Dimensions
152 x 229 x 25mm
The
bushranger legend is an important component of Australia’s cultural history,
with names like Ned Kelly and Ben Hall still provoking strong, if ambivalent,
responses. Storytellers mobilize this legend in unique and exciting ways that
reflect upon both the cultural and actual history of bushrangers, as well as
speaking to contemporary concerns and driving debate on the national
character. This is a multidisciplinary investigation into the
history of cultural representations of the bushranger legend on the stage and
screen, charting that history from its origins in colonial theatre works
performed while bushrangers still roamed Australia’s bush to contemporary
Australian cinema. It considers the influences of industrial, political and
social disruptions on these representations as well as their contributions to
those disruptions.
The cultural history recounted provides not only an into
the role of popular narrative representations of bushrangers in the
development and reflection of Australian character, but also a detailed case
study of the specific mechanisms at work in the symbiosis between a nation’s
values and its creative production. Bushrangers have had a heightened though
unstable significance in Australia due to the nation’s diverse population and
historical insecurities and conflicts over colonial identity, land rights and
settlement. Community often defined the bushrangers in their stage and screen
appearances, and the challenges that these marginalized communities faced
were absorbed into the political and social mainstream.
