Rabbit Proof Fence, a film that moves the souls of human beings is a real life heartbreaking story of three little girls set in the 1930s that shows how the aborigine children were taken against their will and made to live with the white families who promised to provide them a good life and secure their future. The children of mixed race known as the ‘half-castes’ were placed in the remotely located detention centers to integrate them in the Australian society and were trained to work as servants or maids in the homes of the white people. The film shows how the three little girls escape from these centers and their quest for reunion with their family.
The prominent issues that are addressed in the movie are the Australian government trying to reduce the number of aboriginal people because of their color. Mr.A.O.Neville who is in-charge of finding and sending these half-castes to the camps tries to eradicate the future of aboriginal people. The movie also shows bonding between the family members, and a sense of kinship. It is very disheartening to see how Molly, Gracie and Daisy are forcibly taken away from their mother in a jeep all the way till the Moore River to the resettlement camp. The colonized and the colonizers have been depicted to a great extent where the colonizers assume that they have high culture and possess the power to mentally disturb the uncivilized and aboriginal people. The film shows multiple examples of the activities and philosophies of both the groups. The theme of the film speaks about the racism and how the whites wanted to abolish the black color. The relationship between the colonized and the colonizer is a mystery as Molly’s father left his family and went on to work on the rabbit fence for the whites. Men were the primary target of policy, and, as such they were the natives, and so were visible (Oyewumi, 1997). This shows the supreme power the whites had on the aboriginal’s and they used them for their benefit.
There are some interesting facts in the film when Mr.Neville calls one aboriginal girl in the camp to check if she has any traces of white color by looking at her back. It was completely illogical and made me think if he was trying some scientific method to determine the white color in that girl. Molly’s mother has faith in the eagle that keeps flying in their village and she believes that the eagle will look after her and the family. The determination and will-power of the 14 year old to be with her mother is appealing. She fights all the odds and never loses hopes even after encountering multiple hurdles in her journey along the lines of Rabbit-Proof Fence.
One native selfish person offers to help Molly and her sisters by asking them to board a train, and Gracie gets easily convinced without knowing that he has laid a trap with the constable for some money to catch them. This is quite unsettling as that native person does not have any humanity towards these little girls though he knows their struggle. A predictable scene is where a maid who has been trained in Moore Rivers settlement camp tries to help these girls by allowing them to stay with her at night, and the house owner enters her room for sex with her. Knowing the promises of the Australian government for a better future of the aboriginals it’s quite annoying to understand what the future of these girls could be, if they had not escaped. Women also experience sexual abuse in situations where their other human rights are being violated, as political prisoners or members of persecuted ethnic groups for example (Bunch, 1990).
The climax of the film made me glad to see the reunion of Molly and Daisy with her mother but at the same time it is sad to know that the policy to eradicate aboriginals still existed even till 1970. Molly was re-captured after a few years as per the aboriginal law and she escaped again following the rabbit-proof fence. She had strong instinct and a never give up attitude. Many of these aboriginal people continue to suffer even today from destruction of identity, family life, and culture. They are called stolen generation.
References
Oyewumi, Oyeronke., (1997). The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. University of Minnesota Press.
Bunch, Charlotte., (1990). Human Rights Quarterly 12: Women’s Rights as Human Rights: Toward a Re-vision of Human Rights. (pp.486-498). The Johns Hopkins University Press.
