Race Gender and Sexuality

Race Gender

Rabbit-Proof Fence examines the self-empowerment of aboriginal females in Australia. The film is set in the 1930s, when aboriginal Australians were rounded up and placed in re-education camps. This was especially true for bi-racial Australians, known then as "half-castes." Just as re-education camps were an integral part of the oppression of indigenous peoples in North America, they served a similar political purpose in Australia. With their similar histories of colonization by European powers and the systematic subjugation of the indigenous, North America and Australia bare a common historical burden. This burden is explored brilliantly in Rabbit-Proof Fence, which stars Kenneth Branagh.

Rabbit-Proof Fence presents the modern nation-state as being potentially problematic, especially for those who are not accepted into the dominant culture. The dominant culture is European, reflecting the centuries of colonialism and imperialism that caused the political, economic, and social transformation of places like Australia. Still steeped in colonial values and worldviews, individuals like Neville (Kenneth Branagh) see themselves as being inherently superior to the indigenous populations: to the point of treating others like animals. The concept of forcibly removing children from their homes and placing them into what can easily be called internment camps is an inhumane outcome of the colonialist enterprise the British empire had been practicing for several hundred years before the story of Molly, Daisy, and Gracie.

The film focuses on females as protagonists for good reason: doing so proclaims the imperialist and colonialist enterprises as being inherently patriarchal in nature. Molly, Daisy, Gracie, and eventually Molly and her daughters represent sisterhood and solidarity. It is the presumed superiority of the British, and especially of male British, that leads to the systematic oppression, subjugation, and even outright genocide of non-British subjects. As subjects of the crown, the original inhabitants of Australia are ironically in a black hole of citizenship. They are bereft of their original identity as members of their tribes -- which are the closest thing to nationalism that an aboriginal might conceive -- and yet are unwelcome into the newly imposed political structure of the British-Australian political economy.

Thus, the girls portrayed in Rabbit-Proof Fence are powerful symbols and reminders of the tyranny of colonialism. Racism is at the root of the re-education camp concept, as the inmates of this camp are to be slaves and servants once they have been fully dehumanized. The tracker, Moodoo, serves an important role in the film in that he is aboriginal but has sold his soul to work for the Australian authorities. His complicity sends a powerful message of patriarchy: it is patriarchy that oppresses the girls more than any other social or political force. Moodoo might never be fully accepted into mainstream European-Australian society but his desire to participate in and by accepted by the political economy and British hegemony proves to be as nefarious as the Australian system itself.