Australian
Screen

Clip description

One of the white stockmen (John Jarratt) tells the senior men in the Aboriginal camp that they will get no tobacco, flour or sugar if the women neglect their work as domestics for Mrs Gunn. When one elder threatens his wife with a stick, Mrs Gunn (Angela Punch McGregor) intervenes, forbidding him to hit her. The intervention gives serious offence.

Curator’s notes

This is a fascinating clip for the way it develops some subtle questions about power relationships. The Aboriginal men are humiliated by John Jarratt’s initial speech. By the end of the clip they have asserted a strong sense of offence at the boundary that Mrs Gunn crosses when she attempts to stop a man threatening his wife with violence. Their humiliation is replaced with indignation, and Goggle Eye (Donald Blitner) has no hesitation in telling Mr Gunn that both he and his wife have done the wrong thing. Even the Aboriginal women disagree with Mrs Gunn’s intervention. Just as she sees violence against a wife as an absolute wrong, they see her interference in domestic Aboriginal matters as an even greater wrong. By the end of the scene, the humiliation has changed sides, which undermines any sense that control is always with ‘the boss’ on this piece of land. The power balance between blacks and whites in this story is precarious – Jeannie’s arrival, and her determination to change attitudes on both sides (see clip three), threatens that balance. It’s clear in the threatening body language of the Aboriginal men in this scene that they feel this could have severe consequences.