Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows Josie and Greg reflecting on marriage between Aboriginal people and the role it plays in the future of Indigenous peoples and their cultures. Josie and Greg speak directly to the camera and Greg is also seen walking along a street through an exhibition of historical and contemporary artworks representing Indigenous people. Contemporary music plays in the background.

Educational value points

• In the opening sequence Greg lists several Aboriginal nations, including Wotjobaluk, Warlpiri, Wurundjeri and Yorta Yorta, to assert that there is no such thing as a single encompassing Aboriginal nation and to remind viewers of the complex nature of Indigenous Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians comprise many language groups and communities with unique cultures and customs.

• The clip reveals some of the concerns of Josie and Greg when they consider the question of a marriage partner. Josie says that the personal qualities of a potential partner are more important to her than her need and want for a partner from a particular culture. In contrast Greg is motivated by a desire to maintain the future of Aboriginal cultures and nations – he talks about the need to ‘strengthen our bloodlines’ and, as a corollary, to secure the continuity of Indigenous cultures in Australia.

• Greg argues in the clip that by ‘strengthening our bloodlines’ Indigenous people will defeat the assimilationists of the early 20th century. He quotes the assimilationist image of ‘smoothing the pillow of the dying race’, a belief widely held at the time that Indigenous Australians would eventually die out and that, if they could not survive the effects of European colonisation, then it would be kinder to allow them to die.

• As Greg articulates his belief in the need to maintain Indigenous bloodlines, he is shown at an exhibition that recalls recent Indigenous histories. The images include clashes between Aboriginal people and Europeans in early days of settlement, a poster from the 1967 referendum that resulted in the inclusion of Aboriginal people in the national census, and a 1990 photograph of Australian Rules footballer Nicky Winmar pointing to his skin and asserting his Indigenous identity.

• Greg’s final comment in the clip, ‘This is a black country’, resonates with the final image of Nicky Winmar and underlines Greg’s commitment to maintaining his Indigenous culture. During a football match in 1993, Winmar was confronted with racial abuse from some in the crowd. He pulled up his shirt and called out that he was black and proud to be black. The image of Winmar pointing at his skin has become a symbol of Aboriginal pride.