Backbencher

As many of you know, the rabbit proof fence is a story of three aboriginal girls, Molly, Daisy and Gracie, who in the 1930’s escaped the Moore River Native settlement and returned home to Jigalong by use of the rabbit proof fence. I have viewed the movie and have just finished the book which for obvious reasons is very different. For instance, the movie puts a lot of emphasis on the Chief Protector of the Aborigines Mr. Neville where he is hardly mentioned in the book. Also the book talks about the Marbu “sharp-toothed, flesh-eating evil spirit that has been around since Dreamtime” that is used to scare the children so they do not try to escape. I do not recall this being incorporated into the movie. Also, the introduction and first couple chapters of the book give us some detail into the life of an Aborigine which is not in the movie. The author of the book, Doris Pilkington, states that Aborigines were illiterate and did not use numbers or dates. “Nature was their social calendar, everything was measured by events and incidents affected by seasonal changes. … time was also marked by activities of cultural and ceremonial significance…Seasonal time and not numbers is important in recounting this journey.”

To start from the beginning, the girls were removed from their homeland because it was believed that they were not being treated fairly. Because of the fact that they were half-caste children, the other children would not play with them and only ridiculed them. The girls sailed for five days down the West coast to arrive at the port of Fremantle and then on to Perth. The movie has no account of their experiences on the way to the settlement. The book makes it seem that the girls actually enjoyed their experience as they traveled to Perth. They saw large bodies of water and vegetation that they had never seen before. Missing their family seemed to be the only thing that drove them to walk across the rough terrain of Australia for nine weeks.

There were few similarities between the book and the movie. The use of farmhouses and stations for food and shelter was the only thing that seemed to match up. If you have seen the movie I strongly urge you to read the book and get the real account of what happened. The movie was good at dramatizing everything but left out the happy times (even though few). The book gives the story from the side of an Aboriginal where the movie is made only to entertain and not educate.