The three main discourses that are frequently used are referred to as the ‘anthropological’, the
‘Romantic’ and lastly the ‘racist’.
Firstly when discussing ‘anthropological’ Muecke states that this particular discourse refers to it as a
object of study in regards to the concept of man, and more importantly the philosophy around the
reproduction of ‘mankind,” for example, “by knowing more about how Australian aborigines think
and behave, we are widening our knowledge of human beings not just in empirical terms, but
theoretically as well. We cannot afford to ignore any of the variations on the common theme of
man's adjustment to his natural and social environment.” (Muecke,2005). During this time many
indigenous people were executed in the name of research and science, many indigenous remains
are still in the property of many private or institutional collections including some of the more wellknown Australian state museums (Daly,2014).
The romantic is in terms characterised towards the more fetishized representation of aboriginal
people, the fascination in the ‘primitive’ and ‘savage’, when looking at the term, Muecke uses a
picture of a small indigenous girl, he states that the little girl is of colour, with tears streaming down
her face, the little girl appears to be wearing no clothes, the idea that this child was used as a type of
marketing to what an indigenous child looks like, and allows many to try and sympathize with these
kids, this allows people to think they can help and protect them, when in reality they are moulding
them into their image.
And lastly the racist, this discourse can be seen even today with very little change to how it is used in
regard to language, this particular discourse in Muecke’s opinion does two things it utilizes a series
of metaphors that displace the designation of people away from adult humans to children, animals
and inanimate objects, which are subject only to the laws of nature
All three of these discourses have similarities throughout each other as Muecke states they are
articulated on perceptions of differences, each of these discourses starts with one point of
difference between 'us' and 'them', which they might first seek to elide, and then proceed to
articulate new differences at different levels.
In the movie Jedda the two discourses are ‘the romantic’ which references Jedda in a sexual or
fantasied way, through the eyes of both Marbuck and Joe, however the difference is how Jedda is
sexualized, for example, when Jedda is kidnapped by Marbuck gradually throughout the movie her
character is slightly shown to becoming more ‘primitive’ her clothes are becoming more torn and
less resembling that of European clothing showing the almost ‘savage’ way and nature of the
Indigenous way, and then through joes perceptive Jedda is seen as ladylike and clean, she lives with
her adoptive family as is portrayed as a real European lady, with very intense motions of
sexualization.
Secondly ‘the racist’ this is largely portrayed throughout this movie but is somewhat hidden and
exclusive, an example is Sarah’s attitude towards the Indigenous people who live on the settlement,
when Jedda is a child she is not allowed to interact with them, she is not allowed to partake in any
Indigenous activities, when Jedda becomes interested in going walkabout, Sarah imprints things like
they are walking around naked and even referred to them as monkeys, this type of language is used
very causally and Jedda even seems to joke about it. .
In regard to more modern-day issues I can identify one frequent discourse, the ‘racist’ an example of
a modern issue is police brutality.
(Guardian,2018) “After scouring the latest available reports and making data requests of every state
and territory, many of whom said they did not have the time or the resources to dig up the numbers,
we arrived at the vague figure of “more than 340” This number is associated to the amount of
people believed to be killed in police custody, this also includes a 2015 case, this case is shown
through the media regarding the particular victim and a lot of comments such as “they were a
criminal” and “shouldn’t of broke the law” are left unpunished because today’s society cares very
little about the emotional impact, and are just so normalized in society that people don’t even look
at these as the issue but more the reality of the problem that it speaks truth, referencing back to
Muecke’s book about how European settlers maintain dialogue associating aboriginals as ‘they’ or
‘them’ I can almost see a link to how now there address them as ‘ criminals’ ‘alcoholics’ and ‘dolebulgers’.
Chauvel, (1955), Jedda, Australia.
Daley,P. (2014 June 14th), The bone collectors: a brutal chapter in Australia's past, Retrieved from
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/14/aboriginal-bones-being-returned-australia
Muecke,2005, Textual spaces; aboriginality and cultural studies, Rev. ed, available discourse on
aborigines, API Network, Australian Research Institute, Curtin University of Technology
Wahlquist, C. Evershed, N. Allam, L. (2018 August, 28th ) We examined every Indigenous death in
custody since 2008. This is why, Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/australianews/2018/aug/28/we-examined-every-indigenous-death-in-custody-since-2008-this-is-why