Race Gender and Sexuality Reaction Paper

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Race Gender

Rabbit-Proof Fence examines the self-empowerment of aboriginal females in Australia. The film is set in the 1930s, when aboriginal Australians were rounded up and placed in re-education camps. This was especially true for bi-racial Australians, known then as "half-castes." Just as re-education camps were an integral part of the oppression of indigenous peoples in North America, they served a similar political purpose in Australia. With their similar histories of colonization by European powers and the systematic subjugation of the indigenous, North America and Australia bare a common historical burden. This burden is explored brilliantly in Rabbit-Proof Fence, which stars Kenneth Branagh.

Rabbit-Proof Fence presents the modern nation-state as being potentially problematic, especially for those who are not accepted into the dominant culture. The dominant culture is European, reflecting the centuries of colonialism and imperialism that caused the political, economic, and social transformation of places like Australia.
Still steeped in colonial values and worldviews, individuals like Neville (Kenneth Branagh) see themselves as being inherently superior to the indigenous populations: to the point of treating others like animals. The concept of forcibly removing children from their homes and placing them into what can easily be called internment camps is an inhumane outcome of the colonialist enterprise the British empire had been practicing for several hundred years before the story of Molly, Daisy, and Gracie.

The film focuses on females as protagonists for good reason: doing so proclaims the imperialist and colonialist enterprises as being inherently patriarchal in nature. Molly, Daisy, Gracie, and eventually Molly and her daughters represent sisterhood and solidarity. It is the presumed superiority of the British, and especially of male British, that leads to the systematic oppression, subjugation, and even outright genocide of non-British subjects. As subjects of the….....

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"Race Gender And Sexuality", 11 December 2011, Accessed.4 June. 2026,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/race-gender-sexuality-115642