrong's films often investigate the difficult choices faced by women, regardless of the era in which they live. Examples can be seen not only in such short works as The Singer and the Dancer, Smokes and Lollies (1975), and Fourteen's Good, Eighteen'a Better (1979), but also in her feature films like My Brilliant Career (1979), Staratruck (1982), and High Tide (1987). 13 This can be seen in the various 'ocker sex comedies like Stork (1971), The Adventures of Barry MacKenzle (1972) and Alvin Purple (1973), to name but a few. 41 presents an unusually independent and hence ultimately undesirable female character, Patricia, who seeks her own career and personal life goals. Petersen also reveals the antithesis of this apparently monstrous wife — a modern day housewife at her most stereotypical — Suzy (Jacki Weaver).
Suzy, in direct contrast to Patricia, is a woman who eagerly assists her husband, Tony Petersen, in his pursuit of a college career while he also works at his blue-collar job.
She economizes and goes without so that she and their two little girls can be proud of their Daddy's achievements. What the little family doesn't know is that Petersen has spent the majority of his academic time sleeping with various co-eds and teaching assistants, and very little on his studies.
The immediate and most obvious result of Petersen's philandering activity is his inability to perform when he goes to bed with his wife. She, lovable "dim bulb" that she is, affectionately chides him for exhausting himself with
"brainwork," never doubting for a second that mental exhaustion is at the root of his impotence. Suzy represents the archetypical Australian housewife of the seventies — willing in bed, readily forthcoming with cans of beer, and not overly bright or ambitious. She looks after her daughters, cleans, cooks, shops, and rarely loses her temper, apparently not minding too much when Tony fails to come home for long periods of time. It is easy to see how his questionable conduct, as well as her reactions, are propagated within 42 society by watching Tony and Suzy interact with their two girls. As Dixson comments:
feminine conservatism clutches on to power through the family, where the mother plays her part in setting up the same psychic pattern for the rising generation.14
Watching their mother, these little girls — carbon copies of
Suzy — will no doubt learn to accept their parents' behavior as normal. The film, however, valorizes Suzy's position and makes Patricia's choice for a career conspicuously incorrect.
Suzy may be simple, but she opts for home and family, a far less suspicious set of goals than Patricia's scholarly pursuits which serve only to reveal the great disparity between her intelligence and Petersen's academic inadequacy.
Further, by setting up the Petersens as protagonists — they are the couple which stays together, overcoming their personal problems for the sake of the patriarchal family —
Petersen also valorizes the native intelligence of the working class over the sterile, empty lives of an academic couple like
Patricia and her husband. Not only do the intellectual duo fail to conceive children, they don't even appear to regret their situation. Clearly, this non-procreative pair cannot be depicted as acceptable, let alone happy; and they are suitably disposed of by the end of the film. Patricia leaves Australia for an undoubtedly lonely life abroad, while her husband consigns himself to his solitary and mediocre college career.
14 Dixson, p. 16. 43
Don1s Party (1976) likewise, discloses differences
between Australian social strata while exploring various
marital relationships. Again, academic types mix with
conservative professionals, and their wives run the gamut from
housewife to professionally recognized artist. The host
couple, Don and Kath (John Hargreaves and Jeanie Drynan), have
recently given birth to their first child and the
aforementioned party is thrown to celebrate the long-hoped-for
victory of the Labor party in October, 1969. Despite its
historical context, the film concentrates not on Australian
political relations during this particularly turbulent time,
but on the personal relations between the members of this
diverse crowd. Robin Woods, in a short essay on director
Bruce Beresford, has pointed out that in Don's Party, rather
than particular political representations,
it is the fundamental structures of patriarchal capitalist society that are called into question, the ways in which our culture constructs notions of male and female, determines gender-roles and organises sexual difference.15
In fact, the political events become quite secondary to the more pressing and immediate issues of marriage, fidelity, and career and/or family-oriented ambitions, especially for the women present.
After the party begins, the guests settle into "special interest" groups, for the most part (and not surprisingly)
15 Robin Wood, "Quo Vadis Bruce Beresford?" in An Australian Film Reader, edited by Albert Moran and Tom O'Regan. (Sydney: Currency Press, 1985), p. 200-201. 44 divided along gender lines. The women discuss concrete issues
— questions arise regarding roles within relationships specifically, and society in general — while the men regale one another with dirty jokes and tales of often fabricated or embellished sexual exploits. When the groups overlap, it is usually at the expense of one or the other. For example, when
Jodie (Veronica Lang), the wife of one guest, joins the men telling jokes, she appears to enjoy herself, apparently unaware or uncaring of the fact that her willing presence, in essence, condones their boorish behavior. It is her husband
(Graeme Blundell) who is offended by her participation — because it isn't ladylike, not because of the fact that she is supporting the very groups which oppress and exploit her sex.
Quite often, crude antics replace more serious discussion and represent an ineffective method for dealing with issues of gender inequality in Australian film. Rather than addressing actual problems as universal reflections of society, certain behaviors are blamed on drunkenness or class differences.
This is especially true of other films from this period —
Wake in Fright (1972), for example, presents an unpleasant picture of life in a backwater community whose chauvinism reaches epic proportions. Instead of equating this particular group with the entire country, the film operates to relegate particularly appalling and offensive conduct to the drunken louts who inhabit a remote town, as if to imply that such incidents would never occur in a civilized community. Unlike 45
, however, the women of Bundanyabba — the small outback town of are never allowed to voice their opinions. Their lives revolve around their men and their families, if they are fortunate enough to marry one of the drunken sods.
The women at Don and Kath's party find they have more in common with each other than they originally thought, and also that their vague dissatisfactions have many facets, once they begin to discuss them. Women in Australian society have historically remained somewhat separate from one another, not finding the same sort of female bonding or solidarity that their male counterparts have had since the earliest days in the penal colony:
...a culturally determined weakness in female bonding ... is the direct legacy of our brief history. Failing to adequately confront the comparatively lower status bequeathed by the past, Australian women tend instead to vent hostility and resentment about their status on each other. Valuing each other less as a result, women then have a curtailed ability to bond.16
Thus it becomes obvious that the very behavior which has kept women from escaping their ostensible bondage for generations continues to encourage their isolation from one another.
Instead of finding strength through solidarity, women continue to isolate themselves through immediate reactions to backbiting and gossip rather than looking at the bigger picture, as it were.
16 Dixson, p. 247-248. 46
In Don's Party, the wives attack the only single female present, Susie (Claire Binney), who is the much younger girlfriend of another character. She responds by telling the women, in an oddly convincing dialogue, that she doesn't appreciate or enjoy being mauled by their husbands any more than they like watching her capture all of the male attention.
This is just one instance of misunderstanding between women who are so used to playing the roles they have been raised to inhabit, that they never attempt to alter their perceptions of the very women who should become their strongest allies. In this situation, Susie represents a younger generation of women, a group which could potentially become at least one step closer to independence within the patriarchal system.
However, instead of providing any impetus for enlightening discussion about the potentials of rising feminism, she merely ignites the animosity between the wives and their husbands.
Eventually, the women begin to discuss their own aspirations — whether, like Kath, they were simply waiting to begin a family, or like Kerry, striving to achieve recognition as an accomplished artist. Very few of these women hold outside jobs, Kerry being one of the exceptions; and her husband, a dentist, is not at all happy about her success, belittling her at every opportunity. Apparently he had assumed that a wife who indulged in the arts would pursue her creative impulses as a hobby and never as an unexpectedly successful career. 47
By contrast, a more recent film, The Winter of Our Dreams
(1981) presents the protagonist's wife, Gretel (Cathy Downs),
as a career woman — a university instructor. Once again, as
in the case of Petersen1s Patricia, Gretel's career fuels her
independence which subsequently threatens her marriage. Both
Patricia and Gretel find their sexual lives inhibited by
marriage and seek outside erotic fulfillment. The "open- marriage" introduced by Gretel and her husband, Rob (Bryan
Brown), is questioned by the film's female protagonist, Lou
(Judy Davis), a woman who is also a junkie and a prostitute.
Lou will be discussed later in detail; however, the difference between her situation and Gretel's can immediately be discerned — Gretel indulges herself with her sexual freedom
for pleasurable diversion, while Lou's promiscuity relates directly to her economic need. Lou is forced to sleep with different men to support her drug habit, as well as survive, and Gretel satisfies her need for various extra-marital affairs in an effort to keep from becoming bored with her own husband. Oddly enough, the character most scandalized by
Gretel and Rob's marriage is Lou, who apparently feels that the bonds of marriage should preclude outside sexual relationships.
In proposing Lou as a sympathetic character, the film uses the "open-marriage" issue to establish her basically conservative tendencies. Her shock and confusion at Gretel and Rob's relationship can then neatly reflect that of 48
Australian society in general, supporting the status quo by presenting such unions as perverse and unacceptable.17
Obviously, the potential dispersion of the nuclear family could endanger the way in which the country functions on a very fundamental level — if wives are free to carry on with men other than their husbands, logic dictates that no one will be home to make sure their families are taken care of, limiting the existence of Australian society as it now operates. Other options are never explored. Instead, Gretel and Rob appear to come to some conclusion, by the film's end, about the importance of their marriage, thus reinforcing the indispensability of the monogamous wife and her commitment to her family.
The last, and most recent film in this study which toys with the conventional marriage, The More Things Change (1985) reveals the trials and tribulations of a family which experiments with role reversal on an economic level, while attempting to maintain an uneasy balance of gender power.
Directed by a woman, Robyn Nevin, the film attempts to present its female protagonist, Connie (Judy Morris), as part of a new breed — a woman who supports her family financially, while
17 Obviously this film was made before the unmistakable dangers of a post-AIDS society would make the idea of an "open-marriage" even more threatening, on a much less abstract, emotional level. 49
her husband stays home and minds their son.18 Unfortunately,
and perhaps realistically, Connie's husband, Lex (Barry Otto),
is fundamentally unprepared for the rigours of full-time
parenting, and the couple soon realize they will have to
employ a nanny to care for the child. What appears an ideal
situation is soon revealed to be less than perfect when it
becomes obvious that Connie has not traded places with her
husband, she has merely taken on his role as breadwinner,
while maintaining many of her former concerns as housewife and
mother. He, on the other hand, appears to have attained
complete freedom from responsibility.
As the title recalls, The More Things Change, the more
they stay the same, which is precisely what Connie discovers.
The eventual need for men to share childcaring
responsibilities is indisputable if women are to achieve
parity with men in Australian society. Thus, despite its
limitations, Nevin's film might be seen as a first step in
that direction. The possibilities cannot be denied since
Connie proves that she can support her family financially,
even while assisting her husband in peddling the literal
fruits of his labor at the local farmers market. What the
film also makes clear is that there must be an acceptance of mutual responsibility, and this is where Lex fails. He finds
18 With The More Things Changer former actress Robyn Nevin has chosen an unusual topic to tackle. This is Nevin's directorial debut, but hopefully an indication of yet another female foot in the door of Australian cinematic production. 50
it easier to spend the day at the pub than to look after his
crops, cattle and child; and he is the one who then comes
crying to Connie for more money to pursue yet another
fantastic money-making scheme.
The film does not attempt to show Connie's unusual
arrangement as successful. It does, however, leave the
possibility open for less than conventional households.
Connie's nanny, in fact, appears to have learned, both from
watching Connie and Lex, and from giving birth to her own
child, that she need not be limited by the constraints of
society. She and her new husband will be able to make their
own decisions as to how they choose to live their lives. Of
course, it appears they will do the conventional thing and
settle into the suburbs, but at least they are conscious of
the choices they are making.
This group of films has served to illustrate the type of
shifts demonstrated over time, however meagre, in the representations of women as housewives. Even though
Australian women began to rally behind the equal rights movement in the late 60s and early 70s, film has been relatively slow to catch up in demonstrating the types of issues foregrounded by feminists. However, whether Australian society's gender role modification has been caused by technological advances, allowing women to leave the home or find more leisure time to pursue other goals, or due to the psychological and economic gains facilitated by the women's 51 movement, women's roles have been altered, ever so slightly.
A progression can be detected when these representative films are viewed, and a case can be made for the growing consciousness of the Australian woman — perhaps her depiction hasn't changed dramatically, but it's obvious that it isn't staying exactly the same either. CHAPTER 4
THE LABOUR THAT NEVER ENDS
Australian cultural history concentrates on the
adventures of men in shaping society; however, on rare
occasions women and their roles have become the focus of
attention. Women have contributed an undeniable share to the
Australian economy even though they've been written out and
overlooked, until recently.1 Only under exceptional
circumstances has Australian film represented women at work,
outside the home. Traditionally, the work which women perform
in Australian film centers on the service industries — for
the most part, feeding and maintaining men and children. In
addition, though denied in most conventional histories, from
the earliest colonial times women have also provided a
fundamental service as prostitutes.
Women of the Pub
Caddie (1976) is an unusual example of Australian film
for several reasons — primary among those being the fact that
it concentrates on a female protagonist, relegating the various male characters in the film to the fringes of the narrative. Caddie relates the story of a woman (Helen Morse)
1 See Edna Ryan, "Women in Production in Australia," and Patricia Grimshaw, "'Man's Own Country': Women in Colonial Australian History," in Australian Women: New Feminist Perspectives. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989).
52 53
who leaves her husband during the Depression years (the early
1930s) and attempts to support herself and her children.
Based on a factual account, Caddie; The Autobiography of a
Sydney Barmaid, the narrative concentrates on the
difficulties Caddie encounters as both a single parent and an
unskilled female laborer.1 Her options limited, the only job
she is able to secure is that of barmaid — hardly an
enviable position, yet she soon learns the ins and outs of
avoiding unsavoury men and maintaining a semblance of decency
while providing for her children.
Caddie emblematizes the primary role of women in the
workplace — she serves men, and provides safe, sexual
titillation. The film emphasizes her mothering nature and
the way she looks after her drunken charges. Fiske, Hodge
and Turner, in their interpretation of Australian Popular
Culture and the centrality of the pub, discuss the essential
role of the barmaid. They assert her importance as:
...a central figure who both links and opposes the pub and the domestic lounge. She fulfills the stereotyped female functions of happy service and provisions of sustenance. But she contrasts with the wife at least in her "wifely" role in the lounge room. She can be discreetly chatted-up, within strong, if unarticulated limits.2
Thus Caddie, as a woman, provides several services besides her professed role as waitress/bartender. She looks after
was written by "Caddie." The screenplay was adapted by Joan Long. 2 John Fiske, Bob Hodge, and Graeme Turner, Culture. (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987), p. 8-9. 54
the clients in her pub, prudently avoiding relationships
which could compromise her carefully maintained
respectability and offers the men who frequent her place of
employment a site for sexual repartee. Anne Summers,
commenting on the role of the barmaid, notes:
The drinkers appeared to welcome a female presence behind the bar and to accept from them the chidings and rebukes which coming from their wives would have been classed as unpardonable intrusions.3
When Caddie does choose to involve herself in personal
relationships with men she meets, she maintains a veneer of
suburban class which defies her physical surroundings.
Regardless of how much trouble she faces, or how severe her
situation, as Dermody and Jacka point out, Caddie herself
always looks perfectly groomed and respectable.4 Obviously, a
woman who is supposed to be starving and struggling should
not look "Hollywood" radiant. Rather than presenting an
authentic story, this film depicts a romanticized, nostalgic
view of the Depression in Australia. Caddie herself is a
female martyr — a woman sacrificing herself for the good of
her children while making sure that she oversteps no "man"- made boundaries of good taste. Even when she falls in love with a Greek-Australian businessman, Peter (Takis Emmanuel),
Caddie forgoes personal happiness as she lives in fear of the
3 Summers, Damned Whores and God's Police, p. 83. 4 Susan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka, The Screening of Australia, Volume 2: Anatomy of a Wational Cinema. (Sydney: Currency Press, 1988), p. 111. 55 possible repercussions concerning the custody of her children due to her still-married status.
Caddie embodies the quiet, acquiescent woman who refuses to disturb the status quo, even when it is.highly prejudiced against her. The only time she lashes out at the system which has first abandoned and then exploited her, she responds to comments made against other women who work, by her lover, Peter. She defends her employed compatriots, announcing that there are many like her — hardworking, respectable, earning money to support their children — and condemns the system which makes a barmaid's position more lucrative than "decent."
The men who frequented Caddie's pub, according to the original Caddie, were always attentive and protective (which is consistent with the findings of Fiske, et.al.), and accorded her a surprising amount of respect. Unfortunately, any woman who ventured into the ladies' side of the pub without a male escort "was considered fair game to these drunken cavaliers."5 However, whether women appear on the
"right" or "wrong" side of the bar, the fact remains that
Australian society has historically failed to provide many acceptable options for those who want, or need, to work.
Starstruck (1982), by contrast, takes place largely in an extraordinary pub owned and operated by women. Jackie (Jo
5 Summers, Damned WhoreB and God'B Police, p. 84. Kennedy), the main protagonist, is a young woman who aspires to stardom as a rock 'n roll singer, an unusual career track in itself, yet her environment is also of interest. The independent attitude which fuels Jackie's uncommon ambitions arises directly from her childhood at Pearl's Harbour View
Hotel. Mother (Margo Lee) and grandmother (Pat Evison), along with cousin Angus (Ross O'Donovan), have provided
Jackie with the knowledge that she is capable of anything and should follow her dreams. By maintaining the pub after
Jackie's father abandons his family, Pearl represents a self- sufficient and competent version of the resilient Australian colonist. She passes on these ideals to her daughter who is then able to channel them into her singing aspirations. The traditional collides with the unconventional when the occupation of barmaid gives birth, literally, to musical entertainer.
Once again, as in the case of The Singer and the Dancer and My Brilliant Career, Director Gillian Armstrong has developed female characters who do not simply sit idly by while men dominate the picture. Jackie and Pearl reveal an adaptability which belies the position of women within this culture. Where The Singer and the Dancer merely hints at the possibilities for women who dare to break out, Starstruck revels in extraordinary potentialities.
...Starstruck celebrates a resilient matriarchal order. The film constitutes an audacious, utopian displacement of the dominant (patriarchal order) by the residual 57 (Pearl and her mother's 'ocker matriarchy) and the emergent (Jackie's unstructured feminism and Angus' polymorphous, pre-Oedipal vitalism).6
Pearl's establishment offers a place for women to fulfill their dreams, with or without men, and reinforce the burgeoning feminism Australian society has previously both disallowed and discouraged. Pearl and her mother, as proto feminists , give birth to a much more advanced version of the modern woman. In Jackie, along with Angus, the potential for a new cultural order is introduced. There are myriad examples of women who run pubs in Australian cinema. What makes Starstruck unique is the way in which women are not marginalized — in most films they generally appear to be lounge fixtures.7
Historically, women have always played an educational role in public as well as private life. Consistent with this cultural fact is the representation of female teachers in
Australian film. After contemplating the unfavorable portrait of academic women which films like Petersen paint, a remarkable number of films which present women who educate children will now be considered.
6 Stuart Cunningham, "Hollywood Genres, Australian Movies," in Moran and O'Regan, An Australian Film Reader. (Sydney: Currency Press, 1985), p. 240. 7 Other examples of films depicting women as pub proprietors include early films such as Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940) and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1959), later films like Sunstruck (1972), Wake in Fright (1970), Sunday Too Far Away (1975), Summerfield (1977), Far East (1982), and Goodbye Paradise (1982), along with much more recent films like Malcolm (1986), High Tide (1987) and the Crocodile Dundee films. 58
(1975), although preoccupied with mysticism and mysterious
disappearances, introduces a variety of stereotypical
teachers at an exclusive girls' school around the turn of the
century. Foregrounding women throughout, Picnic dwells on
the roles assigned to women in education. Many of the
teaching "types" depicted fall into readily identifiable
categories: two examples are the sweet, lovely and sexually
desirable French governess, "Mamselle" (Helen Morse), and the
hostile, sadistic, unattractive and unmarried schoolmistress,
Miss Lumley (Kirsty Child). Neither character, although both are well-rendered, appears completely developed. Instead, the two fall into the predictable confines of stereotype.
The role of the teacher can be seen as similar to that of barmaid, mother, and wife — it provides yet another avenue for the nurturing which women find, all too often, their primary occupation in life. Additionally, as in the case of Mamselle, female teachers, unlike their male counterparts, often furnish a site for sexual interplay, whether real or imagined.8 Many of the teachers at Mrs.
Appleyard's school, however, do not fall into either the nurturing or the erotically desirable mode, especially Mrs.
8 These titillating governesses can be seen in several films, among them "The Child" sequence from the anthology film Libido (1973)^ The Mango Tree (1977), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), Petersen (1974), and somewhat mistakenly, My Brilliant Career (1979). Not surprisingly, given the dominance of men in most public positions, male teachers are feu: more plentiful in Australian cinema. However, these characters rarely have the clearly demarcated sexuality, or lack thereof, of their female equivalents. Other schoolmasters can be seen in such films as: Wake in Fright (1970), Sunstruck (1972), Summerfield (1977),and Harlequin (1980). 59
Appleyard herself, and Miss Lumley (whose very name implies a lack of sensitivity). Mrs. Appleyard runs her school like a tyrant, meting out punishments and demanding results without any emotion whatsoever. She maintains a "precise portrayal of narrowness and cruelty in the high Victorian moralistic manner."9 Most of the women involved in the school seem suspiciously sexually repressed — their presumed frustration no doubt encouraging their oppressive behavior.
The link between women who work and sexuality provides an interesting point of comparison. Whereas the barmaid provides sexual diversion without actual participation, the teacher often appears isolated from such practices. While
Caddie and Pearl must fend off suitors, Mrs. Appleyard can only reminisce about the long lost days of her marriage, leaving Miss Lumley to imagine the sexuality she has been denied. Universally categorizing women according to their sexual role, Australian cinema often has trouble distinguishing among female characters based on any other set of criteria. This tunnel vision holds true for women depicted in the workplace as well — either women are created for sexual roles, or decidedly non-sexual parts — rarely are there realistic combinations of the two.
9 P.P. HcGuinness, "Peter Weir's Hauntingly Beautiful Film Makes the Film World Sit Up," in Moran and O'Regan, An Australian Film Reader. (Sydney: Currency Press, 1985), p. 189. The same is true of the woman who teaches PS in Careful He Might Hear You (1984), although this particular character's venom appears to be fuelled by class prejudice. 60
Aside from the overlapping roles of barmaid/wife and teacher/mother, Australian film has only alluded to the diverse roles played by women engaged in other employments.
Women have had an unmistakably powerful and yet continually marginalized role in shaping Australia as a prosperous and self-sufficient country. History has written women out of the Australian picture regardless of the evidence supporting feminist claims as to the indispensability of women during
Australia's industrialization.10 Australian film, consistent with male-generated histories, rarely portrays women in roles outside of nurturing servitude. Exceptions are located mainly in films directed by women.
In keeping with such anomalies is Sybylla (Judy Davis) in My Brilliant Career (1979): she is the prime example of a woman struggling to achieve independence outside established,
Victorian guidelines. Director Gillian Armstrong, along with producer Margaret Fink and a story based on a woman writer's
(Miles Franklin) autobiography, contribute to a brazenly feminine perspective. What is unusual about Sybylla's story, however, is the fact that she chooses not to marry the very desirable Harry (Sam Neill), but instead to pursue an ephemeral and lonely career as a writer.11 Inasmuch as
10 See Edna Ryan, "Women in Production in Australia." 11 In the film, Sybylla's desire to become a writer parallels Armstrong's struggle to make her films. As Summers notes in her book, " Women have not been completely denied the opportunity to become practitioners of any art form although it is doubly difficult for a woman artist to practise her art, let alone have the leisure and freedom from domestic responsibility to enable her to aspire to excellence." [Damned 61
Sybylla exists in a Victorian world devoted to the pursuit of womanly virtues, exemplified by motherhood, her choices appear exceedingly aberrant. Indeed, as noble and politically correct as Sybylla's aspirations seem, the audience's sympathies continue to lie with Harry and his proposal of marriage, belying and belittling Sybylla's decision.12
Armstrong obviously intends for the ending to My
Brilliant Career to look "positive" both figuratively and formally: the final scene depicting Sybylla sending off her first manuscript to publishers in Sydney is bathed in warm, early morning light. Nevertheless, as idealized as her choice appears, the conception that women can make life- affirming choices which do not include traditional family commitments has rarely been portrayed as a possibility:
Patricia in Petersen is by far the more typical, negative alternative to familial life.
Even when a female character appears independent or self-sufficient, her secret desires are more likely to be for a husband and baby than career — Amy McKenzie (Wendy Hughes) in Newsfront (1978) is the quintessential example. Amy competently confronts any situation concerning the running of
12 In conversations with Sue Mathews in 35 mm Dreams (Victoria: Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 1984: see pp. 142-3), Armstrong has voiced her regrets at making Neill's character too sympathetic — the result of which is the audience's mixed reaction to Sybylla's final decision to write. Perhaps this works to make the film more realistic, however, with regard to the extremely difficult choices which often confront women. 62
Cinetone, on the rare occasions when she is taken seriously.
However, as she devotes herself to relationships with two co workers, the truth becomes painfully obvious — Amy
desperately desires a conventional lifestyle and has only chosen her career for what she thought was a temporary stop gap measure while she found the right man to fulfill her dreams. After she spends years involved in the newsreel business, working her way up as far as a woman is able, she finds herself lonely, bored, childless, and futureless, hardly an encouraging sign for future generations. Made within a year of each other, News front and My. .Brilliant
Career take very different approaches to similar questions of female independence, and the results are radically opposed.
Whereas the latter is an affirmation of life and choice, the former wallows in self-pitying condemnation.13
Similar to the frustrated, sexually inadequate newsreelwoman is the newspaperwoman in Heatwave (1981). Kate
Dean (Judy Davis once again), too, offers a surprisingly influential, although discounted, position for women in a man's universe. Not only a political activist, Kate also runs a small nonprofit newspaper devoted to exposing political corruption in a Sydney suburb. Originally managed by another, older woman, Mary Ford (Carole Skinner), Kate is forced to supervise the day-to-day operation of the newspaper
13 It is surprising to consider that the two films are set 50 years apart (Newsfront around 1950 and My Brilliant Career around the turn of the century), and yet it is Armstrong's depiction of Sybylla which appears the most liberating and "modern." 63
when her friend disappears.14 She soon realizes there is more
going on than a friendly take-over of her neighborhood by
real estate developers.
Kate's role, however lonely and miserable she seems,
appears diametrically opposed to the other major female
character, the wife of the film's male protagonist, Steve
(Richard Moir). Victoria (Anna Jemison) epitomizes the manicured, ambitious and greedy, cut-throat social climber, a personality with which her husband finds he cannot sympathize
(and neither can the audience). Rather than serving husband and family, she is much more interested in serving herself.
By contrast, in an unusually militant role, Kate disrupts the developer's gala party in her unselfish attempt to call attention to the questionable manoeuvres made by his company.
Posing as a waitress, she gains access to the influential real estate community, yet fails to convince them their proposals are destructive. Kate is an uncommonly aggressive female representation whose assertive nature even extends to the bedroom, as she seduces Steve.
By the film's end, Kate has demonstrated her inability to resolve any of the narrative conflicts, reinforcing her noble, yet essentially powerless role. She searches in vain for her friend, Mary, and, once she has uncovered the
14 Based on the real life disappearance of Sydney editor, Juanita Neilsen, in 1975, Carole Skinner's character is silenced for her impertinence and caustic commentary. Mary is later found murdered at the end of the film — so much for the voice of women in the political arena 1 64 corruption which riddles her community and its development,
she then discovers she cannot garner the influence or credibility to rectify the situation. She does not discover
Mary's body — it is revealed anonymously at the end of the film, floating up out of a sewer drain — and she fails to eliminate the mastermind of the real estate conspiracy, leaving that nasty task to a voluptuous junkie who shoots him for the most contemptible of reasons — jealousy. The corrupt system cannot be brought down through conventional means, at least not with a woman heading the investigation.
Throughout the film, the various agencies who refuse to assist Kate in her search for Mary continue to call attention to the very inconsequential consideration women command in
Australian society.
The most progressive look at women in the working world appears in The More Things Change although the limitations of that film, and its protagonist, Connie, have already been touched upon. As a career woman, Connie discovers the difficulty inherent in juggling private and public life.
Spending much of her time commuting between her husband's farm and her Melbourne office, she begins to regret the compromises she has made with her husband, Lex. The most obvious trade-off is the emotional distance Connie's job puts between herself and her young son, and she realizes he thinks of his nanny as more of a parent than he does his natural mother. Originally conceived as the answer to Lex's 65
dissatisfaction with conventional employment, the role
reversal loses its appeal by the end of the film.
The conclusions which can be drawn from such failed
experiments lead the audience to interpret Connie and Lex's
unusual lifestyle as a highly impractical and fanciful answer
to challenges in the modern world rather than a viable
alternative. On the positive side, Director Robyn Nevin
alludes to a future when such arrangements might not only be
feasible but essential in maintaining an equitable
relationship.
The Oldest Profession
Finally, the career of the prostitute in Australia has
been fundamental in the development of female representation.
From the earliest days in the penal colony, women played an
indispensable but marginalized role as sexual servants to
both inmates and captors. As Edna Ryan comments:
Even prostitution provided a service which had a market value and, according to the dictionary, any activity for the purpose of earning a living qualifies as 'work.'15
Indeed, prostitution was often the only way an 'unskilled' woman could survive in the penal colony.16 The prevalence of prostitution among early women settlers remains one important
15 Edna Ryan, p. 258. 16 This fact is well-documented, earning mention in Patricia Grimshaw's essay, "Women in Colonial Australian History," as well as Anne Summers and Miriam Dixson's histories of women in Australia. 66
reason women have been consistently devalued in Australian
society, from the earliest days until the present.17
Prostitution is as old as patriarchy. It occurs inevitably in a society where women are seen as sex objects and are also denied economic independence. When women are paid less for their labour power than men are, they cannot usually survive in the labour market except by selling the one commodity they possess for which men are willing to pay a good price: their bodies.18
One consequence of Australia's widespread, frontier prostitution, as Miriam Dixson recognizes, was the overall lowering of self-esteem, dignity and social standing of early women in general
especially in formative times for a small community, diminishing] all women, because ...men tend to generalize their contempt for prostitutes so that it falls on all women.19
(1977), Tom Cowan's highly eroticized portrayal of convict women forced into prostitution upon arrival in Australian penal settlements, examines the unfortunate situation of early female inmates to the colony. Predictably, the film spends most of its time depicting scantily-clad women escaping ravishing hordes of
English soldiers rather than critiquing the male-dominated government which condones these horrific practices. In concentrating on woman as object rather than the subject of the narrative, the film provides the
reinscription of the dominance of voyeuristic entertainment over the feminist ambience. The central
17 This is true of most Western cultures which see the role of the prostitute as undesirable and degrading. 18 Summers, Damned Whores and God's Police, p. 156. 19 Dixson, p. 34. 67 sequences of nudi-ty, culminating in the apprehension of [the main character] are allowed a phenomenological inscription such that they can be consumed exactly as the representation of women is consumed in the patriarchal tradition — voyeuristically.20
Thus, any attempts at depicting a viable female community
outside patriarchy are completely undermined. And, because
the objectification of women appears commonly in Western
filmmaking, this narrative approach in Journey Among Women does not seem unusual.
Oddly, the situation depicted in Cowan's film has been interpreted as so close to historical fact that clips from this film have been incorporated into a documentary film about women and work, For Love or Money: A History of Women and Work in Australia (1983). In his discussion of Anne
Summers' work, Rob Pascoe reminds readers that
the position of convict women within the penal regime produced the stereotype of 'damned whore' because most of these women were given little option but to rely on their sexuality.21
However, a positive conclusion can also be read from the depiction of prostitutes in this particular Australian film.
After their escape, the women skillfully create an independent, utopian community — a community which requires no male intervention, supervision, or involvement — which leads to the inevitable conclusion that such a community might not be outside the realm of possibility. Obviously, a powerful threat to patriarchal supporters, the most efficient
20 Stuart Cunningham, "Australian Film," Australian Journal of Screen Theory 5 and 6, 1979, p. 38. 21 Rob Pascoe, Thf> Manufacture of Austral ian Hi Ht-nry. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 112. 68
method for discontinuing such rebellious inspiration is the
prompt annihilation and capture of the nonconformists.
One explanation for such patriarchal fear is Anne
Summers' theory concerning the minimal depiction of
prostitutes by male writers;
The reason the Whore stereotype has been neglected seems to confirm my thesis about male writers: the women usually depicted by this stereotype are independent, self-assertive creatures who do not need men and would therefore be poor material for a man needing a character against which to contrast his own dilemmas.22
A rare exception, Winter of Our Dreams (1981), focusses on
the struggles of a whore in modern day Australia. Judy Davis
plays this unusually independent woman, Lou, who embodies the
prostitute of the modern era. She lives and works in the
King's Cross area of Sydney, a particularly rough neighbor
hood peopled with whores and junkies; and she too is addicted
to heroin. Frightening enough without the spectre of AIDS,
Lou1s dependence on the needle reinforces repellent stereo
types of prostitution in urban areas. She does eventually
overcome her addiction, with the help of a couple from the
"right" side of the Sydney harbour, Rob (Bryan Brown) and
Gretel (Cathy Downes). However, the film leaves Lou without
a career, or even a legitimate means of supporting herself,
so her spiritual escape from the streets will probably remain
short-lived.23
22 Summers, Damned WhoreB and God's Police, p. 45. 23 Dermody and Jacka, too, comment on "the slim chance Lou has of climbing out of the grind of her heroin habit supported by prostitution." [p. 168] 69
Davis' Lou is an inherently conservative citizen who has ended up with an alternative lifestyle, even though she appears to covet the conventional. This attitude is readily apparent in her reaction to Rob and Gretel's "open marriage" which has been discussed earlier: she is appalled at their seeming lack of commitment to one another and the infidelity they take so lightly. Her lower class status and middle class values make the audience both sympathetic and forgiving of her economic situation and her resulting occupation.
The problem with Winter of Our Dreams is the ambiguous place in which the film abandons Lou — at the end, she is left sitting with a group of nuclear protestors, singing a song of hope and solidarity. Her own "career" having been proven untenable and dangerous, what sorts of options can she now explore? Lou's intentions or aspirations have not been defined, beyond her desire for a monogamous, drug-free relationship. How she will survive is unknown, and the audience is forced to believe in something vague, and yet optimistic — perhaps the "no nukes" group intends to support
Lou until she finds a more practical livelihood or mate.
If Journey Among Women offers a place from which to start investigating the relegation of women to the fringes of
Australian society, the modern version of a woman's place would still have to include the brothel. Winter of Our
Dreams reinforces the notion that prostitution is a viable profession in today's world, albeit perilous — the utopian 70 community in Cowan's film ends up decimated and it's unlikely that Lou will survive the streets either. Whether or not she practices prostitution, a woman's place, inside or outside the workplace, can often be threatened in modern society — after all, the stifling of an intellectual or professional life can be as emotionally debilitating as the physical destruction inevitably involved with a life on the streets. CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSIONS
Film, as an ideological tool, propagates societal myth — additionally, film can initiate and interpret newer concepts which may need more time to seep into a national consciousness. The independence of women has been an issue in
Australian culture for more than a century, but has often failed to garner serious consideration in this patriarchal oasis.1 Not surprisingly, on-screen stories about women, or the multitude of roles they fill in the Australian workplace have also been neglected. Despite the numerous and varied examples of women employed in occupational or professional positions, and the representation of women's work within the home, Australian film has taken an inordinate amount of time, without wholesale success, to depict non-archetypal, emancipated women.
Representations of the modern Australian woman can be interpreted through their discounted beginnings in both early films and films which display historical periods — films like
The Sentimental Bloke, We of the Never Never or Journey Among
Women. The bush wife/heroine and the early prostitute
1 See Anne Summers in Damned Whores and God's Police, especially chapter 11, "Feminism and the Suffragists,11 for further details on the beginnings of emancipation for women in Australia.
71 72
have both earned and established their places in the
Australian identity, although the latter survives on the
fringes of consideration. The roles which have yet to be
fully explored and.exploited are the additional positions
women have played in Australia's development — women who managed shops and businesses, raised crops and families, and
performed a multitude of services for the men who took the
lion's share of credit for founding a modern nation.
By beginning with historical portrayals in film, I have
shown how representations of the modern Australian woman originated. Her roots lie in the mythic example of the bush
heroine, and the sordid past of early prostitutes. Not
surprisingly, values glorified and glamorized in the past are
still relevant today, while less complimentary attitudes have
also been propagated. The bush wife/heroine was required to
demonstrate courage, fortitude and forbearance, ingenuity and
self-sufficiency, and contemporary society continues to valorize these qualities in its ideological icons. The prostitute's legacy, by contrast, bequeaths significant feel
ings of inadequacy and self-deprecation to future genera tions, leaving myriad descendants to question, in perpetuity, their self-worth in a man's world. The resulting images of women either caught in a torturous cycle of prostitution, or simply struggling to exist in a fluctuating morality, continue to reflect the unsympathetic attitudes of a male sensibility which turns a blind eye on the double standards 73
of patriarchy. The representations of modern Australian
women must walk a fine line between Anne Summer's "God's
Police" and "Damned Whores."1
The inherent conflict between representations of the
completely self-sufficient female (who doesn't need a man in
her life at all) and the idealized wife who appears to depend
upon her man for everything (although she probably depends on
him for very little) create contradictory role models. In most cases, the modern woman must be prepared to support
herself, or contribute to her family's income by working
outside the home.2 However, this has rarely been revealed in
Australian film. The myth of patriarchy denies women a place
outside the home, and film supports this suburban fantasy with its limited vision of the "real" world — regardless of
the undeniably "real" economic slump the world, and
particularly Australia, faces at this time.
Energizing the myths of motherhood and wifely duty,
Australian film has yet to find desirable alternatives for women. Their primary role, now as always, is still within the patriarchal fold, at the head of the domestic front.
Arguably, there have been exceptions to this model, most of
1 These two archetypes make up the basis for Anne Summer's Damned Whores and God's Police and her ideas have been presented at length within the main body of my project. 2 A film like The More Things Change portrays, all too believably, the probable outcome of complete role reversal — the heroine takes on not only her family's entire financial burden, but most of the household and child-raising chores as well — reinforcing the myth of Australian motherhood. Thus, a woman's place appears, of necessity, to be at home with her family — a highly contradictory suggestion during economically impoverished times. 74
which have been discussed earlier in this paper. Films with
unconventional stories like and
bode well for the future of the Australian
film. However, as noteworthy as these films are, they still
fall within predominantly comfortable limits of accepta
bility.3
As I have already indicated, a significant reason for
the failure of Australian film to represent woman in a range
of roles, both realistic and inspirational, can be attributed
to male dominance of the Australian film industry. Not
unlike situations in most Western cultures, movies are made by men, and Australia is no different: Gillian Armstrong,
Robyn Nevin and Jane Campion are only three female voices
anchored in a sea of masculine cinematic story-telling. That
filmmaking is a business dominated by males is a fact not
likely to change in the near future, although Armstrong et.
al. have proven the industry's ability to modify over time.
Armstrong's work has done much to encourage female filmmakers and audiences alike in her depiction of strong, admirable and
interesting female characters — they truly are models for emulation.
The reason for such painfully slow change both off screen and on can be traced to conflicting and mediating
3 Sybylla's romance with Sam (My Brilliant Career) demands audience sympathies, often overriding support regarding her choice for an unconventional future without such an obviously desirable man, while Connie (The More Things Change) ends up in an equally difficult situation — a family to support and all the responsibilities of parenting as well. 75 forces. On one side are various women's rights movements — female suffrage, increased roles in the workplace and the subsequent battle for equal pay legislation — commendable and sometimes successful projects which have been offset by a self-inflicted, culturally ingrained lack of solidarity that encourages women not to trust one another, while the other side commands the formidable forces of patriarchy. Support ers of the patriarchal system have many advantages — legis lative power, the machismo of the frontier heritage, and managerial power in the workplace, to name but a few.
An additional factor lies in the overwhelmingly male personnel who control the Australian film industry, as opposed to the still fledgling league of female filmmakers.
The numbers are undeniably intimidating, but the results are positive, no matter how limited — and the representations of women on the screen are changing for the better, however minimally. No longer are screen women limited to archetypes
— virtuous bush heroines, or sordid vamps and prostitutes — women have moved into their proper positions as integral parts of a complete society.
Thus, even though shifts in cultural perceptions regarding appropriate societal roles for women are slow to transpire; things do change. As film reveals the tides of popular culture, so too does it demonstrate the changing attitudes of a population. Film narratives which concentrate on the exploits of a female protagonist are still relatively 76 few in number, but that number is increasing steadily. The importance of the female narrative to an entire culture may not yet have been recognized wholeheartedly, but the demands of the female audience have been; and the results can be seen in stories which relate specifically to women and their fundamental place in a modern society. APPENDIX
FILMOGRAPHY
CADDIE Released 1976. Director: Donald Crombie. Producer: Anthonly Buckley. Screenplay by Joan Long, adapted from Caddie; The
Cinematographer: Peter James. Editor: Tim Wellburn. Music: Patrick Flynn. Art Director: Owen Williams. Cast: Helen Morse (Caddie), Takis Emmanuel (Peter), Jack Thompson (Ted), Jacki Weaver (Josie), Melissa Jaffer, Ron Blanchard, Drew Forsythe, June Salter, John Ewart, John Gaden, Kirrili Nolan and Lynette Currin. Running Time: 103 minutes.
CAREFUL HE MIGHT HEAR YOU Released 1983. Director: Carl Schultz. Producer: Jill Robb. Screenplay by Michael Jenkins, from the novel by Sumner Locke Elliott. Cinematographer: John Seale. Editor: Richard Francis-Bruce. Music: Ray Cook. Production Designer: John Stoddart. Cast: Wendy Hughes (Vanessa), Robyn Nevin (Lila), Nicholas Gledhill (PS), Geraldine Turner (Vere), Isabelle Anderson (Agnes), Peter Whitford (George), Colleen Clifford (Ettie) and John Hargreaves (Logan). Running Time: 113 minutes.
DON'S PARTY Released 1976. Director: Bruce Beresford. Producer: Philip Adams. Screenplay by David Williamson, from his play. Cinematographer: Don McAlpine. Editor: William Anderson. Cast: Ray Barrett (Mai), Claire Binney (Susan), Pat Bishop (Jenny), Graeme Blundell (Simon), Jeanie Drynan (Kath),
77 78 John Hargreaves (Don), Harold Hopkins (Cooley), Graham Kennedy (Mack), Veronica Lang (Jody), Candy Raymond (Kerry) and Kit Taylor (Evan). Running Time: 88 minutes.
HEATWAVE Released 1981. Director: Phillip Noyce. Producer: Hilary Linstead and Ross Matthews. Screenplay by Marc Rosenberg and Phillip Noyce. Cinematographer: Vincent Monton. Editor: John Scott. Music: Cameron Allan. Designer: Ross Major. Cast: Judy Davis (Kate Dean), Richard Moir (Stephen West), Chris Meillon (Peter Haywood), Bill Hunter (Robert Duncan), John Meillon (Freddie Dwyer) and Carole Skinner (Mary Ford). Running Time: 92 minutes.
JOURNEY AMONG WOMEN Released 1977. Director: Tom Cowan. Producer: John Weiley. Screenplay by Tom Cowan, John Weiley and Dorothy Hewett, from a story by Tom Cowan. Cinematographers: Tom Cowan and Malcolm Richards. Editor: John Scott. Music: Roy Ritchie. Cast: Jeune Pritchard (Elizabeth), Martin Phelan, Nell Campbell, Lillian Crombie, Diana Fuller, Theresa Jack, Michelle Johnson, Helenka Link, Jude Kuring, Rose Lilley, Robyn Moase, Lisa Peers and Kay Self. Running Time: 80 minutes.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE Released 1985. Director: Robyn Nevin. Producer: Jill Robb. Screenplay by Moya Wood. Cinematographer: Dan Burstall. Editor: Jill Bilcock. Music: Peter Best. Designer: Josephine Ford. Cast: Judy Morris (Connie), Barry Otto (Lex), Victoria Longley (Geraldine), Lewis Fitz-Gerald (Barry), Owen Johnson (Nicholas) and Peter Carroll. Running Time: 90 minutes.
MY BRILLIANT CAREER Released 1979. Director: Gillian Armstrong. 79 Producer: Margaret Fink. Screenplay by Eleanor Witcombe, adapted from the novel by Miles Franklin. Cinematographer: Don McAlpine. Editor: Nicholas Beauman. Music: Nathan Waks. Cast: Judy Davis (Sybylla), Wendy Hughes (Helen), Sam Neill (Harry), Robert Grubb (Frank), Aileen Britton (Grandma) and Patricia Kennedy (Aunt Gussie). Running Time: 101 minutes.
NEWSFRONT Released 1978. Director: Phil Noyce. Producer: David EIfick. Screenplay by Phillip Noyce, based on an original screenplay by Bob Ellis from a concept by David Elfick. Cinematographer: Vincent Monton. Editor: John Scott. Music: William Motzing. Designer: Lissa Coote. Cast: Bill Hunter (Len Maguire), Wendy Hughes (Amy McKenzie), Gerard Kennedy (Frank Maguire), Chris Haywood (Chris Hewitt), John Ewart (Charlie Henderson), Don Crosby, Angela Punch-McGregor, John Clayton, Bryan Brown, John Dease, Lorna Lesley and Mark Holden. Running Time: 107 minutes.
PETERSEN Released 1974. Director: Tim Burstall. Producer: Tim Burstall. Screenplay by David Williamson. Cinematographer: Robin Copping. Editor: David Bilcock. Music: Peter Best. Designer: Bill Hutchinson. Cast: Jack Thompson (Tony Petersen), Jacki Weaver (Suzy), Wendy Hughes (Patricia Kent), Arthur Dignam (Charles Kent), Helen Morse (Janie), Christina Amor (Annie), David Phillips (Heinz) and Charles Tingwell. Running Time: 103 minutes.
PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK Released 1975. Director: Peter Weir. Producers: Hal McElroy and Jim McElroy. Executive Producer: Patricia Lovell. Screenplay by Cliff Green, based on the novel by Joan Lindsay. Cinematographer: Russell Boyd. Editor: Max Lemon. 80 Music: Bruce Smeaton. Designer: David Copping. Cast: Rachel Roberts (Mrs. Appleyard), Dominic Guard (Michael), Helen Morse (Mile, de Portiers), Jacki weaver (Minnie), Anne Lambert (Miranda), Karen Robson (Irma), Christine Schuler (Edith), Margaret Nelson (Sara), Jane Vallis (Marion), Vivean Gray (Miss McCraw) and John Jarratt (Albert). Running Time: 115 minutes.
THE SENTIMENTAL BLOKE Released 1919. Director: Raymond Longford. Producer: Raymond Longford. Screenplay by Raymond Longford, adapted from the verse "The Songs of the Sentimental Bloke" by C.J. Dennis. Cinematographer: Arthur Higgins. Cast: Arthur Tauchert (the Bloke), Lottie Lyell (Doreen), Gilbert Emery (Ginger Mick), Stanley Robinson, Harry Young, Margaret Reid (Doreen's mum), Charles Keegan, William Coulter and Helen Fergus. Running Time: 90 minutes.
SILKS AND SADDLES Released 1921. Director: John K. Wells. Producer: John K. Wells. Screenplay by John K. Wells, from a story by John Cosgrove. Cinematographer: A1 Burne. Editor: John K. Wells. Cast: Brownie Vernon (Roberta 'Bobbie' Morton), Robert MacKinnon (Richard Morton Jr.), John Cosgrove (Dennis O'Hara), John Faulkner (Richard Morton Sr.), Tal Ordell (Phillip Droone), Evelyn Johnson (Myra Fane), Raymond Lawrence (Jeffrey Manners), Gerald Harcourt (Toby Makin), Tommy Denman (Dingo) and Kennaquhair. Running Time: 86 minutes.
THE SINGER AND THE DANCER Released 1977. Director: Gillian Armstrong. Producer: Gillian Armstrong. Screenplay by John Pleffer and Gil Armstrong, based on a short story by Alan Marshall. Cinematographer: Russell Boyd. Editor: Nicholas Beauman. Music: Rob Murphy. Cast: Ruth Cracknell (Mrs. Bilson), Elizabeth Crosby (Charlie), Russell Keifel (Pete), Jude Kuring (Mrs. Herbert), Gerry Duggan (Doctor), Julie Dawson, Jane Buckland, Kate Sheil, Rob Steele and Kerry Walker. Running Time: 50 minutes. 81 STARSTRUCK Released 1982. Director: Gillian Armstrong. Producers: David Elfick and Richard Brennan. Screenplay by Stephen MacLean. Cinematographer: Russell Boyd. Editor: Nicholas Beauman. Music: Mark Moffatt. Choreographer: David Atkins. Designer: Brian Thomson. Cast: Jo Kennedy (Jackie), Ross O'Donovan (Angus), Margo Lee (Pearl), Max Cullen (Reg), Pat Evison (Nana), John O'May (Terry), Ned Lander, The Swingers and The Wombats. Running Time: 94 minutes.
TWO THOUSAND WEEKS Released 1969. Director: Tim Burstall. Producer:Patrick Ryan and David Bilcock. Screenplay by Tim Burstall and Patrick Ryan. Cinematographer: Robin Copping. Editor: David Bilcock, Jr. Music: Don Burrows. Cast: Mark McManus (Will), Jeanie Drynan (Jackie), Eileen Chapman (Sarah), David Turnbull, Michael Duffield, Stephen Dattner, Bruce Anderson, Dominic Ryan, Nicholas McCallum and Anne Charleston. Running Time: 86 minutes.
WE OF THE NEVER NEVER Released 1982. Director: Igor Auzins. Producers: Greg Tepper, John B. Murray and Brian Rosen. Screenplay by Peter Schreck, from the book by Mrs. Aeneas Gunn. Cinematographer: Gary Hansen. Editor: Clifford Hayes. Music: Peter Best. Designer: Josephine Ford. Cast: Angela Punch-McGregor (Jeannie Gunn), Arthur Dignam (Aeneas Gunn), Martin Vaughan (Ben), Lewis Fitz-Gerald (Jack), John Jarratt (Dandy), Tony Barry and Mawuyul Yanthalawuy (Rosie). Running Time: 118 minutes.
WINTER OF OUR DREAMS Released 1981. Director: John Duigan. Producer: Richard Mason. Screenplay by John Duigan. Cinematographer: Tom Cowan. Editor: Henry Dangar. 82 Music: Sharon Calcraft and Graham Lowndes. Art Director: Lee Whitmore. Cast: Bryan Brown (Rob), Judy Davis (Lou) and Cathy Downes (Gretel). Running Time: 90 minutes.
ADDITIONAL FILMS SCREENED
THE ADVENTURES OF BARRY MCKENZIE (1972) Director: Bruce Beresford.
ALVIN PURPLE (1973) Director: Tim Burstall.
ANNIE'S COMING OUT (1984) Director: Gil Brealy.
BACKLASH (1983) Director: Bill Bennett.
BLISS (1985) Director: Ray Lawrence.
BLUE FIRE LADY (1977) Director: Ross Dimsey.
BREAK OF DAY (1976) Director: Ken Hannam.
BREAKER MORANT (1980) Director: Bruce Beresford.
THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS (1974) Director: Peter Weir.
CATHY'S CHILD (1979) Director: Donald Crombie.
THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH (1978) Director: Fred Schepisi.
A CITY'S CHILD (1972) Director: Brian Kavanagh.
CROCODILE DUNDEE (1986) Director: Peter Faiman.
THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND (1976) Director: Fred Schepisi. 83 DIMBOOLA (1979) Director: John Duigan.
DOUBLE DEAL (1982) Director: Brian Kavanagh.
ELIZA FRASER (1976) Director: Tim Burstall.
FAR EAST (1982) Director: John Duigan.
FOR LOVE OR MONEY: A HISTORY OF WOMEN AND WORK IN AUSTRALIA (1983) Directors: Megan McMurchy and Jeni Thornley.
FORTY THOUSAND HORSEMEN (1940) Director: Charles Chauvel.
GALLIPOLI (1981) Director: Peter Weir.
GOODBYE PARADISE (1982) Director: Carl Schultz.
HARLEQUIN (1980) Director: Simon Wincer.
IN SEARCH OF ANNA (1979) Director: Esben Storm.
THE IRISHMAN (1978) Director: Donald Crombie.
IT TAKES ALL KINDS (1969) Director: Eddie Davis.
JACK AND JILL: A POSTSCRIPT (1970) Directors: Phillip Adams and Brian Robinson.
JEDDA (1955) Director: Charles Chauvel.
THE JOURNALIST (1979) Director: Michael Thornhill.
LIBIDO (1973) Directors: John B. Murray, Tim Burstall, Fred Schepisi and David Baker.
LONELY HEARTS (1982) Director: Paul Cox. 84 THE LOVE LETTERS FROM TERALBA ROAD (1977) Director: Stephen Wallace.
MAD MAX II (1982) Director: George Miller.
MALCOLM (1986) Director: Nadia Tass.
THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER (1982) Director: George Miller.
THE MANGO TREE (1977) Director: Kevin Dobson.
MAN OF FLOWERS (1983) Director: Paul Cox.
...MAYBE THIS TIME (1980) Director: Christopher McGill.
MONKEY GRIP (1981) Director: Ken Cameron.
MOUTH TO MOUTH (1978) Director: John Duigan.
MY FIRST WIFE (1984) Director: Paul Cox.
ONE NIGHT STAND (1984) Director: John Duigan.
PHAR LAP (1983) Director: Simon Wincer.
THE PICTURE SHOW MAN (1977) Director: John Power.
THE PLUMBER (1979) Director: Peter Weir.
PUBERTY BLUES (1981) Director: Bruce Beresford.
SNAPSHOT (1978) Director: Simon Wincer.
STANLEY (1983) Director: Esben Storm. 85 STORK (1971) Director: Tim Burstall.
STORM BOY (1976) Director: Henri Safran.
SUMMERFIELD (1977) Director: Ken Hannam.
SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL (1959) Director: Leslie Norman.
SUNDAY TOO FAR AWAY (1975) Director: Ken Hannam.
SUNSTRUCK (1972) Director: James Gilbert.
THEY'RE A WEIRD MOB (1966) Director: Michael Powell.
UNDERCOVER (1983) Director: David Stevens.
WAKE IN FRIGHT (1970) Director: Ted Kotcheff.
WEEKEND OF SHADOWS (1978) Director: Tom Jeffrey.
WHEREVER SHE GOES (1951) Director: Michael S. Gordon.
THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (1982) Director: Peter Weir. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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