Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows a tense scene at a family dinner table, where the parents of two teenage girls are having to defend their decision not to allow their younger daughter, Susan, to attend a party. Susan reacts to the decision by deflecting the argument to her older sister’s pregnancy. The next scene takes place in the girls’ bedroom where the two girls are in bed, discussing their parents’ attitudes as well as exploring their own understandings of personal, emotional and sexual relationships. Jenny, the older sister, quickly ends the exchange and Susan looks unsatisfied with her answers.

Educational value points

• The scenes in the clip raise questions about family relationships and expectations, teenagers, restrictions on personal freedom and the effect that an unplanned teenage pregnancy can have on individuals and families. In the 1980s, when the program was made, the contraceptive pill had been available in Australia for 20 years. The provision of basic sex education classes in schools at the time probably explains Susan knowing about the pill, but she still seeks to understand relationships.

• Although this clip is from a film made in 1985 it still has relevance for young people in Australia today. A 2006 study conducted by the World Health Organization and published in the Lancet medical journal reveals that, despite 80 years of family planning services in Australia, the number of unplanned pregnancies, including teenage pregnancies, is rising.

• The issues of teenage sexuality and relationships, the subjects of this clip, are of concern to Australian teenagers, with the most recent National Survey of Secondary Students, conducted in 2002, indicating that most Australian teenagers are sexually active and most teenagers do not always practise safe sex. Ten per cent of teenagers in the survey used no contraception at their most recent sexual encounter. About half of all teenage pregnancies occur within the first 6 months of the teenagers becoming sexually active.

• The clip is from the telemovie Just Friends, from the much-awarded series Winners, produced by the Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF). The ACTF was established to develop a local children’s television production industry and to ensure that Australian children would have access to quality Australian programs. Under the direction of Patricia Edgar, who joined the Australian Broadcasting Control Board in 1975 and later became the founding director of the ACTF, a system of regulation was introduced to improve the production of programs made specifically for children. The Winners series was the ACTF’s first major production and an outstanding success.

• The collaborative work of two Australian filmmakers is shown here, that of director Michael Pattinson and screenwriter Jan Sardi. Sardi’s feature films include the Oscar-nominated Shine (1996), and the two collaborated on several films including Ground Zero (1988), which received nine AFI awards, as well as Secrets (1992) and Moving Out (1983), both of which can be classified as teen dramas. They have worked extensively for television and the telemovie Just Friends, from which the clip is taken, received the Best Children’s Video Award at the Chicago International Festival of Children’s Films.

• All of the television films that were part of the Winners series, including Just Friends, were published as novels by Penguin under the Puffin imprint. The novels are useful adjuncts to the television series. The novel Just Friends was written by screenwriter Jan Sardi.