After spending an entire semester learning about Australian culture, it was really interesting to actually visit the country and interact with people from there. There were many similarities and differences of what I thought due to the representation in film, and what actually is true.
For starters, one similarity is that I had a pretty good idea of the indigenous people. Through the films, no matter if the portrayals were positive or negative, I saw how family oriented the people were. This is true to what I saw in Australia. At the center, I learned about the body painting and the symbolization if that. The paint on the people represent their family or where they are from. In some of the films we watched, characters would stand up for their family and put them first. This really showed when we were there.
Another similarity that I noticed also had to do with the indigenous people. In some films we saw a gender imbalance. Men went to work and women were seen as weak. This stood true when we learned about the lives of the indigenous people. We learned that the men would be the ones to go and hunt while the women would deal with bush medicine and would be the ones expected to take care of the family. Although there were no rules against women taking on the man’s role, this is how the situation would typically go by.
Going off of this would be a difference that I learned about Australian culture. Although we did see inequality between men and women in films that were partially confirmed in real life, I did see something that went against this. In the city of Melbourne, at the busiest crosswalk, the city changed the man blinking at the crosswalk to a woman. This was the city’s attempt at recognizing gender equality especially throughout the city. I thought this was a good small simple way of recognizing the inequality issue and making a statement to improve.
Another difference that I noticed between the perceived perception of Australians and the reality is the violence of men portrayed in films. A lot of films included Australian men being violent to their family or to others in general. And even though this might be an issue, I am glad I did not witness this – therefore, it is a difference that I noticed. Some of the people I met in Australia were the nicest people I have ever met and the complete opposite of what was shown in the films. There was a time when I was walking and could not find the store I was trying to get to. A man came up and asked where we were headed and he walked us there even though it was out of the way of where he was headed. Later that day as we were walking back to the hotel, we saw him and he recognized us and waved. This simple gesture probably meant nothing to him, but everything to us. It was refreshing to see such a genuine person after seeing a representation of not nice people in films.
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