Footy Film's Brilliant Mark: What Australian Rules Football Films Illuminate About Sports films

by Adam Hartzell

Originally from Berea, Ohio, Adam Hartzell now lives in San Francisco where he focuses his writing primarily on Korean Cinema. He manages the bibliography at Darcy Paquet's Korean film website, www.koreanfilm.org, where he also contributes many reviews and essays. He will have an essay about Hong Sang-soo's The Power of Kangwon Province published in 24 Frames Japan & Korea in mid-2004 by Wallflower Press.

If Porn is the most consciously ignored of all genre films in film studies, Sports films are probably the most unintentionally neglected. And nested within the world of Sports films, Australian Rules Football films are probably the least seen within this neglected genre, being that a Cricket film, Lagaan (Ashutosh Gowariker, 2001), finally found an international audience. This hole in the hole that is the study of the Sports film is understandable since there are only two Footy films on DVD about which I am aware, The Club (Bruce Beresford, 1976) and Australian Rules (Paul Goldman, 2002), and the sport, affectionately called "Footy," is only played professionally in one country, Australia.

However, this Yankee has been intrigued for some time by Footy, and a big reason is due to the Footy-specific "Mark." A "mark" is when a player catches a football on the fly after another player has kicked the football into said flying state for at least 15 meters. For those who have never witnessed a Footy match, let me try to explain it to you. The Fremantle Dockers are playing the Essendon Bombers, two actual clubs. One of the Dockers kicks the ball to a teammate further down the oval, the shape of the field on which Footy is played. This teammate eyes the ball coming in. Problem is, a couple Bombers are in route as well. Moments later, the Docker waiting for the football finds himself bookended by two Bombers who are able to wrestle for better position. But just as the ball arrives, another Docker comes rushing from behind, leaps with his left knee bent so as to fit nicely into the crook of the neck of a Bomber and snatches the ball from all three players. This is perfectly legal. As the announcers would say as the Docker falls to the ground, "Brilliant Mark!" After every successful mark, the player is given a free radius from which he can send the ball towards a teammate or kick it towards the goal posts.
Marks may take many forms. Besides this creative use of the crook of another player's neck, players will dive catch, leap over opponents, collide with opponents, jump with their legs out parallel to the ground to use their cleats to warn off approaching opposing players, or simply wait to catch the ball with no threats around them. Sometimes the catch is anything but pretty and is followed by bobbling of the football. Still, a succession of bobbles can add to the spectacle as the player twists and turns and reaches out to finally secure handling of the elusive football. Yes, there is a similarity here with the mark and the American Tackle Football receiver catching a pass, but the leaping, laddering and leveraging of other players adds something unique to Footy. (1)

Although my fanaticism for sports has faded somewhat since my youth, I still enjoy watching the spectacle of pushing ones body to pass previously perceived physical limits while competing against others inspired to do the same. And I still find myself drawn into the occasional game/match on TV, caught up in the fugue of time travel that sport spectatorship provides. And it is with these two Footy films that I find my other interest in sports satisfied, an interest that world cinema satisfies as well. That is, as an inroad into understanding and learning from other cultures and regions. Two very different films, The Club centers on club politics and is adapted from a play of the same name by David Williamson. Whereas, Australian Rules centers on relations between White Australians and Aborigines in a fishing community and is adapted from a novel entitled Deadly, Unna? (2) by Phillip Gwynne. Two very different films, the fact that they were released over two decades apart allows for them to limn interesting differences amongst Pre- and Post-Multicultural Australian Cinema(3) along with illumination of tactics available to the Sports film.

Although adapted for the screen by Williamson himself, this film still very much feels like a play in its presentation of dialogue and positioning of characters within the film. As Jack Thompson, who plays Laurie Holden the coach, says in the extras on the DVD release of The Club, "Every scene is an argument. The entire movie . . . is an argument." Indeed, every character is positioning to move the club in the direction they wish to take it, for either selfish or communal reasons. Ted Parker (Graham Kennedy), the club president, wants to buy a Premiership by buying the right players. Club committee member, Jock Riley (Frank Wilson), wants to play off Ted's weaknesses in order to establish himself as president of the club and further instill his thuggish approach to the business and play of Footy. Gerry Cooper (Alan Cassell), the administrator, a man with no admiration for the game, wants to manipulate everyone for the benefit of professional gain. Danny (Harold Hopkins) is the aging veteran insecure about his skills at his age but loyal to Coach Laurie and his teammates. And Jeff Hayward (John Howard (4)), the star young recruit bought by Ted, wants to challenge traditional masculinity through his laissez-faire attitude. All of this fighting is done within the hallowed grounds of the actual club headquarters of the Collingwood Magpies.(5) With all these character's fighting for equal positioning, as if their lives were confined to a Footy oval, The Club is a Sports film that refuses the American default of a biopic narrative that demands "that history is made by individuals."(6)

Williamson, whose other screenplay credits, such as again with Beresford, Don's Party (1976), and two with director Peter Weir, Gallipoli (1981) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), has "foregrounded the Australian vernacular" through his heavily accented characters in an effort to compete against Hollywood to consciously represent Australians in ways that distinguish them from the rest of the world.(7) Writing a play and then a screenplay about Australian Rules Football definitely allows for a portrayal of something unique to Australia and demonstrates how a Sports film can highlight that cultural specificity. The history of the Collingwood club is continually referenced by focusing on the photos that surround the main boardroom and by different characters reminiscing about players and premierships from the past. Williamson also brings into the dialogue specific cultural notes about Australia, such as having characters make disparaging comments about Tasmania. Even Jeff, who grew up in the region, speaks badly of Tasmania by stating that his initial motivation for playing Footy professionally was to escape from the no there there.

Other interesting Australian specifics are situated around Jock and Jeff, two opposite poles on the political spectrum. Jock is portrayed as a reactionary, knee-jerk conservative. While visiting Jeff in hopes of acquiring information with which to blackmail Jeff later, blackmail that blows up in Jock's face since Jeff is on to him early and creates a fantastical lie about an incestuous relationship with his mother and a non-existent paraplegic sister, Jeff mentions feeling like Achilles when taking a mark. When Jock asked whom "Achilles" was, Jeff responds by joking that he was "A Greek guy who could really jump." To which, Jock responds disparagingly about "New Australians" and how they should ". . . Forget about soccer and just start to assim-yu-late." Not only is Jock shown as ignorant of Greek mythology, he's shown as xenophobic towards the rise in the number of immigrants entering Australia at this boom-time in its history, the 1970's. Religious prejudice is also associated with Jock when he openly expresses his doubts about paying $20,000 for a "Bloody Protestant" such as Jeff.

Jeff, however, is portrayed as a self-indulgent liberal in his unwillingness to engage in male communal pursuits of team competition. His politics are further signified by his live-in girlfriend who wears Hippie-esque dresses and with whom he smokes pot, a private pastime that allows for furthering the humor in the scene noted in the above paragraph where Jock, near sixty-years old, requests what he thinks is a cigarette from Jeff. Although both are played as representing their politics in less than admirable ways, Jeff eventually comes around to a supposed status quo due to his admiration for Laurie and Ted and his girlfriend's change of heart in wanting to see Jeff compete to the best of his abilities. Jock, however, is left with less power to leverage on the committee after Laurie takes the team to win his first Premiership as a coach. Although these characters represent polar political portrayals that were happening throughout the world in the 70's, they are still specific to the Australia of the period.

Universals in the world of professional sport, however, allow for this film to transcend it's time and place. Gerry's pure business approach would disturb sports purists everywhere; whereas, many would see Jock's thuggish player past as just as detrimental to the game. Regardless of ones Footy knowledge, hearing Laurie and Ted wax nostalgically of the game will resonate with anyone who has loved any game. Another transcendent aspect of the film is the spectacular acting by most everyone involved, with Cassell and Kennedy being standouts. Also, as noted in the DVD extras, and with which I concur, Beresford and company were able to choreograph commendably realistic scenes of match play without the benefits of CGI.

Particularly interesting in The Club is the character of club president Ted, who, along with Gerry, has never played the game professionally. One subplot involves Laurie providing fodder for the tabloids by ranting how Ted "sticks his nose in" where he doesn't belong, resulting in the press nicknaming Ted "Stickynose." Upset with this disrespect, Ted and Coach Laurie have a heated argument. As was said before, this entire film is an argument. However, an interesting variation on passionate debate emerges when Ted appeals to Laurie through his knowledge of the game. Never having the ability to play, Ted speaks lovingly of having witnessed what he considers Laurie's best game and proceeds to act the game out on the grounds. Laurie, on the other hand, although he played the game Ted recites and reenacts for him by memory, can't remember the specifics as well as Ted, a man whose lack of physical skill forced him to forever watch the sport from the outside. This scene reverses Ted and Laurie, placing Ted on the oval and Laurie in the stands as spectator, allowing them each to cross a boundary that existed between them until this moment.

It's appropriate that Ted's nickname became "Stickynose" since the adjective "sticky" is an important aspect of the creation of a hegemonic sports culture. In their excellent exploration of why soccer has not caught on in the United States, (a country that refuses, along with Australia, to call soccer by the name used everywhere else, "football"), Andrei S. Markovits and Steven L. Hellerman discuss how each country's "Hegemonic sports cultures are very 'sticky' and 'path dependent' and cannot be acquired through intellect but only through emotion and identity, which is what ultimately sustains them in a historically lasting way." (8) The scene mentioned in the paragraph above shows Ted has invested a great deal emotionally into the sport. His ascension to president of the club was fueled, unlike Administrator Gerry with the keen intellect, by his passionate and emotional connection to the game, which, in this scene, Laurie now sees. Hegemonic sports cultures cross race, class, religion, and place of birth. (As Jock also demonstrates in his willingess to accept immigrants into the Australian fold if they'd just play his Footy rather than their soccer.) Ted's stickiness for the game allows Laurie to connect with him through their mutual admiration for the game. Thus, the disparaging moniker "stickynose" assigned to Ted becomes appropriate and ironically positive when looked at from the perspective of what promotes a hegemonic sports culture. Ted is "sticky" for Footy; Footy has stuck with him.

One line that is less crossed in ones "stickiness" with ones country's hegemonic sports cultures, however, is the gender line.(9) Although female fans exist everywhere sports are played, (there's one in my Footy Tipping Pool who could take me to town any day), sport spectatorship is still one of the last bastions of proving manhood. As Douglas Hartmann notes, "Just as playing provides many boys and young men with a space to become men, watching sports serves many men as a way to reinforce, rework, and maintain their masculinity - in these cases, through vicarious identification with masculine pursuits and idealized men." (10) This comes into play in The Club with the dearth of women present for the audience to associate with Footy. Besides Jeff's girlfriend, the only other female character to appear is a stripper who is left without any direct lines, only communicating through her body and the tabloid reports following the incident that occurred with Ted after he was setup by Jock and Gerry. And this incident, although not shown on screen, involves Gerry slapping the stripper for refusing his later advances. (Perhaps an unintentional cinematic rhyme with a joke about domestic violence Jock made earlier in the film.) Women in this film are meant to reinforce the masculinity that sport defines through the objectification of the stripper and the straightening up of gender protocols that Jeff's girlfriend commands of him. Laurie is an idealized version of Australian manhood, and Jeff is the new man of Australia who returns to the fold of a particular vision of masculinity, thus legitimizing this vision by his return.(11)

Interestingly, Australian Rules has a "sticky" female character who not only knows the game intimately, but provides coaching that ends up assisting the local boys Footy club in winning their first Premiership. While Blacky (Nathan Phillips) and his brothers and sisters are eating dinner, Blacky's mother, Liz Black (Celia Ireland), realizes while looking at the bottles on the kitchen table that the other team has "Too many Talls!" That is, too many big players. Mom proceeds to use the props on the kitchen oval to demonstrate how the team needs to play the flanks rather than play direct when they, the kids of Prospect Bay, take on the kids of Gundaroo in the local version of the Grand Final, the match that decides the winner of the Premiership flag.

Mom's advice stays with us when the Coach, Arks (Kevin Harrington), gives the boys a rousing pep talk right before the match by underscoring exactly what Mom advised against. "And one more thing, if I told you once, I've told you a million times: Don't buggerize around them flanks! Go the guts every single time youse get that ball!!!" Arks equates working the flanks with "buggerizing," that is, being a homosexual, that is, not staying in line with his views of manhood. The manly men stay direct. However, staying direct with all these Talls is exactly why they will lose the first half. Disregarding his coach's demands, Blacky listens to his Mum and her suggested tactics end up winning them the flag.

The idealized coach that Laurie represented in The Club is replaced in Australian Rules by the limited leadership of Arks, a man who continually provides reasons for the team not to respect him, to hold him in low esteem. They call him "Arks" to poke fun at his accent, since such is how he says "asks." Arks isn't a great coach, he simply has some stellar players on his squad. And most of those star players are "Boys from the Mish." That is, Aboriginal players who make up half the team. As Blacky narrates at the beginning of the film, "Without them we wouldn't be in the Grand Final; without them, we wouldn't even have a team." When one of the Aboriginals is taken into police custody during practice, rather than rally the team around their friend, Arks tells them to forget about it. Later on, when star Aboriginal Dumby (Luke Carroll) dies while committing a robbery with his brother, Arks refuses to arrange any gift from the players to Dumby's family. Arks is not reactionary in his refusals of solidarity with the Aboriginals as we'd assume Jock would be, he simply cowers under the pull of the status quo.

Australian Rules deconstructs a great many clichés that we find in the Sports film. The coach as leader is shattered here like the coach's butchershop window late in the film. Yet, at the same time, he is neither portrayed as the flipside cliché in the genre combo of the Sports Comedy film.(12) The Sports Comedy film would be vulnerable to playing Arks as a bumbling fool, such as Coach Venner played by Don Knotts in the forgotten Disney film about a field-goal-kicking mule, Gus (Vincent McEveety, 1976). Arks's pep talks are not to be ridiculed immediately since they are the standard passionate fare of the typical Sports film. Context of the state of the entire town and the coach's ongoing behavior is required to see the product from the sales pitch, the truth from the lies.

Another cliché often thrust upon us in Sports films is the final buzzer shot, the last-second touchdown, or the last minute goal. Footy has similar possibilities, but Australian Rules subverts these as well. One scene has Blacky narrating himself kicking the winning goal. This scene does not take place in a dream world, but in reality, with Blacky on the practice grounds talking to himself. But, when he kicks the ball, we see clearly, along with Blacky, that he misses. And, later, Blacky does end up being a star by knocking out the obnoxiously large, feared player on the opposing team, along with himself. However, we learn from Blacky that he ended up running into, and thus thwarting the opposing player's efforts, accidentally. He had intended to get out of the players way rather than obstruct him. Thus, both the dream and the glory are shown for the over-hyped myth they often are. Nor is Blacky cliché-ly lifted from the field by his teammates. Instead, the audience is lifted from the field, rising above the two unconscious players.

The novel upon which Australian Rules was based was written in the 90's, when, as Felicity Collins notes in reference to another recent Australian film, Japanese Story (Sue Brooks, 2003), "the national agenda was dominated by heated debates over republic, refugees, reconciliation, One Nation's anti-Asia stance, the report on the Stolen Generation, and the Mabo and Wik judgments on terra nullius and Native Title." (13) Whereas the play The Club, having been written well before these events, and the film, released before the Mabo court case began, were each void of any Aboriginal presence, Australian Rules brings the Aboriginal, if not front and center since the film is still told from the perspective of a White Australian, at least within a frame of the game that allows for critical exploration of recent Australian history.

One Nation, the political group that played unapologetically off of xenophobia and anti-Asian sentiments, (that is, the New New Australians, different from the New Australians of European ancestry that Jock had troubles with in The Club), is actually criticized within in the film. One scene shows Darcy (Martin Vaughan), known as "Arse-y Darcy" (14) by Blacky's friend Pickles (Tom Budge), using a newspaper to funnel the maggots into a container to sell to fishermen. As we look at the disgusting site of the maggots crawling on the newspaper, we notice the partial headline of an article "Hanson Denies Nation Divided." Although this represents the One Nation party being divided, Pauline Hanson being the party's figurehead at the time(15), the article also alludes to the Australian nation being divided along multiple lines, such as race, gender and rural/urban. Thus, all the forms of oppression presented within Australian Rules, along with the racist politics of Hanson and the One Nation party, are associated visually with maggots that eat away at the dead, and by extension, the country.(16)

The plight of Aborigines is dealt with head on in Australian Rules. The major tension of the film revolves around Dumby being unfairly treated when the Best in Ground (MVP) award for the Grand Final is given to Arks's son. This act of injustice pushes Dumby into the misdirection of his brother Pretty (Tony Briggs), a footballer from back in the day who was also denied his due. Pretty leads Dumby in a burglary of the bar owner who hosted the celebration of their Grand Final win that results in Dumby being shot dead by Blacky's father (Simon Westaway). This result haunts back to Arks's pep talk where he talked of "The Glory" of a Premiership win. "And the glory will be yours for as long as you live! No matter what else you do, ain't nobody'll ever be able to take that away from youse! Not until the day youse'll die!!!" By using their power to take away the Best of Ground medal that was rightfully Dumby's, they exposed the lie in this propaganda. The glory was taken away from him before he died, and he died soon after that glory was taken away.

However, Dumby's fictional death, metaphoring what was taken away from Aboriginals, became sadly ironic in the film's public space since it is this very plot point that caused controversy at the 2002 Adelaide Film Festival where the film premiered, almost resulting in the film being pulled from the festival. The group the Coalition Against Deadly Unna protested the film due to the shooting death scene that they found too similar to an actual incident at Point Pearce in South Australia where two aboriginal youths were shot to death after breaking into a hotel. This group felt the film invaded the privacy of that regions Aboriginal community and members of the family of the two youths have stated that the film has resurrected painful memories for them. Director Goldman conceded that the controversy showed that their consultation with the Aboriginal community was not complete enough and the controversy provides evidence that the respect they wished to convey with the film and throughout the production process was not accomplished .(17) Phillip Gwynne, the author of the book upon which the film was based, has said that he was "naïve" at the time when he wrote the book, his first, and he made mistakes by not disguising the incidents and towns enough. However, he adamantly argues that, having grown up in the same town, "We have a shared history with Aboriginal people and I think the I have a right to explore that."(18) And speaking in his defense, Goldman noted the Aboriginal community itself was divided on who owns the story and disagrees with claims that the film demeans Aboriginal women and promotes stereotypes of Aboriginal men.(19) Lisa Flanagan, the Aboriginal actress who plays the character of Clarence in the film and whose family grew up near the town of the real-life incident, concurs that the film is not demeaning to Aboriginal women nor men and has stated that she is one-hundred percent behind Australian Rules.(20)

The end result of all this controversy, unfortunately, is that a film intended to be anti-racist ends up offending some in the very community it was attempting to reach out to and engage in solidarity with. This is particularly ironic since the theme of the Adelaide Festival that year was truth and reconciliation with Australia's racial history, featuring a predominantly indigenous opening ceremony.(21) This is also severely disappointing since so much of the film is powerful in its anti-racist critique. No more is this evident in the unironically-named character of Blacky who engages in "race treason," which is "an act by which someone defined as white rejects the unearned privileges of whiteness."(22) He denies himself the privileges of Whiteness by befriending, respecting, and siding with the Aboriginal players, and by beginning a sincere relationship with Dumby's sister Clarence. Blacky is well aware of what will be thought of him by his father and others who hold power in the town through his solidarity with his Aboriginal friends, clubmates, and girlfriend.(23) He is the only White Australian who pays his respects at Dumby's funeral. In fact, Blacky would return Dumby's rightful glory by "stealing," or rather, reclaiming the medal from the butchershop display window and placing it with Dumby in his casket. In this way, Blacky deconstructs the coach, whose pep talk was a lie since he did not live up to his words and intervene for Dumby to receive the Best in Ground, nor provide assistance or condolences to his family at the funeral. Blacky is the only one who lives up to the truth that lies within Arks's clichéd words. And since it is Blacky's father who shot Dumby during the burglary, he must make a choice between whose side he's on, since his father is also disgusted by his relationship with Clarence. The final climax of the film demonstrates Blacky's choice of "race treason," by standing up to his father's violence while still refusing to engage in similar violence, simply standing and facing his father with the face his father has bloodied.

What Australian Rules shows most vividly is the connection of all this violence. Although it failed with a subset of the Aboriginal community in presenting multicultural awareness, it's efforts to represent a diverse Australia extend to show that the violence that is perpetrated upon the Aboriginal community is the same violence perpetrated upon other marginalized groups. The scene that portrays this most clearly is one that is blurred through an opaque, pseudo-porthole window in a door in Blacky's home. Blacky and his siblings are woken up by what is presented as a normal occurrence, an incident of domestic violence committed by his father. What's particularly powerful is that it is a marital rape scene, a form of domestic violence that is still downplayed in our patriarchal cultures. This scene clearly shows the rape without the graphic visuals, thus not risking a gratuitous display of such violence. Instead, we share witness to the act through the blurry porthole as Blacky's mother protests against Blacky's father's violence. The kids see all of this through their ears. They know what's happening and they know it isn't right. But they feel trapped like so many in this town surrounded on most sides by water.

And it is the plight of this rural town that is equally critiqued in this Post-Multicultural cinematic "tradition of anti-racism, anti-homophobia, and anti-sexism."(24) Director Goldman notes in the DVD extras how he wanted to portray these boomtowns from the 1970's that have, in a sense, been abandoned. The Grand Final is played between a fisherman town of Prospect Bay and a farming town of Gundaroo, both of whom are presented as forgotten in the urban-centric economy at the edge of the 21st century in Australia. Australian Rules does not justify the violent strain of masculinity that these conditions sometimes foster, but just as one can see why Pretty has chosen his hyper-masculine mask to survive the poverty of the Mish, we can see why Blacky's father has chosen a similar mask to hold onto the power he sees himself losing.(25)

The juxtaposition of all this with Footy is not lost on this member of the audience. It shows how Footy, and anything of importance to us, could be lost if issues of race, gender and class are not dealt with directly. In fact, this film was almost lost to us for the same reason, the outside controversy presenting a serendipitous play within a play.(26) All the tradition in the world could not keep this team together if the "Boys from the Mish" continue to be disrespected by the White boys of the fish.(27) Australian Rules, addresses all that The Club did not. This is not to single out The Club, since it is a product of its Pre-Multicultural time. For its part, again, The Club provides a critique of xenophobia through its internal critic of characters like Jock. And a huge part of The Club's intent was to celebrate the sport of Australian Rules Football, along with a snapshot of certain Australian cultural particularities. Although it might seem otherwise, Australian Rules is as much an advocate for Australian Rules Football. Through its critique of where the hype doesn't live up to the truth through the racial, gender, and regional divisions Australians still face, Australian Rules takes note of how true competition does not exist without full inclusion.

What I find most exciting about Footy illuminates this brilliantly. Because the marks that most amaze me are those that result from the pushing and positioning, the leveraging and laddering of other players, competitors and teammates. Without others there pushing each player further, the mark is merely catching a ball. How freaking boring is that? Full competition is required for full enjoyment, full potential of the spectacle. The Club shows that the coordinated-less Ted's have just as much a right to participate in the game as the refined physicality of a Laurie. Australian Rules shows that Footy will only fade out if it does not develop its relationships across racial, gender and regional lines. Rather than the individualism of the final buzzer of the isolated goal kick, we have the mark as metaphor for competitively working together as only the Sports film can show it.

I would like to thank two individuals who helped this Yankee look less like a fool when talking about Footy and Australia through their willingness to act as sounding boards regarding my ideas and arguments. Huw Evans is the Administrator of my yearly Footy Tipping Pool - which I'm sure has nothing to do with why he always wins it - and helped me hone my Footy-specific passages as well as other clarifications. May his Demons return to triumphant form a few years after my Dockers become triumphant for the first time. James Brown of Heroic Cinema (www.heroic-cinema.com) actually knows more about Footy culture than his Soccer-loving self will let on to, and his suggestions helped me bring this article towards something more presentable. As always, however, all opinions and oversights should not be attributed to anyone but the author.

(1) I use the term "American Tackle Football" to differentiate my country's sport from that of the topic of this article, Australian Rules Football. I include the classifier "Tackle" in the tradition of my favorite Cleveland sportswriter, Doug Clarke. I do not wish to imply here that Australian Rules Football is any "better" a game than American Tackle Football. This essay is not meant as a "pissing contest" about which sport is a greater game. I merely wish to explore what Footy Films have to add to the Sports film. Personally, I enjoy watching both as a spectator fairly equally, although having grown up in the United States, I am more familiar with the history of American Tackle Football and, as is obligatory for any large-sized male such as myself, I grew up playing the game. These factors do add elements to my spectatorship that I presently do not have with Australian Rules Football, but I still do not view either game as greater or lesser than the other. Just as each genre of film can allow for genius within its creative space, each sport can allow for excellence within its creative confines.

(2) "Unna?" is a conversation marker that, according to the Word Map of Australian English provided by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, (available online at http://www.abc.net.au/wordmap/ ), is primarily used in the Southwestern region of Australia near Perth. Richard Phillips states that it is Indigenous Slang that roughly translates to "Cool, Isn't it?" (Richard Phillips. "'A Cause Worth Fighting For.'" European Network for Indigenous Australian Rights, September 19, 2002. Available online at http://www.eniar.org/news/trackerwsj.html ) "Conversation Markers" are those words or phrases ridiculed by Grammar Police everywhere as improper that serve a legitimate purpose in the mouths of plain-clothes-ed citizens as a means to acknowledge other parties in ones conversation or to alleviate the anxiety of the speaker by initiating acknowledgement of the speaker by the other parties. The best known example is the Canadian "Eh?", but Cantonese also has the "La?" My personal favorite happens to be the "Aiight?" utilized by Hip Hop Headz.

(3) Although one always excludes when labeling any aesthetic or social movement to represent a transition in ideas and direction, reducing how fluid many of these movements actually are, I am working off of Tom O'Regan's statements about the "the multicultural (Australian) cinema of the 1990s with its repertoires of ethnicity, ethnic-mixing, and cultural non-comprehension" to delineate the cinema before and after this multicultural push in Australian Cinema. O'Regan, who advocates a broad and fluctuating interpretation of "national" cinema in his book Australian National Cinema, argues that this centrality of multiculturalism was partly influenced by the creation of SBS-TV and its mandate to promote diversity within Australia and to promote film-making along similar multicultural lines. (Tom O'Regan. Australian National Cinema. Routledge: London, 1996. Quote is from p 57. )

(4) No, not the same John Howard who, as of this writing, is Australia's Prime Minister.

(5) Williamson has recently verified that the play was based on Collingwood, the club he followed in his youth and early adulthood. He had previously claimed the work was entirely fictional. (David Williamson. "My Traitor's Heart." The Age. September 27, 2003. Available online at www.theage.com.au/articles/ 2003/09/26/1064083199539.html - May require registration.) The title of the article refers to the fact that Williamson eventually relinquished his Collingwood fan loyalty for the Sydney Swans club in his 40s, a treasonous act in any sports culture.

(6) Aaron Baker. Contesting Identities: Sports in American Film. University of Illinois Press: Urbana, Illinois, 2003. Quote is from p 10. Baker looked at more than 70 American Sports films since 1940 and found only 9 that could be described as something other than a biopic.

(7) O'Regan p 50. The quote is from p 50. Williamson also touches on this himself in the short documentary about Williamson's career featured as an extra on The Club DVD entitled Voices on the Page (Ian Walker, 1986).

(8) Andrei S. Markovits and Steven L. Hellerman. Offside: Soccer & American Exceptionalism. Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jesery, 2001. Quote is from p xii. Based on Markovits and Hellerman's argument, I submit that Footy has yet to become "sticky" to me since I've only actively followed it through newspaper reports via the internet for the past couple of years on www.afl.com.au. Thus, I am still only intellectually connected with limited emotionality due to geographic and media barriers.

(9) Ibid.

(10) Douglas Hartmann. "The Sanctity of Sunday Football: Why Men Love Sports." Contexts: Understanding People in Their Social Worlds, Vol 2, No 4, Fall 2003. pp 13-21. Quote is from p 17. Hartman is referring to American Tackle Football in the title of his article.

(11) O'Regan notes that this depiction of "iconic masculinity" as a "privileged marker of a public and collective identity" (p 132) is present in Gallipoli and Breaker's Morant (1980), appearing to demonstrate that this "iconic masculinity" would continue for both Williamson, who wrote the screenplay for Gallipoli, and Beresford, who directed Breaker's Morant.

(12) Australian Rules is also a combination of genres, stacking together the Coming of Age and Social Problem film along with the Sports film.

(13) Felicity Collins. "Japanese Story: A Shift of Heart." Senses of Cinema, November 2003. Available online at http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/29/japanese_story.html . "One Nation" is a right wing conservative party that has as one of its platforms strong resistance to Asian immigration to Australia. "The Stolen Generation" refers to the government-implemented removal and replacement of multi-racial Aboriginal children into communal schools with other multi-racial children far from their families. This aspect of Australian history that continued until roughly 1970 was addressed most recently in the internationally successful film, Rabbit Proof Fence (Phillip Noyce, 2002), with whom Australian Rules shared casting sessions of Aboriginal actors, as noted in the DVD commentary. Mabo refers to a case brought against the Australian government in 1981 by Eddie Mabo and other Torres Strait Islanders to reclaim their ancestral lands. Mabo and his fellow Torres Strait Islanders won this case based on acknowledgement of "Native Title", or pre-colonial understandings of land "ownership", allowing Aboriginal communities right of access to, use of, or occupation of their traditional lands. The Mabo case was "The biggest and most long-running news event in Australian newspaper, radio and television history" (O'Regan, p 276). According to James Woodford, "Mabo destroyed forever the legal concept that Australia was terra nullius - an empty land - before Europeans arrived." The Wik judgment established a legal clarification that pastoral leases, (leases that allow for farming and grazing), do not necessarily extinguish claims of Native Title. However, whenever pastoralist and Native Title holders are in conflict, Native Title must yield to the pastorlists. (I utilized this information regarding the Mabo and Wik judgments - James Woodford. "The Meaning of Wik - A User-Friendly Guide." Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, May 3, 1997. Available online here.)

(14) For my fellow Yankees, "arse" means "ass." And this would be the most appropriate place to note that one of the lines given to Darcy's character presents the only instance of duplication between The Club and Australian Rules. Giving Blacky advice for the upcoming Grand Final, Darcy instructs Blacky to "stick your finger up his clacker", or anus, if he runs into trouble, or specifically, when the "squirrel tackle", grabbing the opposing player by the testicles and squeezing very hard, doesn't work. In The Club, Jacque advises Jeff to take his thumb and "Ram it up his bum!", or butt, whenever he needs an edge over an opponent.

(15) Hanson is running as an Independent in the upcoming October 9th election, not as a member of the One Nation party, demonstrating the opposite of what was claimed in the headline shown within the film.

(16) Adding another layer to this metaphor is the fact that maggots are known as "Gents" in this particular region of Australia.

(17) Garry Maddox. "Emotions Flare at Australian Rules." European Network for Indigenous Australian Rights, March 7, 2002. Available online at http://www.eniar.org/news/arules.html I cite this article to reference my comments associated to Goldman. However, there appear to be two errors in this article. Maddox says it was the "Coalition Against Australian Rules" when in fact it was the "Coalition Against Deadly Unna" as all other articles I located via the web note. Also, Maddox says that the real-life incident involved the Aboriginal youths being shot to death after breaking into a pub, when all other reports I read said they were shot after breaking into a hotel. Regardless of these inconsistencies, the issue still at hand is that the Aboriginal community of Point Pearce felt that a story was taken from their community without proper consultation and caused anguish to community members directly affected by the incident.

(18) Penelope Debelle. "Author Defends Film Causing Aboriginal Anguish." European Network for Indigenous Australian Rights, February 27, 2002. Available online at http://www.eniar.org/news/arulesa.html

(19) Joel Gibson. "Whose Rules?" State of the Arts webpage. Available online at http://www.stateart.com.au/sota/music-film/default.asp?fid=1284&t=wn334

(20) Phillips.

(21) Tony Love. "Action to Stop Film on Racist Grounds." The Advertiser, February 25, 2002. Available online at http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,3838721,00.html

(22) Baker, Contesting, 147. The phrase "race treason" is credited to Noel Ignatiev in Baker's book but a reference is not cited.

(23) Interestingly, the consummation of Blacky and Clarence's relationship is disrupted like that between the two main characters in another Australian film about an interracial couple, Flirting (John Duigan, 1991)

(24) O'Regan, p 256.

(25) However, it is important to include here O'Regan's statement that these "country communities" have become somewhat of a scapegoated space in Australian Cinema "to represent all that is bad in the Australian settler culture and which a metropolitan sensitivity can take its distance from: racism, xenophobia, misogyny, violence, intolerance of difference, homophobia and aggressive masculinism" (p 266). In defense of Australian Rules, Gwynne, who also co-wrote the screenplay, and Flanagan both grew up in "country communities" and testify to the fact that they experienced similar incidents. Thus, Australian Rules is not an example distancing from the problem, but revisiting it. However, how metropolitan audience members view the film is a different matter and may be more in line with what I've quoted here from O'Regan.

(26) Just as Pretty verbally disrupts the awards ceremony in the film, members of the Coalition Against Deadly Unna spoke out in protest during the talk after the film's premiere (Maddox).

(27) The Australian Football League has, in the past several years, made some efforts to reach out to Aboriginal communities. Although small in number, Aboriginal players do make up some team rosters. The Australian Football League has also been reaching out to their female fans, dedicating a weekend of games to them. And the league has campaigned hard to expand beyond its Victorian province origins, (the province that includes Australia's second city, Melbourne), so that the sport truly represents a national game. This same outreach involves training camps in close proximity of these forgotten towns.

Tellingly, both The Club and Australian Rules expose the limited reach of Footy in the extras to the DVD. Jack Thompson talks of how he hadn't played the sport when he was young, and neither had the young Luke Carroll who said he had to unlearn rugby ways of kicking to learn the Footy methods. And both Goldman and Gwynne lament the limited reach of Footy into popular media such as film. Thus these films can also be seen from a propaganda aspect, to further instill the sport in the national memory. In fact, as noted in the commentary of the DVD, the league was quite involved with the making of The Club, providing players and coaches, and intervening to encourage the Collingwood Club to allow the use of their facilities. As for Australian Rules, the only involvement of which I am aware is the permission to allow the replaying of Footy footage on a television set in one scene.