AustLit

'This article examines the sensational 1942–43 trial of Hollywood’s leading man, Australian actor Errol Flynn. One purpose of this article is to track the trial’s course and social reverberations offering valuable insights into a critical historical precedent to the recent #MeToo movement. The article’s other purpose is to place the trial story, centred in America’s ‘film colony’ of Hollywood, in the context of Flynn’s backstory in Australia’s colonies of Papua and New Guinea, a period of Flynn’s life that ended only nine years before his trial. This article connects Flynn’s sexual experiences in New Guinea, especially his celebration of sex with very young New Guinea girls, with Hollywood’s sexual exploitation of teenage girls, a culture exposed by Flynn’s trial but ultimately condoned by a court in wartime America. The article interrogates Flynn’s role in circulating ideas about sex with underage girls and their implications in the past and present.' (Publication abstract)

'On an overcast Monday in March 2021, ten thousand people flooded into Melbourne’s Treasury Gardens for the March4Justice. It was a public outpouring of rage in response to a belated #MeToo moment within Australian federal politics. After sexual assault campaigner Grace Tame was named Australian of the Year, former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins went public with allegations she had been raped in Parliament House. Mere weeks later, a historic rape allegation against Attorney-General Christian Porter hit the headlines. To all appearances, the scourge of sexual violence was running rampant within the highest offices in the country. In Treasury Gardens, the crowd voiced their disgust, joining a chorus of 110,000 at over forty events across the country. Many of those holding signs were older women, veterans of Women’s liberation, who expressed dismay that – five decades on – they were still protesting rape and gendered violence. From beneath the plane trees, march organisers led the Melbourne crowd in a rendition of Helen Reddy’s 1972 single ‘I Am Woman’. The anthem of women’s lib was back to rouse the masses once more.'  (Introduction)

'These two books both have the Uluru Statement in their title and share the same publisher. In one sense, they are a mirror image of each other. Everything You Need to Know about the Uluru Statement from the Heart is a clearly written and accessible text explaining constitutional law that also narrates, addresses, and advocates history, while Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement, also clear and accessible, is a work of history that is concerned with the law. They also complement each other. Megan Davis and George Williams explain how truth-telling came to be part of the Uluru Statement, while Henry Reynolds outlines what he sees as the historical truths that must be told and indicates where he thinks truth-telling processes might lead. Yet the content of the two books is very different. If we consider the Uluru Statement slogan ‘Voice, Treaty, Truth’, then Everything You Need to Know is primarily about Voice, while Truth-Telling is about Treaty and Truth. For historians, Everything You Need to Know is a must-read. While many historians will find that Truth-Telling covers some very familiar ground, its last few chapters send out an important challenge to the way we remember and commemorate some key figures in Australian political history. Reynolds suggests we ask some tough new questions, for example: should Griffith University change its name?'  (Introduction)

'Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver’s book, The Colonial Kangaroo Hunt, provides an important stimulus for the study of kangaroos in the colonial setting of Australia, a topic that took hold of the British imagination during the years between 1770 and 1900. While the book focuses primarily on a historical review of kangaroo killing as a manifestation of frontier experiences, it also draws on a range of source material, including images (oil paintings, sketches, watercolours, and lithographs) and texts (letters, memoirs, popular journalism, poetry, novels, and fantasies), to examine the interconnections between hunting practices and colonial development in Australia.'  (Introduction)

'What traces did Australian radio and television audiences leave when their listening and viewing was over? Today, registered users of audio and video streaming services make indelible digital imprints everywhere they go. Earlier listeners and viewers of ephemeral broadcast signals did not. Audience research arose to quantify and understand their behaviour. Bridget Griffen-Foley has gone looking for evidence about that behaviour in unusual places.'  (Introduction)