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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