AustLit

'Australian cinema has played and continues to play an important part in the formation and formulation of Australia. This article explores the relation between Australia and empire through the analysis of three iconic cinematic characters: Barry McKenzie, Mick Dundee and Kenny Smyth. The point of departure is the notion that Australianness has been constructed as an identity caught between empires, between the old (British) empire and the new (American) empire. Australian cinema itself has been for most (if not all) of its history caught between the British Empire and the American Empire. Yet, recently there are signs that Australian films are repositioning Australia as part of the Global Village, suggesting that Australian national identity might be moving beyond the imperial articulations of Australianness. The evolution of the relation between Australia and Anglo-Empire symbolized by the three characters studied here hints at the possibility of a twenty-first century post-imperial Australiannes.' (Author's abstract)

'This article examines the claims of truth and authenticity that accompanied the 2009 release of the Australian film Cedar Boys (Caradee, 2009) in its representation of Lebanese-Australian youth as a cultural minority group in Australia. Critical responses in Australia were enthusiastic about what was interpreted as a positive representation of a cultural minority group that is often maligned in mainstream Australian media, particularly since the race riots in Sydney in 2005 which saw violent clashes between groups of Lebanese-Australian and Anglo-Australian youths. This article argues that, far from transcending the cultural stereotypes that abound in the media, Cedar Boys reinforces a cultural `atrophy', characterized in the film by the young Lebanese-Australian protagonist's failed pursuit of a blonde white woman who, in addition to her sexual allure in the eyes of the young man, represents a seemingly unattainable `trophy' of mutual cultural understanding between mainstream and minority in the bleak landscape that is mapped out in the film for the Lebanese-Australian youth.' (Author's abstract)