An Explanation and Three Films

A key staff member had to take unplanned leave just before semester started and we've struggled a bit delivering our new subjects. Productive work units get a lot of their dynamism from the positive emotional energy of staff. Even the most unhappy and dysfunctional workplace will have some rhetoric about team building. (Undoubtedly it's bound to be one of some team leader's key performance indicators.) So it's been hard - not just because there is more work for less people, but because we've lost a colleague and the inspiration they bring.

On a more upbeat note: it's been a good summer for films. The one I liked best was Rob Marshall's Nine but I saw three that have some relevance to Australian Indigenous Studies: Avatar, Bran Nue Dae, and Precious.

Avatar.

1. Major in its conception and execution.

2. The pseudo-problematic of the white ex-marine, Jake Sully, saving the Indigenous Na'vi is as boring as yesterday's newspapers. The Na'vi of course are cats and cats don't symbolise anything but cats. (One of the Na'vi warriors has part of his ear missing; presumably bitten off in a fight. Conclusive proof that they are cats.)

Bran Nue Dae.

1. It's been nice walking into mainstream cinemas and seeing Bran Nue Dae posters up alongside the standard Hollywood productions. One more sign of a small and productive shift in Settler Australia's perception of Indigenous Australia.

2. I enjoyed seeing some veteran performers again, as well as a new generation of Indigenous talent. I have however seen the original musical and it was impossible not to compare the film with the stage performance. The subtle wit of the musical has disappeared and the religious symbolism has been completely garbled. Catholicism and Evangelicalism are treated as though the differences are meaningless. In the musical the differences actually meant something. The closing scenes which are so powerful in the musical are oddly dissonant in the film - performers blithely singing about a 'magic night' in broad daylight.

Precious.

1. I was worried about this film. It's a favourite of Barbara Bush; and some African American critics have attacked, what they saw, as demeaning portrayals of black American men and black urban life. Surprisingly I found the film moving even though there is a lot to take against if you are inclined.

2. Notwithstanding her appalling life, sixteen year old Precious dreams of future happiness and gives this symbolic form in the fantasies she concocts from popular culture. Like many American films it's absurdly gauche but actress Gabourey Sidibe establishes Precious' subjectivity in the first frames of the film and then establishes an almost hypnotic narrative.

3. It's a classic tale of an outsider's desire for a community, and a place, not just where they can be happy but where they can be known, in all that miraculous singularity we're condemned to.

Anathemas and Universities

One of the most challenging aspects of contemporary Indigenous affairs is accounting for the diversity of perspectives held by Aboriginal leaders and intellectuals. The debate over the Northern Territory Intervention is probably the most salient example. Otherwise think of the differing political philosophies of Patrick and Mick Dodson, Noel Pearson or Warren Mundine. There is commonality but also important differences.

The challenge for Indigenous Studies is to develop coherent narratives that can frame this diversity and allow students to develop critical thinking skills with a view to forming philosophies cognate with their core values. The problem is that for some people Indigenous issues are the equivalent of moral issues, with right and wrong clearly defined. Those who are 'wrong' in this schemata are then anathematised - usually with the aid of some derogation. Any style of teaching Indigenous Studies, any Indigenous Studies subject, that offers 'right' answers will prove seductive even if the intellectual outcomes are verifiably limited. There is much more to be said on this; though I will note that the unsavoury aspect of this style of teaching can manifest as student on student bullying and name calling.

Shocking News

Shocking news this morning of the sudden passing of Ruby Hunter. Ruby was gold, tried and proven by the fire of racism, and probably unaware of the number of people she inspired.

It's almost twenty years since I saw Ruby for the first time, on commercial television. I was living in Sydney when the video of 'Down City Streets' was broadcast by a Sydney television station. The combination of the song and the spiritual presence of Ruby and her partner Archie Roach had an immediate impact.

Neither of them were ever the sort of people commercial television gave much space to. As I watched and listened, I couldn't help but wonder at how both of them had emerged intact from the experience that gave meaning to the song, and turned it into art.

Ruby's personal dress style (both regal and whimsical), and her numerous performances, were moments of reassurance, manifestations of a profound and deep Aboriginality which reached back to a distant past.

Listen to Archie's, 'From Paradise'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhCy8iur_8o&feature=related

Aboriginal Guest Lecturers

In 1983 Stephen Muecke (currently Professor of Writing at the University of NSW) problematised the ethics of Aboriginal-Settler collaboration when he and the late Nyigina elder Paddy Roe published Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley. Prior to this, Aboriginal narratives and texts were often edited without reference to their authors, and Aboriginal knowledges used without permission, recompense, or acknowledgement. In Reading the Country: Introduction to Nomadology, a 1984 publication with Paddy Roe and Krim Bentarrak, Muecke noted that the only bibliographic references for Paddy Roe in the National Library of Australia were for Gularabulu - although generations of academics from a range of disciplines had sought out and benefited from Paddy Roe’s knowledge and circulated it under their own names.

In spite of the impact of Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley, the ethics of Settler academics relying on Aboriginal guest lecturers to deliver Aboriginal content remain largely unexamined. What does it mean when a non-Aboriginal lecturer with access to the relative security and perks of the tenured academic teaches an Aboriginal studies subject where over 50% of the lectures are delivered by Aboriginal guest lecturers? Is a guest lecturer’s fee a fair exchange? It might be a non-issue if the guest lecturers were all Aboriginal professionals of equivalent salary, job security, career prospects, and social status. And what about the impact on students? Do they come to believe that the only person with a right to speak on Aboriginal issues is an Aboriginal?

I know one Settler scholar teaching in Aboriginal studies who, after years of using Aboriginal guest lecturers, decided to take responsibility for the lectures himself and to supplement them with relevant audiovisual material. An extreme response, but at least one that registers the problem.

Boot Camp for Teachers

I’m not directly affected by the release of the school league tables and it's not an area I claim any expertise in but as someone who respects teachers who work in the public school system it’s hard not to be annoyed when they are presented as the problem. Federal Minister for Education Julia Gillard is skitching parents on to teachers who are apparently not delivering; underperforming school principals are to be mentored; the reality show ’Boot Camp for Teachers’ is probably in pre-production.

Not having any school age children I thought I’d check the league table results for my old primary school. XYZ Public School is situated in Northern New South Wales. Many of the families of students are transients; 34% of students identify as Indigenous, and many of the school’s students come from single parent families. The school’s performance in literacy and numeracy, as represented by the National Assessment Program, isn’t very good and it’s outperformed by Cherbourg State School. Cherbourg State School is the school Aboriginal educationist Chris Sarra had such a profound impact on and it has become in a sense a ‘show school’ for the new regime in education. Comparisons with XYZ Primary School are revealing. XYZ Public School has a student population of 216 while Cherbourg State School has 199 with 99 % of the school’s students being Indigenous. Students at Cherbourg State School were intensively coached for the National Assessment Program tests and its website showcases an extensive range of programs for students. It’s the disparity in staffing levels that is most confronting. Cherbourg State School has a teaching staff of 19.2 and a non-teaching staff of 13.6. In comparison, XYZ Public School has a teaching staff of 15.8 and a non-teaching staff of 4.6. I assume that these figures are also a pretty good indicator of the relative level of resources available to both schools. Because it is so poorly resourced there doesn’t seem much of a chance at XYZ Public School that a child with learning difficulties will get the intensive support they need. The Cherbourg State School results are to be applauded: I’d also be applauding if comparable resources and attention were being directed to XYZ Public School.

Finally for my old teachers at XYZ Public School – one or two you were doozies but you’re remembered with affection and gratitude. You were my first point of contact with White Australia and the greater world. Something worked…

The job gets done...

2010 starts for the Australian Indigenous Studies program tomorrow.  I’m feeling primed and ready to roll but deadlines are already pressing. We’re developing teaching materials for new subjects as well as reviewing previously taught subjects. Everything has got to be ready for the coming semester. As well as that we’ve got to finalise our Honours program for 2011 - that has to be completed  by the end of January.  I’d have liked to have been further advanced with these tasks but this is the time frame we’ve got. Add up various other deadlines and commitments and it’s a combination of optimism and fatalism that will see us through.  As for fatalism, one of my former bosses, an ex-army officer, used to say, ‘The job gets done; it might be done differently; it might be done worse, but it gets done.’ Aboriginal affairs generally is bedevilled by short-term goals, and short-sighted, sometimes cynical,  strategies; thankfully  that’s not the case with the Australian Indigenous Studies program. The optimistic vision is that the completion of each of January’s tasks lays the foundations of a unique program.

Thoughts on Returning from a Conference

Guest blog: Odette Kelada

 

Baz Luhrmann’s Australia Reviewed: An interdisciplinary conference on history, film and popular culture, 7 Dec – 8 Dec.

 

Thoughts on returning from a conference on the film ‘Australia’ by Baz Luhrmann -  Two days to pour in detail over the sprawling colourful ‘epic’ that attempts to meld a ‘Gone with The Wind’ romantic exuberance with a larrikanesque knock about aussie adventure tale. I embarked with the AIS team to Canberra rather unsure of what might await and with a few questions in mind. I’m no big fan of the film as I read it as a highly troubling and current day colonial fantasy, but was there a chance that all the brilliant minds at this forum may persuade me otherwise? Could it be that in the mire of critical race reading, I had lost the ability to enjoy a generous entertainment spectacle when it came bounding in all its red dust kangaroo embossed technicolor glory? And was that catchy slogan – something about going walkabout to find oneself, really capitalist white tourist induced appropriation or eerily insightful observation on the modern day concrete oppressed office worker?

 

Standout keynote speech by Prof. Meaghan Morris launched the conference with a wonderful nuanced reading of the complexities in the responses to this film, an original take on cliché and a great description of Nullah’s magic weaving gestures as ‘oogabooga’ that looked more kungfu claw (taught by the cook perhaps) than anything identifiably Indigenous . Morris’s observations traveled with me over the next two days as I listened to various presentations and attempted to emulate the spirit of openness and dialogue fitting such an auspicious start. In the first session, Ann Genovese gave one of the most interesting papers from a cross-disciplinary perspective, as she connected the film’s narrative around the Stolen Generation with legal cases brought by Indigenous litigants fighting for recognition of the illegality of their removal. Her paper offered a fascinating reflection on myths in law and how these sit alongside the mythmaking around the story of Nullah in the film. Philip Morrissey in his thoughtful presentation on the film offered much to ponder but it was his shocking and yet uncannily persuasive suggestion that given Nullah’s propensity to pop up  in inappropriate places (including the bedroom), interrupting any ‘wrong side’ business that was afoot, and his strange long haired allure as he ‘sings’ Lady Ashley, that Nullah was possibly going to come back and marry Lady Ashley, which drew an illicit gasp from the audience. ‘Australia’ as Oedipal fantasy certainly broadened the implications of the film’s narrative arc. Johanna Simmons, project coordinator of AIS, gave a compelling insight into the spectacularistion of history that has been repressed, drawing attention to Luhrmann’s representations of the Stolen Generation and the Darwin Bombing as two such histories. Simmons sophisticated exploration of how the film may be read as an attempt to counter this repression and the effect of melodrama as genre on this endeavor, was  enhanced by the presentation of images illustrating various cinematic devices employed by Luhrmann. The visual impact of seeing the poster for ‘Australia’ juxtaposed with the poster for the American film ‘Pearl Harbor’ left little doubt that in the almost identical imagery, Luhrmann was reaching self-consciously beyond intertextual referencing to overt mimicry. ‘Redeeming Aboriginal masculinity’ by Shino Konisho was another paper that stood out as she gave a unique reading of the film, opposing Germaine Greer’s condemnation of King George as ‘a tasteless joke’ by suggesting that he was on the contrary, a positive example of paternal love. The range of presentations varied in substance and clarity over the duration of the conference but overall most had something of interest to say, be it on landscape, aural semiotics or international reception.

 

Apparently the enthusiasm by academics to attend a conference on ‘Australia’ outweighed the expectations of the conference conveners, Konisho and Maria Nugent, who did an excellent job of providing a cohesive program from the many threads. Indeed by the end, rather than assuaging the appetite for this film, the participants appeared well able to continue the discussion ad infinitum. After the two days, while I found myself adhering to my initial concerns and sense of disturbance, there’s certainly a great deal more to the film than I had appreciated. There’s no doubt from all the multi-disciplinary approaches that Luhrmann created a fertile landscape for debate, controversy and analysis on diverse fronts. Witnessing some of the fervent affection by a number of participants for the film, I swayed between a sense of oversaturation with all things ‘Australia’ and starting to wish that I too had been able to be swept away with the Drover and the Wizard of Oz, to some far far away place. But no, we were still in Canberra, the locus of many a flawed fantasy, and soon to be in the airport lounge.