Arresting metaphors: anticolonial females in Australian cinema

TY - JOUR

T1 - Arresting metaphors

T2 - Postcolonial text

AU - Lambert, Anthony

N1 - Copyright for this journal article was retained by the author/s, with first publication rights granted to the journal. This article is being reproduced with the permission of the author/s. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings. However rights for further reproduction should be obtained from the author/s.

PY - 2005

Y1 - 2005

N2 - This paper attempts to advance new understandings of female cinematic agency by interrogating its connection to patterns of cultural colonialism in Australian film. The visual presence of female Aboriginality in contemporary Australian film undermines, in subtle and explicit ways, the possibility of a truly secure white identity tied to the Australian environment. It does so through the introduction of the complexities of Aboriginal difference, through the subversion of white cinematic narratives and mythologies, and through physical agency and action. In this way, the anti-colonial impulse in the cinema emerges, in films which effectively ‘unearth’ the continuing cinematic metaphors of colonial power. The key narrative and visual link between the analyses of films in this paper is the cinematic metaphor of the homestead as the locus of white belonging, values and ownership. Along the way, the motifs of fire and the the lost female child are considered as fundamental components of an anti-colonial cinematic rhetoric. The term ‘postcolonial’ may be seen to ‘cover all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonisation to the present day’ (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, 1989: 2) and to challenge or invert the ‘ideological acceptance of error as truth’ (Spivak, 1988: 109). However, the term ‘anti-colonial’ is used to specifically emphasise Aboriginal female instrumentality throughout this paper. This distinction enables a clear focus on the Aboriginal refusal of colonial influence in the cinema, which cannot be confused by problematic definitions of postcolonial politics and criticism.

AB - This paper attempts to advance new understandings of female cinematic agency by interrogating its connection to patterns of cultural colonialism in Australian film. The visual presence of female Aboriginality in contemporary Australian film undermines, in subtle and explicit ways, the possibility of a truly secure white identity tied to the Australian environment. It does so through the introduction of the complexities of Aboriginal difference, through the subversion of white cinematic narratives and mythologies, and through physical agency and action. In this way, the anti-colonial impulse in the cinema emerges, in films which effectively ‘unearth’ the continuing cinematic metaphors of colonial power. The key narrative and visual link between the analyses of films in this paper is the cinematic metaphor of the homestead as the locus of white belonging, values and ownership. Along the way, the motifs of fire and the the lost female child are considered as fundamental components of an anti-colonial cinematic rhetoric. The term ‘postcolonial’ may be seen to ‘cover all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonisation to the present day’ (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, 1989: 2) and to challenge or invert the ‘ideological acceptance of error as truth’ (Spivak, 1988: 109). However, the term ‘anti-colonial’ is used to specifically emphasise Aboriginal female instrumentality throughout this paper. This distinction enables a clear focus on the Aboriginal refusal of colonial influence in the cinema, which cannot be confused by problematic definitions of postcolonial politics and criticism.

M3 - Article

VL - 1

SP - 1

EP - 16

JO - Postcolonial text

JF - Postcolonial text

SN - 1705-9100

IS - 2

ER -