Australian hit The Sapphires makes it to the US - but why have its Aboriginal lead characters been airbrushed from the marketing?
There’s a bit of chatter on social media about the different international marketing strategies around The Sapphires – a movie about four young Australian female singers who travel to Vietnam in the 1960s to entertain the American troops.
The Sapphires region 1 DVD cover
I get the marketing tactic – put the most well-known figure on the cover, in an effort to sell the DVD. It makes good marketing sense.
But when the lead characters are Aboriginal Australian women – to put them in the background is not smart.
You could be forgiven for thinking that putting a white man, who had a supporting role in the film, on the cover intended for the US and Canada smacks of racism.
Surely in 2013 we are better than this? Surely the DVD distributors made this decision based on notoriety – and not race. Or was it sexism? Whatever the reasoning for this decision, it’s just plain dumb.
Luckily in Australia, The Sapphires did not feature O’Dowd on the cover.
The film here was a source of pride for Aboriginal people. In Australia, the front cover featured the women – and rightly so. The movie was a true story about The Sapphires.
It was a movie with a story about Aboriginal people that was uplifting and inspiring. When it was released in Australia, the actors were feted and for a moment in time, Aboriginal news was positive.
Australian people, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal rarely see positive images about Aboriginal Australia. It’s usually negative. The negative themes are not dissimilar to other indigenous cultures the world over. Substance and alcohol abuse, violence, unemployment, low literacy levels, poor health, high infant mortality. I could go on. And on.
Aboriginal people remain marginalised, forced to live with the results of dispossession and years of racial discrimination.
In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people experience socio-economic disadvantage on all major indicators. In Australia if you are a white man you can expect to live until 78 years of age. If you are Aboriginal, 67 years, 11 years less than a white fella.
Let me repeat that, the life expectancy of an Aboriginal male is 11 years less than his white neighbour. Aboriginal people in Australia still are not recognised in the Australian Constitution.
It is a national shame.
It’s no little wonder that when The Sapphires was released in Australia, the media jumped on the opportunity to report on a positive Aboriginal story.
In my opinion, it’s not a great movie. The story is fascinating but the movie itself fell a bit flat. But what I loved, like most other Australians, is that it told of a piece of Aboriginal history that had remain buried under decades of mainstream neglect.
Aboriginal culture is built around story telling – and there needs to be more of it. Positive stories, told on film. With the black men and women of Australia on the cover.
Lesley Johns is a director of Precise Media, in Adelaide, and has a special interest in indigenous affairs