We of the Never Never
Clip 1: ‘This is your domestic staff’
3 min 10 sec
Taken from the feature We of the Never Never (1982)
Original title classification M – this clip chosen to be PG
Availability of the complete title
Please be aware that this clip may contain the names, images and voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may now be deceased.
Curator’s clip description
On her first morning at Elsey Station, Jeannie Gunn (Angela Punch McGregor) meets the three Aboriginal women who are supposed to be her domestics. The ‘boss’ girl Rosie (Mawuyul Yanthalawny) speaks very little English, and Jeannie knows no Pidgin.
Curator’s notes
The question of a woman’s place is one of the classic dramatic ‘problems’ of Australian cinema, especially in outback stories. We of the Never Never is a prime example, but the film’s origins in the book show that it is a dilemma that predates most Australian cinema. Mrs Gunn shelters under the eaves of the house in the early part of the scene, wearing a high-collared dress that’s completely wrong for the climate. The white men can move about on horseback in practical clothing; a white woman, by inference, can’t even go into the sun. When she steps off the porch, Mrs Gunn breaks through that psychic barrier, but it’s the smallest of the many steps she will need to take to adapt. At the same time, the black women are shown as reluctant to enter the shade of the house, until specifically told to. They are completely comfortable in the sun, in that sense, although there’s a clear sense that they are present only because of coercion (the horseman who rides behind them). The woman in the middle of this group actually scowls at Mrs Gunn with fairly open contempt. Like the men who help her husband, these women regard her as a foreign presence. All of these people have a place in this landscape – but not a white woman. The film is largely about Jeannie Gunn’s attempt to earn her place.
Paul Byrnes, curator
