Samson and Delilah is an Australian film made in 2009. Samson and Delilah was dirctied by Indigenous film maker Warwick Thornton and produced by Kath Shelper. This film has two main characters Samson portrayed by (Rowan McNamara) and Delilah portrayed by (Marissa Gibson). They Both Indigenous young people living in a remote Indigenous community which is not named in the film. Samson is a bored teenager who uses petrol sniffing as a personal escape from community life. Delilah is the sole carer of her elderly grandmother who sells her art. After the death of her grandmother her family feels that she is responsible and is dealt with in a traditional way which in western mind sets would be a harsh punishment. There is a growing love between Samson and Delilah and the harsh punishment is the protagonist to Samson stealing a car and taking Delilah out of the community. They quickly realise that life outside the community is not easy being marginalised. Delilah soon discovers a way to improve their circumstances ART but is increasingly frustrated when people will not buy it from her. Samson is caught between his addiction and his growing love for Delilah. After Delilah is seriously assaulted she also begins sniffing petrol to escape from her experiences. Everything seems to be going downhill until Delilah is hit by a car and is injured and Samson is left under the bridge alone. Delilah reappears at the end of the movie to take him back to the community where hopefully she can help him fight his addiction with petrol.
There are two main issues I have identified that are predominant throughout the duration of the film Samson and Delilah. The first main issue is how white Australian society marginalises Indigenous people through exclusion and how they marginalise them through exploitation. The other main issue that was how it can seem that indigenous people exclude them self through society this was portrayed in the movie in two separate ways the constant way of petrol sniffing and also unfamiliar and seemingly violent traditions and practices. The director of the movie said he wanted to confront these issues “head on” (Simmons and Stranieri 2009).
There are many examples within the film that it shows Indigenous exclusion from White Australian Society. The scenes I think show it the clearest are scene where Delilah is watching the the two white girls eating ice cream and talking on the mobile phone. It shows that she is so near to this type of lifestyle still so far. It is also shown in the scene when she is in the supermarket through symbolism the supermarket has an over emphasis on the colour white and contrasts against skin colour of Samson and Delilah. Also throughout the movie they are forced to live under a bridge not in a house like most white Australians. It is seen in Australian society that we see all other ethnic cultures pushed aside and white culture as the centre piece making it the cultural norm (Hage, 2002 pp. 190-1). This has been going on since colonisation through racist legislation and peoples stereotypes of Indigenous people (Dixon and Scheurell , 1995). The current views that people have of Indigenous are that they are Alcoholics, Drug and Violent people and this stereotype furthers the exclusion from Australian society (Blagg, 1997).
Throughout the film it portrays the issue of marginalisation by way of exploitation which is another issue that contemporary Indigenous socialites face. The example of art is used in the movie in the scene back on the community it is shown that the artist is given very little finical insensitive to paint yet when Delilah sees her grandmothers painting in an art gallery in town for 22,000 dollars. This shows this is an example of how the film confronts exploitation of Indigenous art. The exploitation of Art is linked to the intellectual property rights of Indigenous people. Non indigenous board such as Tourism Australia have promoted the country as having a rich Indigenous cultural heritage through t art, music and other activities even looking at the tourism Australia logo you can see that it is heavily influenced by Indigenous art see appendix 1 (Simmons, 2000) . This raises the question whether indigenous art should be profited off or whether it should be left alone? My view is that it can be sold but the money should go to the people who created it. The second way we see Exploitation in this movie is in a way that harms a person Delilah is dragged into a car and by the way she is forced into the car it infers that the people in the car wanted to sexually exploit her but there is no way to tell definitively if she has been raped or not. Most people reading this paper agree that violence against women is wrong and most of the literature I have found does not give statistics of violence against indigenous women outside remote communities even though as early as 1988 Indigenous women have argued to also look at the number of violent deaths of Indigenous females outside of these communities (Atkinson, 1990).
The issue of petrol sniffing is brought up in the movie it cannot be defined to just one scene it is continues throughout the film. You are first introduced to this issue right at the start of the film with sniffing petrol being one of the first things Samson does when he wakes up. To me it looked like he was doing as a way of dealing with the repetitive cycle of community life instead of expressing it in what I would call a positive sense. This has made me review literature not only for petrol sniffing but to investigate more widely on just substance abuse. A paper done by 7 universities in conjunction with alludes to the fact that there a high percentage of those surveyed sniffed petrol in conjunction with other drugs (Clough, D’abbs, Cairney, Gray, Maruf, Parker, O’reilly, 2004). One thing that the movie does quite well at the end is shows the lasting effects that continual substance abuse can have on people Samson is need to be cared full time by Delilah as a result of his continued petrol sniffing. According to Maggie Brady 10% of injuries poisoning and death is the result of substance abuse (Brady, 1995 p. 1488).
As I have already said western ways of thinking seem to put the values and beliefs at the centre of society and push it as the cultural norm or main stream society any other way of thinking is pushed aside as ethnically diverse (Hage, 2002 pp. 190-1). I was confronted in the scene just after Delilah’s grandmother had died she was beaten quite severely with large sticks. It is hard for me to come to a position on whether I think it was right or wrong and if it would seem like I am supporting violence against women. The Conclusion I have come to is that I was not brought up with the same values and belief systems of that certain community so therefore how can I really understand the motivations and importance behind the incident that occurred. Literature seems to support still having traditional law present (Povinelli, 2002). The problem I found it is hard to find resources that talk about traditional law outside the Northern territory and remote communities. For the most the literature i have reviewed on traditional law just talks about how the northern territory intervention takes into consideration of traditional law under the current legislation
In conclusion I think this is a realistic portrayal of the issues I have outlined in this review as Warwick Thornton Him Self said he wanted to confront the issues “head on”(Simmons and Stranieri 2009). He does this in direct ways such as the petrol sniffing and in direct ways such as the use of colour and sound. But I think it is also important to remember that his view of the issue after reviewing the literature I do share his views on the almost all of his issues. However I do think the movie could have made some of the cultural practices somewhat clearer and the reasons behind these practices.
References
Atkinson, J. (1990). Violence against Aboriginal Women: Reconstitution of Community Law –the Way Forward. Aboriginal Law Bulletin, 40(4), from proquest database.
Brady, M. (1995). Culture in treatment, culture as treatment. A critical appraisal of developments in addictions programs for indigenous North Americans and Australians Social Science & Medicine, 41(11), from proquest database.
Blagg, H. (1997). A JUST MEASURE OF SHAME? Aboriginal Youth and Conferencing in Australia. The British Journal of Crimonlgy, 37(4), from Proquest database.
CLOUGH, A. R., D’ABBS, P., GRAY, S. C. D., PARKER, P. M. R., & O’REILLY, B. (2004 ). Emerging patterns of cannabis and other substance use in Aboriginal communities in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory: a study of two
communities. Drug and Alcohol Review, 23(2), from proquest database.
Dixon, J., & Scheurell, R. (1995). Social Welfare with Indigenous People. London Routledge
Hage, G. (2002). White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society
Povinelli, E. A. (2002). The cunning of recognition: indigenous alterities and the making of Australian Multiculturalism. USA: Duke Unvirsty press.
Simmons, & Stranieri (2009 ). Samson & Delilah study guide Canberra Screen Australia
Simons, M. S. (2000). Aborignal Heritage Art And Moral Rights. Annals of Tourism Research, 27(2), 412-431. from proquest database.
Appendix 1
Colours of this logo are used in traditional ochre reds and Yellows and brown in the colours
So I ask the question
Should tourism Australia be allowed to use these colours?
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