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Clip description
J (James Frecheville) is travelling as a passenger in Craig’s car in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St Kilda when a couple of youths pull up beside them at traffic lights and insult them. Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) hands J a gun as he follows the other vehicle, then pulls up behind it when the car stops in a side street. He tells J to 'go get 'im … let him know who’s king.’ J gets out and points the gun at the youths, shaking visibly. The youths run off. Craig finds this hilarious.
Curator’s notes
J is now living with the family his mother always kept him away from. The voice-over helps to cement J as the moral centre of an enclosed world dominated by ruthlessly amoral people. The inner narration also establishes that beneath the inarticulate exterior is a young man who is more thoughtful than he might appear.
This gun incident is the first indication that for J, keeping out of trouble is going to be difficult, if not impossible, in his new family. We see he’s too scared of his uncle to stand up to him, and we see that the uncle is a loose cannon, liable to go off at any moment.
