The girl with the bush knife: women, adventure and the tropics in Age of Consent and Nim's Island
Journal Publication ResearchOnline@JCUAbstract
The paper concerns the distinction of the heroines, Cora in Age of Consent(dir. Michael Powell 1969)and Nim of Nim's Island (d. Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett, 2008), from the more typical ‘bush women’ of Australian cinema and literature. The figure of the title, the 'girl with the bush knife', refers to the way both heroines adapt to their respective tropical environments as Cora hunts on the Barrier Reef, and Nim is a child adventurer on an island. Their appearances in films 40 years apart are as much the object of inquiry as the femininities they perform, in that these films also represent minor milestones in Australian cinema at points at which the film industry has undergone change. The contexts of these changes are signified by the use of tropical locations and settings, and attention is drawn therefore to the way these female characters are accompanied by the spectacle of the tropical place in its difference from the more mythologised bush and desert landscapes of Australian cinema.
Journal
Etropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics
Publication Name
Etropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics
Volume
9
ISBN/ISSN
1448-2940
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Pages Count
11
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Publisher
James Cook University
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