Australian
Screen

Clip description

Charlie’s mates decide to follow up an earlier confrontation with some white boys in school, on the grounds that they must not let the ‘Aussies’ disrespect them. Charlie (Firass Dirani) is initially reluctant but is talked into confronting the white boys outside school. Mutual racial taunting quickly degenerates into violence. A car pulls up and everybody scatters. Charlie’s elder brother John (George Basha) is watching on the other side of the road.

Curator’s notes

There are interesting dynamics on display in this scene. This is not just a case of whites being bullying racists – though they do use racist terms to abuse Charlie and his mates – and the Lebanese Australians being passive victims. We see the start of a cycle of inter-racial violence.

Charlie is initially reluctant to go after the white boys, which gives him a certain redeeming quality. Note however that he quickly gives in to pressure from his mates, and then ups the ante by being the first person to resort to physical contact (shoving the dominant white boy). One of his mates then hits the white boy in a cowardly manner – from behind. (This will echo in a much later scene in which Charlie himself is attacked from behind.)

The scene vividly depicts the racial tension between the white Australians, or ‘Aussies’, and children of ethnic migrants, or ‘wogs’. Interestingly Charlie’s mates, while mostly Lebanese Australian, include one Asian Australian boy. No side is innocent here: both behave in an aggressive manner and use racial epithets to smear the other side.