School of Culture and Communication - Research Publications

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/11343/395

Filters

2002 4
Reset filters

Settings
Statistics
Citations
Author: BIRCH, ANTHONY × End date: 2002 × Start date: 2002 ×

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    This is a true story: Rabbit-proof fence, 'Mr. Devil' and the Desire to forget
    Birch, A. ( 2002)
    In February this year I attended a premiere of Rabbit-Proof Fence, a film directed by Phillip Noyce. The story deals with a journey, made in 1931, by three Aboriginal girls, sisters Molly (Everlyn Sampi) and Daisy Craig (Tianna Sansbury), and a cousin, Gracie Fields (Laura Monaghan). The girls escaped from the Moore River Aboriginal Settlement in the south of Western Australia and walked home, to their own community at Jigalong, some 1600 kilometres to the north, by following of the state’s three rabbit-proof fences. In telling the story of the children’s journey, Rabbit-Proof Fence addresses the history of the stolen generations, the historical experience of the removal of indigenous children from their families and communities, a history often subject to ridicule by those in white Australia unable to accept and own their story of oppression. The film also gives some attention to A.O. Neville (or ‘Mr Devil’ as he is referred to by one of the female inmates at Moore River), the Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia from 1915 until 1940, a man obsessed with issues of miscegenation and the (literal) purity of skin.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    A paperback education: Atticus Finch, Camus and Kenneth Cook's Wake in fright
    Birch, A. ( 2002)
    When I was a kid there wasn’t much that my older brother did not do better than me. He was good at almost everything, particularly sport. He won the school handball championships every year, captained the football team and never lost a game of marbles. He even excelled in business. When the school tuckshop was on its knees the headmaster put him in charge. Within a term the tuckshop was turning a profit, even after my brother had creamed a percentage so he could buy a friendship ring for his girlfriend. He was not quite as good at the books though.
  • Item
  • Item