A Barbie to a Ken: My Look at WALKABOUT by Betty Araya

I remember the day the switch went off in my young, naive mind. I began questioning what I now know to be true: I was merely a product of my socialization. My opinions were those of my parents, the same as the ones I secretly heard them argue during dinner parties. My style was that of the photoshopped model, whose insincere smile plastered on the cover of the catalogue fooled me into claiming as my own. The person I chose to show the world was no different than my classmates, who I constantly looked to for approval.

One day, at the ripe age of fifteen, I went to school where I mindlessly copied down the words of my instructors, trusting that I was learning. I sat at lunch with my peers, believing my conversations were substantial. I returned home, sat at my desk, and regurgitated the information my teacher shoved down my throat. I began choking on all the mendacity our capitalized, righteous, bureaucratic society was forcing on me to keep me in line. Like The Girl in Walkabout, I was destined for the fate planned for me before I was born. I was and would be someone's daughter, someone's sister, some man's wife. And like The Girl, I chose the familiar radio instead of the larger world.

Walkabout is a cautionary tale about what happens to most women in Western civilization. We are submerged in a system that religiously uses the banking concept of education, the modern pedagogical approach which is stumping our intellectual growth and identity formation (Freire, par. 2). We are forced to conform to a society that will shame anyone who dares to question their way of life. We alienate anyone who deviates from our cultural and behavioral norms. Director Nicholas Roeg uses minimal characters that symbolize the various corruptions of the first world mentality. The story line is centered around The Girl’s journey through the Australian desert while she searches for the way back to her world. Faced with various obstacles that challenge her to question what she believes—rather than what she is told to believe—she dares to follow her heart, rather than the pop-sugar quiz she took online, during the most crucial part of her life.

This cinematic revolution reminded me I am going to have to keep an open mind regarding all that I do not understand. I realized I am The Girl, and the desert is the world I live in. Roeg uses symbols to shed light on the various obstacles that women have to go through to have an identity different than the ones we are force-fed. The movie begins by depicting the earliest stages of socialization in a family, ending with the inevitable outcome most women are cursed to embrace: becoming a Mrs. to a Mr. For me, the tragedy in conforming to mainstream society is that, three generations from now, my family will no longer be immigrant Ethiopians living in America, but Americans who, caused by the fear to accept who we are, cautiously assert that our lineage began in Africa.

The three main characters that hold the most significance to The Girl’s walkabout is the father, the brother, and the native. The father represents the earliest forms of socialization we are exposed to as well as the detrimental effects of living an entire lifetime striving to please conventional society and the western mindset that is furthering racial hierarchies. Socialization first begins with family. The father tells his daughter to arrange the picnic, while the son plays with his action figures, which represents the gender roles that our families unknowingly impose on us early on in our lives. He also tells The Girl to look after her brother, planting in her mind she has a role of a mother simply for being female as the boy is not her son. This notion that she is a caretaker sticks with her throughout the entire film. In addition, the father is every teenager’s worst nightmare. His dehydrated skin, bloated belly, and bulbous nose hint towards his inevitable alcoholism. He has invested more energy in chasing money then experiencing life; all he has is his bank statement to comfort him at night after spending the day at his mind-numbing, boring job. He is a sorry excuse of a father, who has spent his entire life sexualizing women and cannot seem to draw the line with his daughter. He also represents the flaw in Western civilization as a whole—we would rather burn and die then entertain the idea of living life differently than we are used to. That is why I believe Roeg had the father blow himself up so early on, causing the children to flee. The Girl needed to realize the fate she was destined for if she continued to be guided by social structures to tell her how to think.

The Boy in the film represents the same mindset that The Girl is taught. He is still pure, like most young kids in our society who see a smile, where most others see a skin color. They see a heart, where most see a hair texture. The Boy has not yet suffered through thirteen years of brainwashing, also known as the K-12 program. He asks for a name, where most adults give a label. The Boy does not automatically assume everyone is like him: white. For example, in the scene with the water, the boy realizes he must explain what he wants for the native to understand him whereas The Girl believes the suitable solution is to stick her nose in the air and demand the black man give her what she wants (Roeg, 00:36). This scene was so powerful because it portrayed how similar we all are. We all need food, water, shelter, and companionship. The only thing that differentiates us is our distance from the equator which determines our complexion. The only reason we cannot understand each other is because of our locations on the map and the methods of communication we have adopted. Our geographic differences are what spark the different cultures we all practice, which is actually a beautiful thing. The Boy, the part of society that still has hope, helps his older sister come to terms with the fact that the high society she proudly identifies with will serve her no purpose in the Outback. It will not even get her the simplest thing required for survival: water.

The native represents many things for The Girl, but most importantly, he symbolizes hope. In the endless ocean that is Western civilization, he is the promise of land in the horizon. When she and the native first meet, she is in trouble. She has been taught to view herself as a damsel in distress, and he must play the role of her savior. It is for this sheer fact that she begins to fall for him. She thinks a man’s role is to take care of a woman, and it is the woman's job to need to be taken care of. She completely forgets all she accomplished on her own thus far. Despite her desires for him, The Girl could never get over his skin color. The scene where all three of the children are swimming naked is intentional. Roeg portrays the taboo of having affection for someone who looks different from you. In this scene they all look so happy and free, showing us how liberating it can be to forget the societal norms implanted in our brains and do what makes us feel good. Although I have learned to love being a woman of color, the scene made me imagine how different life would be if I was just a girl, instead of a black girl in a white society. The native also represents the detrimental effects of colonization. He graciously accepts the British kids and attempts to teach them about his way of life. He does not request they conform; he simply coexists and helps when he can. When he saw the hunters kill for sport, he saw his culture diminish before his eyes (Roeg, 01:17). He accepted what history has continuously proven to be true, which is that he has two options: conform or die. He unfortunately chooses death. Despite her desires to embrace him, The Girl turns her back on the native and what life could be like outside the lines. Perhaps she is too scared to be different or  scared she might actually like it. In either case, her lack of bravery haunts her, which we saw in the flashbacks at the end while in the embrace of her husband (Roeg, 01:37).

In my walkabout, the father is the man behind the glass at the DMV absently stamping documents. His vacant expression is what inspires me to strive for knowledge rather than the approved symbol when I swipe my credit card. I crave infinite knowledge, rather than infinite zeros on my account balance. The father in my walkabout is also the sea of white faces that covered the hallways I ambled in school, signaling me out as the dark one. The Boy is the potential I still have, a reminder that it is my choice to resist the constant nudge by society as I begin questioning the world around me. He reiterates that I hold the upper hand in this power struggle, because I am in control of my mind. The native represents the ghosts of immigrants to America. Although I did not resort to hanging myself once acknowledging the power Western civilization has, needless to say, the native represents the fight so many immigrants and minorities have already given up on—preserving their own culture.

I moved from Ethiopia to America when I was four years old. In the States, Ethiopia, one of the earliest civilizations, is more known for poverty than its overwhelming communal culture. I moved to a melting pot of different cultures and a society that stresses individualism, with little preparation for the culture shock I would face. I was unready for a country that defines one's value by one’s ability to contribute to the federal reserve rather than who we are as people. It is a system that believes in creating robots as early as five years old, rather than providing tools to discover an identity of one’s own. Until my teenage years, I was not striving to find myself, but rather to paint over all that made me me: my caramel colored skin, my distinct features, and my curls. I sought to match the white girl who sat next to me in my reading circle in elementary school, the white girl who insisted on touching my hair at lunch junior year to further emphasize my difference, the white girl who was never ridiculed for who she is because at the end of the day, America was hers and I was the alien who chose to invade. 

The Girl in Roeg's drama, like many other millenials obsessed with iphones, social media, social approval, and the Kardashians, chooses the easy route, the mindless route, that further feeds the biggest issue of our time: ignorance. Walkabout is what happens to most teenagers in our society, and it almost happened to me. I am now eighteen years old, attending a prestigious university spending my days focusing on my passion. I have grown to have confidence in myself, but it was not effortless to get to this point. It was not without vigorous effort, tears, and crippling self-doubt that I blossomed from a girl whose stomach dropped when the teacher read out my full name to one who now proudly introduces herself. It was a difficult journey to grow from someone who straightened my wild curls to one who proudly wears my mane. I alleviated the insecure, misguided child I was by embracing what made me different instead of trying to conform.

I do not want to recite what I read in a textbook to prove I have knowledge. I do not want to repeat what I heard my family says to prove I have beliefs. I do not want my identity to be simplified to boxes I check off on a job application. I refuse to spend my life with the mindset that my greatest accomplishment will be the day I say “I do” or the day I have a child. I deny the ending The Girl in Walkabout had, because no matter what our society tells us, I will never sit quiet and look pretty. My walkabout has taught me to treat each person as my equal and embrace that they offer me. It has taught me that the six o’clock news does not cover all that matters in the world. It has forced me to accept that living in America does not require that one become a homogenously white American. It has left me yearning for the day I look in the mirror and only see myself, rather than the array of people I have been taught and forced to be. Although I can still feel the residue of my unwilling socialization clogging my throat, every day I am closer to dropping my radio. I am closer to embracing who I am, where I came from, and the values I hold. Every day I embark on this relentless journey, and the identity I fear the most is growing further away, that of being a Barbie to a Ken.

Works Cited

Freire, Paulo. The "Banking" Concept of Education. Web. 11 Apr. 2015. http://puente2014.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/87465079/freire_banking_concept.pdf.

Walkabout. Dir. Nicholas Roeg. Perf. Jenny Agutter, Jean-Luc Roeg, and David Gumpilil. 1971.

The Price of Happiness Is Actually Free by Brendan Kaston

What if we lived life in a way in which we did not need to worry about the future, a world where living just meant existing without the stresses of our modern society? That is the existence of Xi in Jamie Uys’ film The Gods Must be Crazy. The Bushmen are living in the harsh Kalahari Desert when one day Western civilization invades his home in the form of a glass Coke bottle, which brings a lot of good to the members of Xi’s tribe. However, it also brings jealousy, anger, and violence (emotions the tribe has never had to face before). Without hesitation, Xi decides to expel the “evil thing” from the earth in order to bring his tribe back to the peaceful way it once was. On his journey, he encounters and explores Western civilization’s hectic ways. However, at the end of his adventure, Xi does not adapt any part of Western culture into his. Xi and the Bushmen make the decision to live without the technology of modern society because they realize that they value real happiness over alleged progress.

 

The tribe’s rejection of the Coke bottle is their rejection of Western society. At first, the Bushmen see the bottle as a gift from the Gods, and the Gods have only given them good things. The Bushmen soon realize that this is not the entirely the positive force they believed it to be. The tribe huddles around the fire silently, dreading what else it will bring. However, the whole tribe comes to the same conclusion: they do not need the “evil thing” that they have grown to depend on. Xi understands that his people have two choices just as primitive societies did: progress or happiness. Our ancestors chose the former, and the world has expanded and been developed into the concrete jungles we call home today. Xi and his tribe make the opposite choice. They value their happiness much more than they value ease of life. While our society may have all the tools to live with minimal effort, many of us are not truly happy with our roles. Many are forced into lackluster jobs in order to make ends meet while monotonous routines drain them until they can no longer feel fulfilled in the workplace. On the other hand, the Bushmen are happy even though they live in one of the most inhospitable locations on the planet. Xi and the other Bushmen appreciated how much easier the bottle made their lives, but that is not why they rejected progress. “They repudiated the jealousy and materialism of the West” (Gordon).

Western society choose the path of progress, and while it has created an amazing world of leisure, it has also created a society that has not stop to smell the roses. Our cities are proof that we could not adapt to living life in nature, so we made nature adapt to us. However, now that we have access to fresh running water and almost any kind of food we could want with a short walk to our refrigerators, humanity has lost its instinctual need to fight to survive. A psychologist, Abraham Harold Maslow, studied human nature and how we address certain needs that are required to have successful and fulfilling lives. “Maslow stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this will be the first thing that motivates our behavior. Once that level is fulfilled the next level up is what motivates us, and so on” (McLeod, par. 2).

The problem is that Western society has overcome our basic needs, making our foundation much smaller and weaker. Without having to work too hard for food, water, or shelter, we see our psychological needs as basic needs for happiness. Tirelessly working each and every day makes us, “crack under the constant pressure of the routine monotony of modern life” (Knight). That is why Kate, the journalist, decides to move out to the small Botswanan village in order to teach (Uys 0:25:53). While she is looking for something different, she is also unhappy with the state of her life. By moving to the Botswanan village, she is able to reinvigorate herself. She has students to care for; she meets Andrew, her eventual love interest; and she reaches self-actualization by immersing herself in the locals’ way of life. Kate’s transition proves that distancing oneself from the constant stressors of Western civilization can increase one’s quality of life.

While some may argue that Kate’s eventual happiness would not bloom as it did in the film, it has been proven to work. Henry David Thoreau was a naturalist who decided to seclude himself from modern American society in 1845. He understood that the path to a greater understanding of our life on earth is through an understanding of the natural world around us and of which we are part:

We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander — I suppose that what in other men is religion is in me love of nature (http://www.walden.org/thoreau/ par. 4).

His experience in the woods mirrors the lives of the native people of the Kalahari. Nature is a magical gift to them as it should be to all who are willing to stop and open their senses. Life may not be as easy when one immerses themselves in nature; however, one is able to focus on what is truly important to them without the distractions of never ending deadlines and repetitious routines. In Walden he writes, “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail” (Thoreau 82). Thoreau is praising the simple life. He discovered that the hustle and bustle of modern life made a formula for stress and unhappiness, a formula that he rejected in order to find his own happiness.

The Bushmen are content with their lives no matter how difficult things may be. They see their way of life as complete without technology. They work hard to survive, and they are happy to be a part of the tribe. This contrast with modern society is shown in our levels of stress and overall happiness:

Modern society equals fullness with meaning so if schedules are always booked then life must be wonderful. A busy schedule blocks and shoves down unpleasant feelings brought on by difficult to answer questions. Those feelings, however, do not go away, but instead manifest themselves in the rampant outbreak of depression. This is why the Bushmen’s freedom is so important; they have the time to reflect and engage with tough topics. It is not as though they are always having deep philosophical discussions, but they are able to if need be (Morrill par. 7).

The Bushmen’s minds are sounder due to their natural lifestyle. They think clearly about whatever obstacles or issues are thrown, or dropped, their way. When one of the most important life changing tools falls to their feet they are able to think rationally about the pros and cons of having such power. The Bushmen decided that while progress may make their lives easier, it would not make them happier.

The Bushmen who are seen as primitive compared to industrialized western society are actually much wiser than their stressed-out neighbors. They understand the importance of living in the moment. In their eyes God has given them all they need, and they are eternally grateful. The bottle was a test, one which they believed they passed. Xi’s decision to throw the bottle off the end of the earth was accepted by the whole community because their tribe’s values are different then ours: they value happiness over easiness. Until our culture can choose peace of mind over higher productivity, we will never self-actualize like the Bushmen of the Kalahari Dessert.

Works Cited

               Gordon, Paul Kirpal. Class Discussion. April 4, 2018.

“Henry David Thoreau.” The Walden Woods Project, www.walden.org/thoreau/.

Knight, Lindsay. Class Discussion. February 12, 2018.

Mcleod, Saul. “Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.” Simply Psychology, Simply Psychology,

2017, www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html.

Morrill, Morgan. “The Ironic Hospitality of the Kalahari Desert.” Taking Giant Steps

Press, Paul Kirpal Gordon, 14 Mar. 2018, giantstepspress.blogspot.com/search?q=the+ironic+hospitality.

Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. Walden; And, Resistance to Civil Government:

Authoritative Texts, Thoreau's Journal, Reviews, and Essays in Criticism. New York: Norton, 1992. Print.

Uys, Jamie, director. The Gods Must Be Crazy. Perf. N!xau, Marius Weyers, and Sandra

Prinsloo. 20^th Century Fox., 13 July. 1984. Film.

“Where I Lived and What I Lived For, a Chapter in Walden by Henry David

Thoreau.” truecharecteinnature.weebly.com/where-i-lived-and-what-i-lived-for-a-chapter-in-walden-by-henry-david-thoreau.html.

"My Subcontinent Is Always in My Subconscious: Indian Heritage in America" by Alisha Andrews

One’s identity can be found through life and the experiences within it. In our WSC class my peers found their identity in different ways: going into the army at the age of 18, living in a negative town their entire childhood, being a certain religion that is misunderstood in America. The experience that helped me find my identity was being the first generation, American-born citizen and living through the struggles of my immigrant parents.

The process of immigration is difficult, but the process of an immigrant adjusting to America is never ending. Both my parents came to America at the age of 18 with their cousins from India, all without their own parents. All 15 of them lived in a 3 story rental house in Queens Village where everyone lived paycheck to paycheck. My parents had 3 jobs at one point so they could live a decent life. My mom took on a job as a cashier at JC Penney and Walmart and as a bank clerk. My dad took on a job as a limousine driver, bank clerk, and a cashier at a local department store. Even though these jobs seemed simple, it was tough for my parents. They had thick Indian accents and would get yelled at by customers to “learn English” and comments like “you should not be working here.” When my dad was a limo driver he had to learn all of New York City's streets and directions to get his clients to where they needed to be. He had no GPS back in his day and would get awful comments if he made one mistake, but little did the people know that he was just learning about America, let alone these locations! Both my parents always got the comment to “go back to your own country!”

These comments reminded me of Gloria Anzaldua’s remark, “We know what it is to live under the hammer blow of the dominant norte-americano culture” (Anzaldua, par 43). The white Americans around her felt as if they owned this country. They believed not knowing fluent English, not having an American accent, and not having white skin means that you do not belong in America. They viewed people with brown skin as inferior and stupid and that they weren’t “qualified” enough to live in this white man’s world. But my parents had tough skin. They were ready to endure these kinds of indifferences and not let it affect them. I give them so much credit for staying strong because they are humans, too, who have feelings, but were treated like subordinates. They worked 7 days a week to save up money for a car so they could have a vehicle. Before they had a car, they were walking to all their destinations and this was hard especially in the harsh, cold winters of New York. Both my parents and their cousins saved up $3000 to buy an old, used car. Even though it was a junk from a shady store in Queens, it was something they could use to drive places. They gave the car dealer all the money they saved up for months to get a car that stopped working the day after they bought it. Yes, they got played. They were just learning the hustle for money in America. But this experience helped them learn that not everyone is who they say they are. My parents struggled so much their first years in America. They went through these hardships and sacrificed everything they had and started a new life all over again just for my brother and I to live a better life than they had.

My brother, Albie, and I were the first generation to be born and raised in America. We were the first to go to school and to university in our families in America. Both of us were exposed to the American culture right away as we entered the school system. We grew up with English as our first language and Malayalam, which is a South Indian language common in Kerala, India, as our second language. My parents made sure that Albie and I became adjusted to both the American and Indian culture. But these two cultures clash at times. In India there is a hierarchy with gender. The male is the head of the family and is seen as superior and has all the freedom in the world. The female is seen as inferior and taught to be conservative and quiet. My parents immigrating to America and seeing a different viewpoint instead of sticking with India’s traditional ways helped build my identity. “Some women can escape social conformity and become conscious of the incredibly sexist, patriarchal society we live in. Others are trapped and are incapable of realizing their true identity because they are the product of someone else’s identity formation” (Solis, par 2). Since I was fortunate enough to grow up in America, I was given the opportunity to put my education first before anything else. I could get a job that did not include housework and I do not need to settle to be a housewife like in India, where it is common for 18-year-old girls to get married off. America holds opportunities to show that women are just as equal to men and can succeed in anything they do through careers and having empowering platforms. In India these opportunities are looked down upon, so many women put a hold on their life so their husbands, fathers, or brothers can live the life they want. I learned that I am more than what a man sees me as even if it is an object, reproducer, or inferior. I was born a woman and therefore need to hold strong to this identity, especially coming from an Indian, sexist community.

The South Asian community also has a persistent point of view when it comes to careers. If you had a daughter, she was supposed to be a nurse or a doctor. If you had a son, he was supposed to be an engineer. Indian parents have such a limited mindset for jobs. They believe only the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) jobs can make you money and be successful. This gets me furious. As a woman not interested in any of the four choices, I feel as though my brown people look down upon me. I am a public relations major in the communications field, which is nowhere dominant with colored people. But this taboo on communications and how it is a “useless field” did not stop me. Constantly getting comments like “communications is not stable,” “you will never make any money with public relations,” or “you should switch your major before it is too late” did not hinder my decision. In fact, it encouraged me to prove them wrong! I chose Hofstra because it is one of the best schools for communications and will continue to go to this university for the next four years. “People might not always think the same way as me either because their identities have been more or less developed, or because their identities have been established in a completely dissimilar system” (Davis, par 9). The brown community does not see the value in communications, but I do. Communications is part of my identity. I am a social person who needs to see “the real” in every person and see the bigger picture of that person’s purpose. Working in public relations is not just a “hello” and “goodbye” conversation, which many people think it is, but investing value in a person, company, or venue. I knew that if I listened to these people, I would most likely be in a nursing program and dreading every second of it. These people have minimal capacity when it comes to career choices. I am proud of myself for keeping true to my identity and my own interests because my career in public relations will define who I am instead of being someone who I am not.

Staying true to my identity as a brown-skinned Indian woman was like fighting a battle with myself. Growing up I realized that I was different from other people in my elementary and middle school. The kids and teachers had lighter hair than me, different colored eyes, and fairer skin tones. To be honest. I felt out of place and wanted to fit in and the only way was to be white. This mindset of fitting in with the white kids destroyed my self-esteem entirely because the reality is that I am brown. I wanted to be from Europe and not Asia. In middle school we had culture day where we talked about our heritage and I was extremely embarrassed to tell everyone that I was Indian. I avoided using words like “curry” and talking in my native language so kids would not laugh at me and see me as the “weird girl.” I wanted straight, thin hair and not thick, curly hair. I remember one white girl coming up to me in elementary school and asking me, “Why is your hair so curly and black?” I just stood there and questioned my hair as well because I did not know why my hair was different. I wanted to be superior and not inferior. This hierarchy between races that I mentally created really affected the growth of my identity. When I was younger I viewed white people as a higher race. I belittled myself because of my own skin color.  I was one of the few colored people on my school bus in elementary school. This led to the white kids bullying me and calling me names like “Indian warthog” and such. This created the fear in my mind that the whites had power and control over me. If I saw a white person standing behind me on the lunch line, I would let them go in front of me. If I needed to pick a partner for projects, I would instantly pick the white girls first. In a sense, I idolized having white skin. I saw white skin as the key to having a successful, easy life.

Oh boy, was I wrong! As I got older I realized how limited was my mindset. There was no real reason to think of my brown skin and my culture with a negative connotation.“...you’re dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that Party, you’re not only a chump, but you’re a traitor to your race” (Malcolm X, par 13).  I needed to accept that I was an Indian, brown-skinned girl and that will never change. I had to be proud of who my parents were and who they raised me to be. I had to get out of this narrow-minded environment where I superiorized white people.

Going into high school everything changed. I viewed everyone as equal and that no one was better than another because of their skin color. I realized that skin color is part of one’s heritage. Everybody is still human, as cliche as it sounds, it is true. If you live closer to the equator you will have darker skin. If you live farther from the equator you will have lighter skin. This is just geography and not something you can control. So to belittle myself off these factors that I could not control was insane of me. I started accepting myself for who I was and started being more confident in my heritage. If I could go back to the girl who asked me why my hair was so curly and black, I would tell her it is because I am Indian and this is what most South Indian girls have. I learned to embrace my Indianness and become aware of the rest of the world. As I grew older I realized that there is more than the white race and so many other cultures to be exposed to. "Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or, in other words, of the good” (Plato, par 46). Plato explains how I felt with my entire Indian crisis. I needed to find strength within myself to identify as an Indian and not be ashamed of it. I was stuck in this close-minded mentality that limited my capacity and power to find acceptance in myself. My viewpoint needed to be expanded from this “white supremacy” to seeing all races as one.

My viewpoint changing really helped develop my identity. I am nowhere the same person I was a few years ago. My homeostasis changed. My parents made a pathway by immigrating to America to be exposed to many opportunities which I will forever be thankful for. Being in communications field for my career adds onto my identity as a socializer and a barrier breaker for the Indian community. Accepting my skin color and being proud of my Indian heritage, while conquering my irrational fear of white supremacy, evolved myself to be true to who I am. As they say in Malayalam, നിങ്ങൾ നൽകുന്ന ജീവനെ സ്നേഹിക്കുക (niṅṅaḷ nalkunna jīvane snēhikkuka), love the life you are given.

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. "How to Tame a Wild Tongue."

www.everettsd.org/cms/lib07/WA01920133/Centricity/Domain/965/Anzaldua-Wild-Tongue.pdf.

Davis, Brittany.  "Mastering a Free-Thinking Perspective." 1 Jan. 2017, giantstepspress.blogspot.com/2016/03/mastering-free-thinking-perspective-by.html.

Plato. The Allegory of the Cave. VII, ser. 514a-521b, faculty.ycp.edu/~dweiss/phl224_human_nature/Plato%20republic%20allegory%20of%20the%20cave.pdf.olis,

Solis, Lola. "Is Feminism the New F Word? From Resistant to Responsive,"  giantstepspress.blogspot.com/2016/04/is-feminism-new-f-word-from-resistant.html.

X, Malcolm. "The Ballot or the Bullet." 1964. www.infosec.aueb.gr/Besides%20Security/TALKS/TALKS-10-X%20(The%20Ballot%20or%20the%20Bullet).

“The Kids Are the Didgeridoo: A Musical Study of Society in WALKABOUT” by Brittany McGowan

Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout is a story not only of survival but a story of cultural solidarity, clashing societies, and lack of knowledge. His film is full of extreme symbolism and representation moving from the music to the characters to the societies they are from.

The film opens up with a montage of the two main wealthy, privileged, white, British children going about their daily routine: toys and mindless vocal lessons held up by the long, unsettling blare of the didgeridoo. The low, loud hum sets the wild tone of the overall film and foreshadows the coming events the children will experience. A common practice in film, the opening music establishes the feel of the film as a whole: unsettling. The native Australian instrument does not, however, match up with the film imagery of the opening montage, which then foreshadows the cultural differences between the two children and the Aboriginal boy later in the film. The montage would match up better with music that establishes the everyday hustle-and-bustle of privileged children rather than the ominous hum of the Outback. The didgeridoo is out of its habitat.

When the children go on their picnic, they bring a radio. The radio is playing modern music in the middle of the desert. The music, although matching with the picnic, does not match the barren desert surroundings. As the children head deeper into the Outback, choral music plays as the camera zooms out to a wide shot of the dry landscape. Much like the didgeridoo and the opening sequence, the calm choral music featuring the voices of children mentioning finding the light does not match up with the gravity of the situation that the siblings have gotten themselves into. A few minutes later in the film, the children climb to the top of a mountain to try and see where they are. At this point, uplifting orchestral music begins. The score initially matches up with the shots of the view, but after some thought, the audience remembers again that these young children are lost in the Australian wilderness with nothing except for some toys, a radio, limited food leftover from the failed attempt at a picnic, and their uniforms. Uplifting orchestral music might be enhancing the beauty of the view, but it is fighting the dangers in the story.

The music in the film has a habit of not corresponding with its scenery or situation that it should be enhancing. In a way, the music represents the children. The grumble of the didgeridoo is extremely out of place in the urban environment it was introduced in. In the wilderness, the choral and orchestral scores do not match up with the dangers of the wilderness, thus showing cultural separations. The children, with the radio, have their own music, appearing very out of place. In the desert, the children are out of their natural urban environment with their lack of survival skills and dress shoes. The music turns the story completely over from the opening montage to the rest of the film. The children become just as out of place as the didgeridoo in the city. The music represents one of the many cultural and societal differences in the film.

The didgeridoo is the oldest wind instrument known to mankind. “Researchers have suggested it may be the world's oldest musical instrument, over 40,000 years old” (“Didgeridoo Facts”). Throwing this instrument in to support footage of then-modern society immediately shows how drastic the differences in the film will be. Once the situation is flipped, with orchestra, choral, and modern radio music supporting the native Australian desert, the music supports the children, enhancing how out of place they are. The children go through their journey with no survival skills. They are modern people paired with an ancient civilization. “Australia’s Aboriginal civilization is the oldest on the planet, dating back some 50,000 years” (Klein). This film takes the two most societal extremes and makes them work together. Unfortunately, these two societies and habitats do not know how to work together. The teenage girl, who takes a leadership position trekking across the desert, has hardly any survival skills and no knowledge of how to attempt to communicate with the Native.

The older sister, not really having made any drastic survival errors since the decision to run deeper into the desert (which got the two into the mess that is the rest of the film), makes her first mistake. As the two children are sitting down, taking a break, the young boy mentions that he is hungry. His sister tells him that he should eat salt. She claims to have gotten that idea from her uncle, who ate salt in the army. The mistake is that salt is a solute. Now, the girl’s uniform indicates that the school she goes to is private and expensive. Generally, these schools have a good academic standing. Such schools would also teach their students that eating salt will cause them to become dehydrated, even though it should be common sense. Most children know that if they were to pour salt on a snail or slug it would cause the creature to shrivel up and die because the salt extracts the moisture. The young boy, of course, eats the salt. In the next scene, the boy appears to be rendered unconscious; most likely due to a combination of the lack of food, overexposure to intense sunlight, and lack of water with too much salt. This is the first real indication that her prestigious education has taught her not much that is of use.

Within the next few minutes of the film, the girl makes crucial errors. After the two find a watering hole, they decide to bathe in it and attempt to clean their clothes. It is implied that they do this before filling up their water bottle, since in the next scene, the boy complains about not filling up the water bottle. The girl also snaps at her brother, telling him to try and find his blazer because “We don’t want people thinking we’re a couple of tramps” (Roeg 23:14), even though, at this point in the film, there is no one to be found. A few minutes later, the girl tells her brother not to walk through the mud that was once their precious watering hole because it might ruin his good shoes. Apparently walking through the desert in dress shoes is not enough to ruin them.     

Education is the first notice (since the musical symbolism) in the film that separates the children. Right after they approach the Aboriginal boy, the girl asks him where they are. The boy yells at his sister to ask the stranger for water. She continues to get more and more frustrated when she realizes that the Native cannot understand her language and makes no attempt to try and build a connection so that he can understand her needs. It is not until the brother pipes up and motions for water that the Aboriginal boy understands and helps them. The girl’s education clearly has not taught her basic communication. It has separated her from her surroundings, engulfing her in a cultural and societal bubble. Privatized education, or just western-civilization-style education in general, leaves out basic common sense and survival. It would be more understandable to leave out survival skills if she was still in England, but now, being in Australia, with desert surrounding most points of advanced civilization, survival is key. Her logic is barely present. Education and knowledge are two entirely different things. The girl has her education, but she has no legitimate knowledge that can help her in situations outside of her comfort zone. She is more concerned about her social status than she is about survival.

Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important or worth finishing; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly (Gatto).

We are all a victim of failed education. We are taught what the government wants us to know, but not what we necessarily need to know. “We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing” (Emerson). Once we are thrown out of the environment we know, all we can rely on is our past education and experience. Yes, the children’s actions were not thought through because in the world of film, actions are done up exponentially so to be obvious and prove a point. Once we are thrown out of our environment, we become the children. We become the didgeridoo of our own story.

Works Cited

Gatto, John Taylor. "Quotes About Education System (114 quotes)." Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web.  02 Mar. 2017.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Quotes About Education System (114 quotes)." Goodreads. N.p., n.d.  Web. 02 Mar. 2017.

Klein, Christopher. "DNA Study Finds Aboriginal Australians World's Oldest Civilization."  History.com. A&E Television Networks, 23 Sept. 2016. Web. 02 Mar. 2017.

"Didgeridoo Facts, Didgeridoo History & Aboriginal Music Knowledgebase | Didgeridoo Breath Australia." Didgeridoo Facts, Didgeridoo History & Aboriginal Music Knowledgebase | Didgeridoo Breath Australia. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2017.

Walkabout. Dir. Nicholas Roeg. Perf. Jenny Agutter, Jean-Luc Roeg, David Gumpilil. 1971. YouTube.

“An Eye to WALKABOUT: Little Mother” by Chelsea Miller

Nothing in the world is like a mother’s love, except the love of a motherly big sister. When I watched the film, Walkabout, directed by Nicolas Roeg, I originally thought the teenage girl was the little boy’s mother because of the way she looked out for him. I later discovered that she was in fact the older sister when we discussed the film as a class. Throughout the film, the girl is forced to act as a mother to her little brother and makes seemingly nonsensical decisions which I relate to on a personal level. Many people misread the sister because her actions don’t seem to make sense, but as a motherly sister there is a method to her madness.

In the beginning of the film, when the father starts shooting at the little boy, the sister’s first instinct was not to hide, but to protect her little brother (Roeg, 0:9:44). She risked her life to protect him, which was the first sign of her motherly attitude towards the boy. It is likely that the girl began developing her motherly instinct toward her brother because of her father. From what little was seen of the father, it seemed that he was unstable and potentially abusive which may have caused the daughter to grow up faster and feel the need to protect the little boy. Similar to the girl, I am very motherly and protective of my siblings because my parents did not play as big of a role as they should have, although the situation was not as extreme. Of course having a motherly nature does not mean that we always make the best decisions.

Often we put the security of our siblings before practicality and common sense. The sister engendered many questionable decisions which made surviving and getting home much more challenging but made sense to her at the time. For instance, instead of  following the car tracks back home, the older sister took her brother into the middle of nowhere without gathering proper supplies from the picnic spread. There was an important reason she went in the opposite direction from where they came from. She was protecting her brother from the horrific sight by walking away from the car wreckage and their dead father, rather than towards it. 

In our class discussion and in the essays written by my peers, many people think the girl is only to prove how stupid western civilization has become and fail to see the deeper meaning behind her actions. They see her making bad decisions like not stocking up on supplies and label her as dumb and brainwashed by civilization. I felt the same way, until I took a second look at her actions. It is important to try to understand what she is going through; she is feeling overwhelmed but is still doing the best she can. After all she is still just a kid who just saw her father kill himself, and now she has to care for her little brother while trying to get back home when she doesn’t even know where they are.  When she goes to grab food from the picnic, she doesn’t take everything which seems really stupid (Roeg, 0:11:26). You would think that grabbing everything useful is the only logical thing to do in that situation, right? Well, not exactly. When the sister was grabbing stuff, she knew she had to be really quick because she didn’t have a lot of time. Even though the sister had told her brother to stay put while she packed the supplies, she knew it was only a matter of time before her brother would get curious and try to see what was going on and stumble across the wreckage. So, in order to preserve her brother’s innocence, the girl sacrificed taking time to think about what she was taking with her.

While caring about appearances may seem stupid and useless when trying to survive, it is actually very important. Maintaining a proper appearance was a way of coping with the situation, acting as if everything was normal to ensure the little brother did not have to also deal with worrying about being lost. The girl wanted the small child to keep his shirt on for this reason, as well as protect his skin from getting a sunburn. Similarly, I had to keep my two siblings from being scared every time my parents started screaming at each other, when I was just as scared as they were, if not more. I did not want my siblings to think that our parents might get divorced like I feared. Both the girl and I had to keep a stiff upper lip and keep the truth from our younger siblings, and often the easiest way to do that is by acting as if nothing is wrong.

As motherly older sisters, we will go to great lengths to keep our siblings safe and worry free. Sometimes that means lying to their faces to preserve their innocence, assuring them that everything is fine when it is definitely not fine. The sister and I have both lied to our siblings many times so that they would not worry about the troubling circumstances while we dealt with the stress on our own. In the film, when the little boy asked why they were leaving their father who the girl who had just seen commit suicide, the girl told her brother that their father said “to go on ahead” and he would catch up to them (Roeg, 0:11:58). She also had to reassure the child that they were not lost, even though it was clear the indeed were. Lying is not something protective sisters enjoy doing, but we’ll do it if it will put our loved ones at ease.

To keep her brother from worrying, the girl also tried to make being in the outback seem like an adventure, turning boring things like walking into a game. While the boy went on the pretend adventure, the mini-mom could not relax because she was responsible for keeping an eye on him and had to find a way back to civilization while also dealing with lot of stress. It wasn’t until after they met the aborigine boy, who relieved her of some of the burden, that she was able to let her guard down and enjoy herself alongside her brother. After the death of the aborigine boy and  their return to civilization, the sister reverted back to the uptight motherly mentality which she had before.

Like mothers, older sisters may not be perfect, but they do their best to look out for the younger children. Many things they do can seem impractical or counterproductive, but there’s almost always a reason behind the strange actions. That reason is almost always to ensure the physical and mental well being of tiny people are the most important things, and motherly people will go to great lengths to ensure it. It is unfortunate when children are forced to grow up early to take on a parenting role, their innocence and youth taken from them too soon and replaced with the burden of responsibility. Under the right circumstances, those burdens can be lessened, allowing them to once again be carefree. The parental mentality is something one can never truly escape, returning the moment those burdens resurface. At the end of the film, it shows the girl, who has now grown up, looking back and regretting that she did not loosen up and enjoy herself more when she was younger because she was so focused on being a replacement mother to her little brother. A big sister’s love is so strong that she will forsake her youth and innocence to protect  her siblings.

Works Cited

Walkabout. Dir. Nicolas Roeg. Twentieth Century Fox, 1971