Dynamics of Mateship

Mateship is, and always has been, an integral trait of Australian culture, a characteristic that is indeed mostly masculine. McFarlane attributes this overt masculinity to the nature of the nation’s birth, claiming “it is rooted in the early days of the country when men considerably outnumbered women”[1]. This masculinity is something that is easily threatened by factors that diverge from the concept such as femininity and homosexuality. And as such, it is something that it is fundamentally hostile. As Esnault states, “every film is a document concerning the people who have made it and the people who have seen it”^[2], and thus, Australian cinema is no exception. From the dawn of Australian cinema with The Story of the Kelly Gang[3] in 1906, mateship has been portrayed in film and television as blatantly masculine and to some extent, it still does. There has however been an obvious evolution in these ideals, with the aforementioned threat of femininity, effeminacy and homosexuality coming into fruition in the form of films such as The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert[4], the Mad Max series, and Wake In Fright[5]. Therefore, through an analysis of filmic examples, one may firm a grasp on this threat, and on the evolutionary process that followed.

As seen in the aforementioned example of The Story of the Kelly Gang, masculinity as a feature of mateship is something that has been ingrained into the Australian culture since its birth, with the predominance of convicts being men. Therefore, when an infiltration of effeminacy or femininity occurs in Australian film cinema, the masculinity contained within mateship is understandably (albeit perhaps unfairly) hostile. In Australian film, the role of women and feminism in terms of mateship is considerably minimal with McFarlane reinforcing this, stating, “the idea of Australia as a man’s country…inevitably make the women’s roles seem marginal”[6] This rejection and objectification of women is common in Australian cinema and is present in Mad Max[7]. McFarlane states, “Max’s wife has to die to become significant, in providing a motive for action”. The women, thus become a plot device, much like the ‘damsel in distress’ cliché. Wake In Fright however, according to McFarlane, “is the most sharply aware of this.” There is a noticeable absence of women with only three female characters appearing in the film to reinforce the Australian landscape as a masculine wasteland. McFarlane expands on this, claiming that; “[John] Grant’s Sydney girlfriend appears only in his daydream, as a man’s views of allowable, respectable female appeal. The Yabba’ girl, Janette Tydon, who readily unbuttons her dress for him, is the subject for crude jokes”[8]. As such, the mateship with these women never appears nearly as intense as the one’s shared between the male characters in the film.

The boundaries of mateship were further tested in Wake In Fright through the exploration of sexuality. The film served as a social commentary on the state of mateship in Australia, and revealed significant threats to the masculinity of the concept. McFarlane said of Wake In Fright that, “Aussie hospitality and mateship are scrutinised and found to be mindless and potentially threatening”[9]. Not only did the film seem to point at Australian masculinity and mateship as excessive (evident in its gratuitous depiction of violence), but it also explored the sexual complexities of them. Perhaps one of the most memorable scenes of the film is the homosexual encounter between the protagonist, John Grant, and Doc Tydon. The incident followed the infamous kangaroo-culling scene in which masculinity and mateship are at their most excessive, and thus the homosexual act was brought on through this overtly masculine mateship. The film was a critical and commercial success in overseas box offices, however domestically it did not fare as well as Pike and Cooper suggest, claiming “it opened in Paris and ran for a highly successful five month season…In London again it was warmly received by the public and the press when it opened…In Australia, however, it made less happy progress; although critics were unanimous in their support, publicity was poor and the public stayed away.”[10] As such, it seems that the film had hit to close to home with Australian audiences, and thus, the flaws of the masculinity of mateship in Australian culture were firmly established.

Thus from this point, effeminacy and homosexuality had proven themselves as great threats to mateship, and many Australian films have explored this since. This ‘threat’ is something that has been brought to parodic light in films such as Bruce Beresford’s 1972 film, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie[11], which explicitly addressed the fear of homosexuality (“no poofters”), establishing effeminacy’s firm opposition to Australian masculinity and indeed mateship. Before this however, Wake In Fright uncovered the emergence of homosexuality as a result of the Australian landscape being, in many ways, a cultural wasteland. Rayner best illustrates this, stating: “significantly, the doctor can be seen as the embodiment of societal collapse, since his decline and assimilation into the town’s culture prefigures the teacher’s degeneration”^[12]. The Mad Max films seem to follow along this vein. The post-apocalyptic theme, however in this case literal, showed effeminacy running rampant. The villains of the films flaunt their flamboyancy, with makeup being worn, and in the case of Mad Max 2[13], an openly homosexual relationship is portrayed. And as such, the post-apocalyptic settings/ temperament of both Wake In Fright and the Mad Max trilogy, resultant of the presence of ultra violence of mateship and masculinity, led to some kind of sexual straying amid Australian culture.

In saying this, a homosexual rebellion was indeed imminent. It came to full bloom in the 1990s, the height of global quirky ‘cinema’. Although there was certainly elements of homosexuality present in depictions of Australian mateship bonds previously in the 1970s and 80s, it was either subtly implied (such as that of the homosexual encounter in Wake In Fright), or established via psychoanalysis. Peter Weir’s adaptation of the Joan Lindsay’s novel, Picnic at Hanging Rock, was indeed a regressive adaptation in regards to the depiction of homosexuality with Cook claiming that the mateship bond between the two male characters, Albert and Michael, was “stripped…of its queerness and only develops their bond insofar as it pertains to the quest to solve the mystery of the girls’ disappearance”[14]. Bordwell stated that, “films bear the traces of the societies that made and consumed them.”[15] Thus, via an evolution of tolerance, and an array of other contributing factors such as the growing gay civil rights movement and the advent of the Mardi Gras, the Australian film industry seemed to be evolving relatively with society. As such, there was a significant shift in perspectives within the Australian screen industry in its portrayal of male effeminacy.

As stated, the development of effeminate/ homosexual mateship hit an all time high in the 1990s. Thus, as the 90s marked the peak of mainstream ‘quirky’ cinema, films with sexually radical tendencies such as The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Head On[16] and The Sum of Us[17], were not entirely out of place. Peach noted this social reflection in the history of funding for ‘queer’ cinema, claiming: “what becomes obvious when examining funding changes from the 1960s onwards in Australia, is the dramatic increase in resources for Queer film”[18]. He goes on to say that what started as privately funded operations, gradually gained government support by the 1990s, he says: “by the 1990s Dallas Doll, Priscilla and The Sum of Us and Head On were receiving several million dollars from the FFC. A huge shift in financial support had occurred”. As such, there was also a significant shift in the way the subject was dealt with. Rather than the severe, yet subtle, homosexual repression conveyed in films such as Wake In Fright and Picnic at Hanging Rock, films such as Priscilla were unashamedly flamboyant in dealing with effeminacy, while Head On was realistic and unflinching in its portrayal of homosexuality. At the time of Head On’s release, Peter Lowndes discussed its significance as an indication of society, stating, “the homosexuality issue appears less contentious than say twenty years ago when a film such as Head On would have enraged the majority with its bold motif.”[19] As both Head On and Priscilla were highly regarded by critics and warmly received by mainstream audiences, the evolution of the portrayal of homosexuals in Australia can be easily attributed to changes in societal values and the reformation on the rigid traits of masculine mateship.

Mateship in Australian cinema has thus undergone a notable evolution in its presentation and value of the masculinity trait. It is not an evolution that can be easily attributed to one or two processes, but rather a large array of exterior factors have contributed to this shift between the birth of Australian cinema with The Story of the Kelly Gang and contemporary Australian cinema. This includes the roles of feminism, gay rights, and far more other societal factors too numerous to mention. However, the evolution of society is not the sole reason for this filmic evolution, another notable factor that cannot go without mention is the films themselves. Films that challenged these rigid guidelines of masculine mateship such as Wake In Fright and Barry McKenzie were instrumental in uncovering the flaws of this complex concept. Films such as these pointed to the unseen traits of Australian culture such as femininity, effeminacy and homosexuality and addressed them rather explicitly. They therefore paved the way for the development of the notion of mateship and films such as Head On and Priscilla that further drew out the complexity of the issue.

Bibliography:

- Bordwell, David, Doing Film History in http://www.davidbordwell.net/essays/doing.php, University of Wisconsin (September 2008)

- Cook, Ann-Marie, More than Mateship?: Queer Desire in Picnic at Hanging Rock in Uneasy Humanity: Perpetual Wrestling With Evils. Colette Balmain and Nanette Norris (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, London (2009)

- Isenberg, Michael T., War on film : the American cinema and World War I, 1914-1941, Rutherford : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (1981)

- Lowndes, Peter, Gays In Australian Cinema, http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=2171&s=features (1998)

- McFarlane, Brian, ‘Ch.4: Mates and Others in a Wide Brown Land: Images of Australia’ in McFarlane, Australian Cinema 1970-1985 (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1987)

- Peach, Ricardo, Queer Australian Films from the 1990s Onwards, in Queer Cinema As A Fifth Cinema In South Africa And Australia, UTS, Sydney (2005) p.292

- Pike and Cooper, Oxford Australian Film 1900-1977. Australia, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, (1998)

- Rayner, J. Contemporary Australian Cinema: An Introduction, Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, (1988)

Filmography:

- The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (Beresford, 1972)

- The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, (Elliott, 1994)

- Head On, (Kokkinos, 1998)

- Mad Max, (Miller, 1979)

- Mad Max 2, (Miller, 1981)

- The Story of the Kelly Gang, (Tait, 1906)

- The Sum of Us, (Burton and Dowling, 1994)

- Wake In Fright, (Kotcheff, 1971)

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[1] Brian McFarlane, ‘Ch.4: Mates and Others in a Wide Brown Land: Images of Australia’ in McFarlane, Australian Cinema 1970-1985 (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1987), p.52

^[2] Michael T. Isenberg, War on film : the American cinema and World War I, 1914-1941, Rutherford : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (1981) pg.2

[3] The Story of the Kelly Gang, (1906) Dir: Charles Tait

[4] The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Head On, (1994) Dir: Stephan Elliott

[5] Wake In Fright, (1971) Dir: Ted Kotcheff

[6] Brian McFarlane, ‘Ch.4: Mates and Others in a Wide Brown Land: Images of Australia’ in McFarlane, Australian Cinema 1970-1985 (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1987), p.52

[7] Mad Max, (1979) Dir: George Miller

[8] Ibid.

[9] Brian McFarlane, ‘Ch.4: Mates and Others in a Wide Brown Land: Images of Australia’ in McFarlane, Australian Cinema 1970-1985 (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1987), p.51

[10] Pike and Cooper, Oxford Australian Film 1900-1977. Australia, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, p259

[11] The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, (1972) Dir: Bruce Beresford

[12] Rayner, J. Contemporary Australian Cinema: An Introduction, Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 1988, p27

[13] Mad Max 2, (1981) Dir: George Miller

[14] Ann-Marie Cook, More than Mateship?: Queer Desire in Picnic at Hanging Rock in Uneasy Humanity: Perpetual Wrestling With Evils. Colette Balmain and Nanette Norris (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, London (2009) pg.10-11

[15] David Bordwell, Doing Film History in http://www.davidbordwell.net/essays/doing.php, University of Wisconsin (September 2008)

[16] Head On, (1998) Dir: Ana Kokkinos

[17] The Sum of Us, (1994) Dir: Geoff Burton and Kevin Dowling

[18] Ricardo Peach, Queer Australian Films from the 1990s Onwards, in Queer Cinema As A Fifth Cinema In South Africa And Australia, UTS, Sydney (2005) p.292

[19] Peter Lowndes, Gays In Australian Cinema, http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=2171&s=features (1998)

Comparative Analysis

In 1985, Australia adopted the global soap opera format with the television show, Neighbours. Although originally being cancelled by Channel 7, the show was later picked up by Ten and became a transnational phenomenon, particularly in Britain. As a result of this, three years later Seven began developing a soap called Home and Away. This, like Neighbours, achieved a particularly wide, international audience, however not to the same extent. How and why was it that these programmes, which employ almost every soap convention possible, gained such a following?

In terms of international viewership, Home and Away and Neighbours are one of Australia’s most successful television exports, with Cristal claiming that “Neighbours is probably the most successful international soap opera that's ever been”. In saying this, why has Neighbours had a greater degree of success overseas than Home and Away? Allen attributes this not to a difference in quality, but to a difference in focus, tone and content. Identification with the everyday in suburban life holds a much larger emphasis in Neighbours than in its competitors such as Eastenders, The Bold and the Beautiful and, of course, Home and Away. Brugiere seemed to concur with Allen claiming that the characters’ “greatest existential anguish consists in having to choose between two colours of wallpaper”. In saying this, Neighbours thus provides a relief from the unrealistic melodrama of Home and Away and also from the viewers’ everyday. Cunningham, Miller and Rowe expand on this notion of escapism from the perspective of the British public, stating that, via Neighbours, “Australia can be introjected as an alternative utopic admixture of exotic holiday brochure and cinema images” to the British lifestyle, and therefore, such forms of engagement provide “much pleasure and defies any simple correlation between the moral cause espoused at a public level and viewer reception.” Therefore, the greater international success of Neighbours over Home and Away is perhaps due to a more accessible and more casual escapism via the employment of the everyday.

This escapism however, although classless, reveals a very white, attractive, heterosexual utopia. This is something that is no doubt present in both Home and Away and Neighbours. Allen states that Home and Away presents a “cultural snobbery” and Germaine Greer holds a similar (albeit more hostile) view on Neighbours, claiming that “there are no Asian characters in Neighbours, the only Southern Europeans are ridiculous stereotypes…Religion is never discussed, sexual orientation is always heterosexual”. Although there has in fact been characters since who hold these traits, they have either come considerably late, or are few and far between, or both. In fact, the first openly homosexual character in both Home and Away and Neighbours came in 1994, almost a decade after the introduction of one in Eastenders and nearly two decades after The Young and the Restless. As such, this draws it back to the inclusion of the everyday as an escapism device. Neighbours producer Mark Callan stated, “we do our best when we portray the mundane in an entertaining way” The demographic of Neighbours and Home and Away, being a young, white audience, is susceptible to situations that appear normal and familiar, and thus are led to a comfortable escapism through the removal of taboo subject matter such as race issues and homosexuality.

In order to earn the success they have, Neighbours and Home and Away have taken typical soap conventions and have Australianised them. Consequentially, for overseas audiences, the mythic however simple qualities of Australian life, perpetuated by films such as Crocodile Dundee, have translated into some form of escapism or utopia, particularly the British. And in doing this, they adhere to the status quo as much as possible. Neighbours more so than Home and Away succeeds at this by employing the everyday as a bridge for their demographics, and focusing on the believable more than the unrealistic or, perhaps, uncomfortable.

References:

Allen, Robert C., Global Neighbours, in, ‘To be continued…: soap operas around the world’, New York, Routledge (1995) p.98-122

Cunningham S., Miller T., Rowe D., Australian Soaps in Britain, in, ‘Contemporary Australian Television’, UNSW Press (1994) p.127-137

Home and Away (1988-present), created by Alan Bateman

Neighbours (1985-present), created by Reg Watson

Sequence Analysis

SHOT 1

The sequence opens with this very wide shot, establishing an overwhelmingly natural location typical of Australian cinematography, containing very green elements and natural lighting. To push a recurring and very potent virginal/angelic theme in the film, the shot imitates a renaissance painting (specifically Botticelli, who is directly referenced later in the sequence). As such, Weir deliberately creates an atmosphere of alienation via a cultural clash i.e. European convention superimposed into an Australian setting. Thus, as an inherent rule of Australian cinema, this cultural clash foretells impending doom.

SHOT 2

Shots 2 to 4 function as visual metaphors for the events that are about to ensue, the impossibility of taming the Australian wilderness, and the ignorance of those who think they can.

Shot 2 specifically parallels the events that are happening during the sequence. It depicts a few ants easily claiming a single crumb, thus drawing a comparison to the initial calm expectations of climbing the rock held by the climbers at this point in the film.

SHOT 3
The ants begin to be overwhelmed by the amount of food, and proves much more difficult to handle than in the previous shot.






SHOT 4

The full slice of cake in this shot shows the ants scrambling around, attempting in vain to conquer it. It demonstrates the intense reality the girls now face, Hanging Rock, like every aspect of the Australian landscape is absolutely untameable like this piece of cake is to the ants. As such, Hanging Rock may seem like a piece of cake, but it is not.

SHOT 5

Much like the first shot, this medium close-up of Miranda is very picturesque, again bearing a strong resemblance to a Renaissance painting, and thus strengthens the European element of the film, which, as stated, suggests a sense of alienation and ignorance among the unforgiving Australian landscape. The character of Mademoiselle de Poitiers, the French teacher, represents this foreign ignorance. She is depicted as an excessively frivolous and Romantic (she is seen resting on the ground with a white lace parasol in the shot), and therefore the worst person the girls would ask permission to venture into the merciless wilderness.

SHOT 6

Both the blocking and costuming in this shot are significant as indications of the character hierarchy in the film. They also reinforce what was discussed in the previous shot i.e. the danger of foreign influence. Mademoiselle de Poitiers is dressed in very loose fitting, lace clothing and positioned below the height of Miss McCraw in the shot and is looking up towards her. Miss McCraw in contrast is wearing constricting and dark clothing. Therefore the blocking and costuming suggests a strong and rigid authorial ladder, which should not be violated.

SHOT 7

This shot is the longest in the sequence at around 25 seconds long. The shot returns to the medium close-up from Shot 5 and begins with Mademoiselle de Poitiers giving permission to the girls to venture into the wilderness, while Miranda is placed firmly in the centre-front of the frame throughout the entire shot. She is draped in shadow when she says “Don’t worry mademoiselle, we shall only be gone a little while”, suggesting rather the complete opposite. This is further emphasised when Miranda leaves the frame to reveal Miss McCraw in the direct centre of the shot, also covered in shadow, however dressed in blood red. Due to the existence of an unresolved ending, it’s difficult to determine why Weir had chosen this particular colour as a strong contrast to the rest of the characters in the scene, however it does strongly evoke death or at the very least something quite sinister.

SHOT 8

This shot is instrumental in consolidating the angelic/virginal theme Weir has chosen to adopt. The girls are shown running towards their doom with an angelic grace. The white lace and loose sleeves flow as they run to evoke and angelic parallel. This is in stark contrast to the surrounding wilderness, which is predominantly made up of dry browns and greens. This is another indication to the alienation of the Australian landscape. At the end of the shot, Miranda is shown to be waving goodbye to Mademoiselle de Poitiers, which foresees her impending disappearance.

SHOT 9

This medium close-up shot, although quite short, consolidates the aforementioned danger of foreign influence and frivolousness amid the Australian landscape. Mademoiselle de Poitiers is shown waving a handkerchief to the girls, ignorant to the dangers they may (and will) face.

SHOT 10
This close-up shot of Miranda is also a quick one, both in the length and in the movement. She is seen quickly turning in an abrupt motion. It is seen from the perspective of Mademoiselle de Poitiers and shows Miranda's swift escape from the sequence, effectively cutting her off completely from the picturesque world of Mademoiselle de Poitiers, as she delves into the unforgiving Australian wilderness.


SHOT 11
This shot returns to where Shot 9 left off. However in this case, Mademoiselle de Poitiers' face is now completely covered in shadow, reinforcing her unawareness.





SHOT 12
This is an over-the-shoulder shot from the perspective of Mademoiselle de Poitiers. This and the next shot work as the most explicit confirmations of the angelic/virginal theme, and thus I will discuss it in the next shot's description.




SHOT 13
In this final shot, Mademoiselle de Poitiers quite explicitly states "I know Miranda is Botticelli angel", thus confirming the angelic/virginal theme which has been present in the sequence and indeed the entire film. The shot begins with just Mademoiselle de Poitiers in the frame, retaining her perspective established in the previous shot. The camera then tilts up to include Miss McCraw. After Mademoiselle de Poitiers finishes the aforementioned quote, the camera then pans to a mid-shot of Miss McCraw in the very centre, excluding de Poitiers from the frame, effectively switching perspectives. The sequence thus leaves the audience with the suspicion of something far more sinister, as Miss McCraw's expression and stature suggests an awareness that is absent from de Poitiers'.


References:

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Dir: Peter Weir