Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip from a humorous instructional film made in 1970 by Fred Schepisi teaches secretaries and executives how to improve internal efficiencies in handling business mail. In the clip two actors (siblings Jon and Rhonda Finlayson) play multiple roles that caricature female secretaries and male executives. The actors demonstrate best and worst practices in sorting and handling business mail at an internal mailroom for a large organisation.

Educational value points

• The stereotypes portrayed in the clip reflect gender expectations of work roles in 1970, with the female roles being secretarial and the male roles executive. While the number of women, particularly married women, in the workforce had significantly increased since the Second World War, work roles were still often gender defined. The Affirmative Action (Equal Employment Opportunity for Women) Act 1986 attempted to improve this situation.

• The creative vision of director Fred Schepisi (1939–) is evident in the clip. Schepisi adventurously chose a humorous approach to this training film, made early in his career, in order to engage the interest of the audience – business clients of the Australian Post Office. The youthful energetic ‘mod’ approach to the film is intended to make the potentially dull subject matter more appealing and therefore more memorable to the audience.

• Although he has a speaking part, the presenter wears the make-up of a mime artist. Mime is traditionally performed in a theatre without words for comedic effect and is one of the oldest forms of theatre, with origins in Greek pantomimes. The purpose of the mime make-up here is to clearly signal the comedic nature of the film to the audience.

• Iconic 1960s fashions are shown in the clip, particularly in the women’s style of dress. The female fashions shown here include beehive hairstyles, miniskirts, false eyelashes, floral fashion prints and a maxi-dress. The men wear suits, shirts and ties, reflecting the gendered expectations of dress of the time. The clip also depicts smoking in the workplace (notably only by the male actor) at a time when smoking at workplaces was still permitted.

• This quirky offbeat training film aims to improve internal efficiencies for business clients of the Australian Post Office using humour and contemporary references. It tackles costly practices such as incorrectly addressing and posting mail. Equipment such as labelled mailbags and employee directories are demonstrated as saving time and expense in ensuring that mail gets to the right destination.