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Australia’s missing screen heroines

Hollywood is over-flowing with screen heroines in action films, dramas and comedies, but where are Australia’s?

Two of our most respected film critics/writers have pondered that question and come up with some intriguing theories.

“Is it that so many scripts draw on cinema past? Nothing wrong with that, all art is built on the back of other art, but this might perhaps limit the way writers think about stories," former ABC Radio National critic Julie Rigg posits in the latest edition of AFTRS' journal Lumina.

"Or it is it that, somehow, writers – male and female – find women’s lives uninteresting? I would have to conclude most are just not looking and listening.” 

Rigg, who now writes on film for ABC Arts Online, opines, "It does start with the writing. I do not believe that only women can write well about women…. but it is worthwhile noting that in Australia there are barely more women writing screenplays than there are directing.”

In the same issue, Sydney Morning Herald reviewer Sandra Hall observes, “Internationally we’ve seen a big boom in female action heroes- thanks to the unstoppable rise of the comic book super hero franchise and the popularity of young adult fiction- but Australian movies have remained pretty well untouched by the trend.

“We’re yet to see the re-appearance of the young heroines from novelist John Marsden’s series Tomorrow When the War Began, a sequel to Stuart Beattie’s film of the book has never materialised.”

Hall blames the dearth of Oz screen heroines partly on young actors such as Margot Robbie, who had a breakthrough role in The Wolf of Wall Street, pursuing international careers.

Of the older generation, Cate Blanchett has appeared in just two local films in the past 10 years (Little Fish and a segment of The Turning). Due for release in October via Universal Pictures, Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker is Judy Davis’ first Australian role since Fred Schepisi’s The Eye of the Storm in 2011.

Hall also points to a shortage of cinematic stories about women making their way in the world, unlike TV drama where there are plenty of female lawyers, doctors and detectives.

Looking at Australian films since the early 1990s, Rigg writes, “I can list on my fingers the women characters in whom I can believe. Sad this, until you realise relatively few films are written with female leads.”

Rigg proffers two suggestions to boost the low participation rates of women feature writers and directors. One is the provision of child care to compensate for the long hours in film making and in pre- and post-production.

The other, more controversial proposal: “Young women seeking to enter the industry need to toughen up. It’s as sexist as any other, and you need to learn how to deal with it assertively. Maybe the many film school courses (so many taught by women who once wanted to write or direct) should take this head on, and give women students some special training. I’d start with learning how to pitch your voice, so that your colleagues listen.”

Her article ends with a plea: “Give me, please, some women with juice. They’re out there, leading complicated messy lives. And never, ever ever write a role for a generic girlfriend. Or a generic prostitute.”
 

  1. She is all-Australian, she can fly a speed plane, she can cliff dive, she can sing, she can run, she can parachute, she can whip a man – and she has virtue. She is, however, still kicking to break out of a bestselling WA Australian novel onto the screen. After enquiries, no director working in Australia is up to the job of putting her on the screen, despite the popularity of the novel, so we, the publisher, have sent her to the USA. Pity. But that’s how it is.

  2. Because our producers are not entrepreneurs and have limited imagination. It’s a business…

  3. I agree it’s a problem. However, I attended a screenwriters’ workshop a while ago with a big-name female international writer running it, and every single woman writer (half the writers were female, which is one good sign) was writing a “relationship melodrama” (aka soap opera). The male writers were all writing genre stories, naturally with young guys in the main roles. The problem is getting not just women, but the whole industry, thinking about genre stories.

  4. So bored of hearing women complain about the film industry.

    Guess what ladies, all the men who got where they are worked hard and long, and if you’re not willing to do the same, or you’re not willing to write scripts yourself with strong leading women than you only have yourselves to blame. Men can’t do eveything for you.

    Stop complaining about an industry you are late to the table to in mass numbers, instead just power on in and take what’s yours. You deserve a career as much as men, but don’t blame men for not giving you on a platter what you think you deserve… You must do that yourselves. Round your girlfriends up, tell them to become directors, tell them to write scripts and tell them to start acting. I so many men struggling, but we don’t point the finger at women.

    I think women deserve as much as men, but let’s not point fingers, that’s not how winning is done.

  5. Last year alone had The Babadook, Tracks, and Predestination. While it’s definitely a problem both here and in America (Mad Max: Fury Road can count as both though, but we’re not making ANY superhero films let along those with female leads so that’s a moot point), they’re clearly not actually watching Australian movies if they can count the number of female heroines on her fingers. Hyperbole gets you nowhere. The lack of a sequel to Tomorrow When the War Began is a good point though. Sadly it didn’t do well enough overseas to justify the price tag of a sequel. At least for the distributor – I’m sure Screen Australia would jump at it if they were in the field of actual production.

  6. Whoa whoa whoa, early Australia has great heroine stories to inspire today’s audience. My great grandmother, a bullet train driver in the 1800’s was on of them! As for actresses let’s not forget May Robson who caved a career in the silent movie industry or Louise Nellie Lovely? Their films not accessible now but their story is a living memory of bravery, fierlessness. If you are looking for those woman in our history you will find them.

  7. Don’t blame the writers. Blame the producers who refuse to make the stories articles like this scream out for.

  8. Good to hear Hugh.

    Glad I’m not the only one that recognises women only have themselves to blame. It’s a numbers game. There’s a reasons women feel dominated by men, and that simply boils down to statistics over time. I’d love to see less complaining and finger pointing from women and see more action, when they level our numbers we can all be one big happy family and forgive their ignorance.

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