And, in terms of the mateship of the bushman, Moore suggests that there are mainly two general comments on it. First, in the bushman's lives, the lack of women and religion led to the semi-religious character of bush mateship that served to fight against not only the hazards but also the loneliness they experienced. Second, the virtues of faith and loyalty in bush mateship meant that mates stuck together through thick and thin to the extent that self-sacrifice of one's own life for saving that of his mate would be expected if in need.
Bush mateship is respected as a genuine, selfless male bonding, on the other hand, not everyone shares such sentiment. Thompson provides significant evidence in her book and challenges the view of the bushman as the figure of noble heroes. She argues that bush mateship is sexist, as it developed not merely because of the shortage of women, but also the biased attitude towards women held by the pastoral employers. The employers were only willing to employ single men without wives and children as their encumbrances because they did not want to support the unproductive labourers (e.g. women were pregnant and nursing their children). In addition to being sexist, Thompson argues that bush mateship is also racist. Aboriginal women were trapped as slaves for the sexual needs of the white men in the outback. And in fact, as Thompson points out, the convict women faces a similar adversity as the Aboriginal women in the outback. The outnumbering of men to women in the convict settlement led to the formation of male mateship as well as the bullying of the minority: women.
Overall, the bushman legend is acknowledged as a largely mythical creature regardless of the reality elements. The value of bush mateship, on the other hand, is controversial. The traditional picture of bushmen as a noble male who stayed only with his mates for accomplishing great jobs is conflicted with another picture. This alternative picture describes so-called noble bushmen as a group who lived in their monotonous and oppressing bush lives kidnapped, abused, raped and traded black women. Such conflicting outlooks, actually, are useful and valuable when intending to probe the notion of mateship in depth.
The Gold Rushes
The gold rushes, which began in the 1850s, strengthened the tradition of mateship. The search for gold brought to Australia a large group of migrant: they were usually men, who were tough, adventurous and determined to make a quick fortune. These gold diggers were bound together to seek their gold, since the hardship of gold searching was simply too hard to fight against individually. Along with the physical difficulty, the unjust taxes and the authorities were another threat to the gold miners, adding extra burdens to their already hard work. The distrust and disaffection of the Victorian Government and its policies resulted in the unification of the gold miners and a series of protests. The protesting incidents and the subsequent Eureka Stockade Massacre brought to the people strong feelings of egalitarianism and individual rights. In addition, the sceptical attitude towards authority, which had been characteristic of early settlement, was significantly confirmed during the gold rush period. Culling indicates that these feelings culminated in the formation of the view that by the end of the nineteenth century, Australia was thought of as a battleground for social and political reform. The difficult lives of the gold diggers and the role of Australian men as battlers laid stress on masculinity and physical strength. Such emphasis led to further masculinization of Australian society. The stereotype of men being tough, strong and masculine was therefore strengthened. Most importantly, the fight for collective good and the view that every man is equal even transcended the competition between individuals on the goldfields and sometimes the divisions of classes and nations. That is because the scepticism about authority made for the bonding of mates and the support for them to become more imperative.
On the other hand, there is an exception in such great social cohesion. What should not be omitted when celebrating the mateship of the gold diggers is the hostility towards the Chinese diggers. As the major rival in the competition of gold searching on the goldfields, the Chinese miners were subjected to racism. As Moore suggests, the intolerance directed against the Chinese is a blemish in the mateship of the gold diggers simply because the claimed virtue of egalitarianism was not completely fulfilled.
In sum, the value of mateship is evident in a way that a kind of social cohesion and harmony can possibly be achieved by reinforcing its influence. However, the way in which mateship is used is the crucial question.
The Union
Australian unionism has its origin in 1855. One of its major aims is to protect Australian workers from the oppression and exploitation of the unjust employers. What is more important here, however, is that unionism played a very significant role in the development and entrenchment of Australian mateship, and these two factors are reciprocal. Like the gold rushes, the union movement was a male dominated community in which the rules of mateship became the criteria for membership. The codes of mateship such as the values of loyalty, egalitarianism and solidarity combined working men together as a strong and cohesive group to fight for their rights. In addition, the strength and importance of the bond of loyalty among the working men were elevated to a new level of height that reinforced their group cohesion significantly. The mateship of the union men was directed against the employing class in industrial warfare and anyone who broke this code would be denounced as traitors. Moore indicates that strikebreaking by a 'scab' was a betrayal of his mates - the most unforgivable sin in the unionist group.
Along with this, the notion of democracy is another element of mateship that encouraged unionism tremendously. In terms of democracy, the American view of this emphasizes individual efforts of achievement, but in Australia, democracy comes from the freedom to join mates for a common good. According to Ward , if the Australian democracy, the freedom to combine people for their collective interests, had not been so highly valued in the ideals of mateship, the Australian labour movement could not have been much more collectivistic and powerful than that of the American movement at large.
For resisting the oppression and exploitation of unjust employers, mateship was proven again to be the key during those days. Men's solidarity and their collective efforts to strive for better wages and working conditions achieved great success that, as a result, reinforced the values of mateship significantly. Mateship brought to the working men a better life. It was too enticing to stay away from it. By the end of the 19th century, mateship had become a very strong force in Australia. The famous Australian film, (1975), is regarded as an excellent work, which portrays and examines the mateship of the working men in the unionist group. The film tells the story of how Australian shearers lived in 1950s with all the loneliness, okerism, pride and mateship. As Bennett indicates, Sunday is a film, which celebrates the old Australian ideal of mateship in the context of the union.
However, Edgar argues that mateship was the weapon used by men to suppress women's liberation at the time. As manufacturing and financial industries grew, men were driven by the increasing threat of female workers. The working men, therefore, combined together to protect themselves for their own benefit. The traditional belief that men are responsible for supporting their families made the male workers give priority over the rights of any women in regards to employment. Consequently, the rise of trade unions and the force of mateship significantly diminished the opportunity for women to fend for themselves or even earn an independent income.
By and large, the continuing emphasis placed on mateship as it has been seen in the gold rushes and the union periods bears witness to the fact that mateship did serve men well in the past by organizing the mates for their common good. Yet, the intolerance and the exclusion of the other render the idea narrow and restricted.
The World Wars
In the 20th century, the World Wars, especially the World War One, are undoubtedly the perfect and most significant occasions on which Australian men put the ethos of mateship into practice and as a result, elevated mateship to an unprecedented level. Since the wartime conditions such as the presence of external threats, the absence of women and institutional religion, created a confining and dangerous environment for fighting servicemen, mateship once again functioned as spiritual strength for conflict and survival. In the First World War, Australian soldiers were viewed as fighting for God, for the King and most importantly for their country and justice. Therefore, such significant virtues of mateship as the self-sacrifice of mates, the values of solidarity and struggle for collective good were highly respected and celebrated that mateship became a powerful ideology of the fighting servicemen as well as the society at large. Rattiganindicates that the heroic behaviours of Australian soldiers conferred nationhood on Australia for the first time since the acquirement of legal status of the country as one nation. From the respect and importance placed on the events of Gallipoli and the Anzac history in general, it is evident how significant the Great War experience means to Australians. According to Edgar , the First World War brought mateship into a new phase. The fraternity of men expends to such an extent that a man's mate can be a complete stranger as long as they are directed for a common goal. And, such a view led to the sort of mateship that typifies the men at local pubs or the team members of sport clubs.
On the other hand, however, Culling points out that the cruel reality of warfare resulted in the Australians' rethinking of war itself and the true meaning of being a battler. Consequently, although mateship was still valued, its sacrificial element was of less importance when it came to the Second World War.
There are many Australian films about Gallipoli and the Anzac experience, but (1982) is definitely an important one.
Such phases of development indicate how Australian mateship evolved from its original concept as a necessary bonding of men for survival and working relationship to the level of mythology and as a basis for national ideologies. And, undoubtedly, by examining the influential idea from different points of view, its significance and implications would become clearer and not be one-sided.
Contemporary Development
Mateship in the past was formed out of the necessity for companionship, working partners or survival. As Townsend points out, mateship is increasingly replaced by friendship and other family bonds in the modern world. And mateship, nowadays, is probably reserved for male groups where traditional values of male dependency are crucial, for example, the arm force and the football clubs. However, as Edgar points out, the advent of feminism in Australia probably has the greatest influence on the ethos of Australian mateship. After about three decades of feminist movement, feminism has achieved a great deal to redefine what it is to be a woman in society nowadays. In Australia, womanhood, motherhood and women's social status have been under scrutiny and being worked out since the hit of feminist movement in the early 1970s. Women no longer remain silent on sexism or any other discrimination. The traditions of mateship, especially the exclusion of women, are inevitably under significant challenges.
In addition, according to Culling , another significant impact on the institution of Australian mateship is the advent of television in 1956. The TV made the Australian male self-image and the values of mateship come under significant threat. The television broadened the Australians' horizons by bringing the world events into their home. After the facing of the outside world, the comfortable self-satisfaction in Australia since the late 40s came to an end. The anti-war movement, the emergence of hippies and the music and drug scene in the 60s had a great impact on not only the society but also the male image. The strong and tough male image that has been valued in traditional mateship for a long time were challenged by long-haired male hippies, who were against war and with flowers in their hair. In addition, it is important to note that when comparing Australians' attitudes towards the World Wars with that towards the Vietnam War, the lack of public support for the Vietnam War was obvious. That bears witness to the fact that Australian men was no longer supposed to die for a country to prove himself as a real men.
To sum up, mateship is an ambiguous concept, which has its good elements and its dark side as well. To different people or groups, mateship can be defined totally differently. The discussion here does not aim to reinforce or overturn the institution. Rather, it intends to indicate that continuing examinations from different points of view are the key to express and extend the influential idea.
Gallipoli
Cultural identity is the major aspect of Australian cinema, which aims to represent and construct. As Rattigan argues, Australian cinema is a culturally conscious medium, which seldom naturalizes social phenomenon and experience as commonplace through cultural perceptions as compared to what American cinema. But rather, there is always another level of consciousness that tries to present or question what Australia is and who Australians are. In the 1970s, Australian cinema entered a new period in which the search for Australian identity and its representation were of first and foremost important. That resulted partly from government support (e.g. the Australia Film Development Corporation and the Australian Film Commission) and partly from the advent of the Australian cultural revival and the public's strong desire for self-representation on screen.
According to Rattigan , the period between 1970 and 1982 saw two significant phases of development in Australian cinema since its renaissance. In the first few years of the 1970s, there were largely enthusiastic experiments of both content and technical skills in film production. By 1976, it was evident that with the mature development of the Australian cultural revival, Australian cinema reached another level. McFarlane indicates that the local film production industry, with its acquired confidence of filming techniques, had discovered its material and its themes in the search for Australianness, particularly in the mythical facet. From the mid-1970s to 1982, a fertile ground for large quantity and high quality film production was seen and the myths and realities of Australian life were the main direction. Many of the most famous films and those given classic status of the New Australian Cinema were from this period, such as , Sunday Too Far Away and . As this paper is concerned with the image of mateship in Australian cinema, mateship is one of the major elements in Australian national identity. And, since the 1970s were such a flourishing and important period for genre films that owned so much to Australian cultural identity, the representation of mateship in Gallipoli, a local film directed by Peter Weir in 1982 will be examined in this section. There are several reasons for choosing Gallipoli as this section's focus. Firstly, the film aroused a lot of controversy about the way it represents the war history and the myth. Secondly, the film was a box-office success that bears witness to the fact that Gallipoli had the ability to draw people's attention and meant something important to the audience.
In terms of projecting mateship, this paper finds that the film, Gallipoli, is overtly concerned to present, celebrate and reinforce the traditions of the institution. As discussed in the Historical Background section, the phenomenon of mateship in Australia derives from the formation of male bonding out of necessity in difficult context. In addition, Moore puts forwards that mateship in general can be divided into two broad categories: the exclusive one and the inclusive. The exclusive type of mateship is directed against a third group, whereas the inclusive type is directed against a situation, loneliness, danger and death or towards an ideal. In Gallipoli, the inclusive type of mateship is portrayed, but what is more important is that the representation is conventional rather than critical.
Gallipoli is more a film about mateship than a war drama. The plot about Archy (Mark Lee) and Frank ( Mel Gibson), the two heroes in the film, is evidently designed to embody and glorify the old Australian ideal of mateship. The central characters, Archy and Frank with two sharply contrasted temperaments, begin their mateship in a running competition. Archy is a patriotic young man who is strong, courageous and determined to fight for his country in the World War One. Frank, on the other hand, is shrewder, more realistic and cynical. In the beginning of the film, they compete with each other (in a running race) and they also disagree with each other about the meaning of fighting at war (that is represented by the colours of their costumes as well, Archy in white, Frank in black). However, the mateship between them is fostered in an isolated and difficult environment (the crossing of the Western Australian desert) where they need to rely on each other to overcome the hardship. After a series of difficult and mutual adventures, the feelings of truth and freemasonry are growing between Archy and Frank. Their bond of mateship leads to the dissolution of their disagreement that results in Frank's joining up in the end. Although Frank gives himself an excuse that he can take advantage of the status as a retired soldier when he comes back from the front, his desperation for participating the arm force shows that he actually does not want to be separated from his best mate, Archy.
Their mateship is reinforced when Archy and Frank reunite in the arm force at Galliopli. The reunion is significant because it confirms not only the solidarity of their mateship, but also other values of mateship in general. The sequence of their racing in the sand and climb to a pyramid together is magnificent and expresses a strong message that mateship transcends the competition between individuals so that men will band and work together for a collective purpose in response to an external threat. For Archy and Frank, their external threats are the enemy on the other side and the possible danger and death on the battlefield. Along with this, the racing scene has another function that projects the egalitarianism of mateship. A pair of best mates, Archy and Frank, running side by side toward a common goal that implies the view that mateship is the bridge of the status-gap between Light Horse and infantry. That, as a result, affirms that mateship is stronger and more important than the codes of military hierarchy. The self-sacrificial element of mateship is described in the last part of the film. When the final battle of Gallipoli approaches, Archy persuades Major Barton to assign Frank as his runner because Archy knows that Frank does not have so much commitment as he does on the fighting service. Archy gets Frank a safer position and decided to sacrifice his own life for his best mate. Obviously, the mateship between Archy and Frank is just perfect. As Hall suggests, Gallipoli is 'a film which ignores completely the dark side of human nature.'
According to Sylvia Lawson , the image of mateship in Gallipoli is conservative. In her article, Lawson compares two similar shots (both of them are soldier silhouettes against the Pyramids at sunset) from two different films between which there are sixty-six years of history. One shot is from Alfred Rolfe's recruitment propaganda film, The Hero Of The Dardanelles released in 1915; another one is from Gallipoli (the racing sequence). Lawson points out that it is amazing to see the similarity between two shots: 'there is almost no ideological space between them at all.' In addition, Kitson argues in his journal article that Gallipoli is merely a myth-making film, which alters history to market traditional myths.
Although the issue of racism in Australian mateship is addressed in the opening sequence in Gallipoli (Archy's Aboriginal mate), it is only a very small part in the film. And, if comparing the white mateship with Archy's mateship with his Aboriginal mate, it is obvious that the former is described as much outweighed than the latter. In addition, the okerism is also highly celebrated in Gallipoli. The recklessness, impudence, gullibility and irreverence of Frank and his mates are portrayed as behaviours of cult heroes (a video clip from Gallipoli shows an example).
In sum, the image of mateship in Gallipoli is traditional. A more open and critical representation is necessary, as the only way to probe the influential idea is to examining it from different points of view.
Idiot Box - Synopsis
Idiot Box is a local film produced in 1996. David Caesar, a local filmmaker, was the director as well as the script writer. Idiot Box is a dark comedy about two unemployed youths who decide to rob a bank after they think that they have learned enough from TV crime dramas. Caesar's two losers, Kev ( Ben Mendelsohn) and Mick (Jeremy Sims) are best mates but lazy. Day after boring day living in the Sydney suburbs where their time is spent on drinking beer and watching TV, they are bored, frustrated and angry. They just have too much energy to release and really want to do something 'big and meaningful'. Meanwhile, there are clown-masked robbers who are actually robbing banks in the areas, and a pair of detectives have been investigating them and figured the robbers' next target. Certainly, Kev and Mick have decided to rob the same bank. The sequences involving a married couple dealing with the wife's drug addiction are overlaid in the main story to reveal the fact that the husband is actually one of the bank robbers. A Polynesian girl called Lani (Robyn Loau), who is working in a local bottle shop, is Mick's girlfriend. After she realizes that Kev, Mink and his brother, Arri, are really going to rob a bank, she tries her best to stop them. However, in the end, the robbery goes wrong and Kev is shot by the police
Idiot Box
Discussion
The male problems in the modern world resulting from the changing of times are the underlying issues addressed in the film, Idiot Box. As Greenwood suggests in her article, Idiot Box is a film in which the director presents his sympathy for the difficulties of being a man in an urban world. On the other hand, in my opinion, by comparing the representation of mateship in Gallipoli, it is noticeable that the traditions of Australian mateship are challenged in Idiot Box.
Like Gallipoli, Idiot Box is also a film about two young men and their experience. Nevertheless, the mateship between Kev and Mick, the two central characters in Idiot Box, is portrayed as an unpleasant and irritating male bonding of 'the young and the bloody useless' rather than an admirable relationship of real 'Aussie' men as described in Gallipoli. First of all, the drinking subculture in Australian mateship is one of the major aspects that are challenged in Idiot Box. When comparing the attitudes towards drinking in the two films, it is easy to find out that Idiot Box has a very different point of view, which proposes that the Australian tradition of drinking among mates can be very destructive. In Gallipoli, drinking is a habit of men and an ordinary behaviour in male society. Bell points out that for many Australian men, drinking is a way to release their pressure from the world around them and a behaviour, which can give them an identification with other men drinking for the same reason. Also, drunkenness is regarded as socially acceptable in many male groups. However, on the other hand, Idiot Box shows that excessive drinking is not a release from distress or unhappiness, but rather is something that can destroy a person's future. It is obvious that in Idiot Box, Kev and Mick have nothing to do in their boring lives, but drinking. Whatever money they can get, they spend on beer. With too much alcohol, they get drunk all the time and wallow themselves in frustration and depression.
Additionally, in both Gallipoli and Idiot Box, there are no women around when men are drinking in their groups except for the bartender. As Bell indicates, men's drinking essentially excludes women and in excluding women, there is a tendency that the codes of male companionship and drinking are reinforced by each other in Australian mateship. Nevertheless, what makes the difference between the images of mateship in Gallipoli and Idiot Box in terms of the drinking subculture is how the women in the films are designed to react to the behaviour. In Gallipoli, women have nothing to do with drinking; they are just absent, whereas in Idiot Box, women present their objection to drinking and more importantly, the drunkenness. For example, the opening sequence shows that Kev's mother gets angry because her son and his mate get drunk again. Such different attitudes bring out another of the challenged aspects in Idiot Box the female point of view on mateship. In both Gallipoli and Idiot Box, women are portrayed as an outsider of mateship. However, the difference between the two films in this point lies in the design in Idiot Box that women no longer remain silent on the exclusion. Gallipoli shows that women have a great respect for the codes of solidarity, courage and masculinity in mateship (that is represented in the sequence where Archy and Frank stay in a 'girl' family). On the other hand, in Idiot Box, the female characters around Kev and Mick such as their girlfriends and Kev's mother are all indignant at their meaningless and unproductive mateship.
Unlike Gallipoli, Idiot Box indicates that the emphasis of masculinity, one of the values of Australian mateship, is no longer the imperative element of being a man. Gallipoli lays great stress on masculinity (that can be seen from the opening sequence that Archy is being trained by his Uncle Jack to dash 100 yards under 10 seconds). Whereas, Idiot Box presents the opposite view that within urbanized and suburbanised society, muscle and physical strength, the thing men was traditionally and biologically good at, are not worth too much for men in the modern world (a video clip from Idiot Box shows an example). As Thorpe suggests, Kev and Mick are 'sort of a window onto what Australian males used be, they're a type of male that is now completely redundant.'
Finally, Idiot Box shows that mateship can be a restrictive bonding of men, which lets them have no way out. The two blokes, Ken and Mick, one grew up in a single family with his mom; another shares an apartment with his hard working brother. Both of them are unable to get understandings from their families. The lack of consideration and trust from the families and their own frustration (being unemployed and looked down) force them to form their isolated mateship. For both Ken and Mick, there seems to have no escape from their mates and their own world. In addition, the suppression of emotions, one of the most influential traditions of mateship, worsens the problem. Although Kev and Mick are best mates, the almost tacit agreement that mateship never involves intimacy makes them emotionally apart. They never talk anything personal, even though they spend most of their time together. Townsend puts forwards that one of the significant drawback of mateship is the lack of intimacy and personal communication. Kev, obviously, is the one who suffers more from the suppression of emotions. Yet, the exclusion of females in mateship is another factor that traps him in his own place. To Ken, his mate is always more important to his girlfriend. Except for sex, there seems to be nothing between Ken and his girlfriend. Comparing with Kev, Mick is more stable, sensitive and romantic, but except that, he does not have many things better. In fact, the relationship with his girlfriend, Lani, may change his life, but his loyalties to Kev drag him back to their mateship. In the beginning, Mick does not agree with Kev's idea of bank robbery. But, the conformity of mateship makes him follow Kev's decision anyway.
In conclusion, Idiot Box challenges the traditional values of Australian mateship by examining the institution in the context of the modern world. By comparing the totally different representations of mateship in Gallipoli and Idiot Box, it is obvious that perhaps the tradition of mateship continues to exist in Australian society, however, its significance probably is much weaker than in former times.