Australasian Journal of Popular Culture - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2011

When people think of Dirty Harry, they tend to imagine a figure of absolute determination and unbreakable resolution. The opening film of the Dirty Harry Franchise (Dirty Harry, 1971) does not, however, fit neatly with that understanding. Indeed, Harry is deeply torn; his is a story of hesitation. And as such, he vacillates across any number of dichotomies. Neither wholly objective nor wholly subjective, for example, he is always both inside and outside the action. In this article, we analyse the film's, and Harry's, fundamental hesitation through the lens of Freudian psychoanalysis, and in particular the essay on the splitting of the ego. In so doing, we suggest that Scorpio is a representation of Harry's ego that has to be resolved. Indeed, the whole film can be read as the working through of trauma stemming from a primal scene, which we locate in the trouble that Harry famously, but enigmatically, had in the Fillmore district. These events, which the mayor specifically does not want to see repeated, are shown to be repeated continually, and in various formats, throughout the film, to the extent that, in the final (psycho)analysis, the trouble in the Fillmore district is all there is. The film can thus be said to be about the working through of traumatic events and the repairing of a fractured ego. In conclusion, we explore how the events of the Fillmore district are about the balancing of seeing and being seen, with all that this entails for a heightening of our own responsibilities as voyeurs in Harry's San Francisco.

This article explores how the island of Okinawa and its inhabitants have been perceived and represented through American popular culture. It argues that the American representation of Okinawans reflects the significant role that the US military has played in the formation (and reformation) of Okinawan self-identity. Conversely, representations of American servicemen and their behaviour towards Okinawans illuminate the shifting attitudes Americans have held towards the deployment of US military personnel overseas since 1945. This article suggests that American popular culture has both reinforced and questioned the post-war discourse that has defined Okinawans as victims of Japanese imperialism, portrayed the US military as their liberators and has therefore served as justification for Okinawas continued use as a military colony.

This article analyses from a gendered perspective aspects of form and cultural record relating to Wanda the War Girl (1943–1951), by artist Kath O’Brien – a Second World War strip for the (Sydney) Sunday Telegraph that was said to have been more popular with both adults and children than Superman. This was one of the first local comics to reflect a female point of view, combined with some vernacular characteristics, and the series is significant historically because the Second World War was also the first occasion on which Australian servicewomen existed. The welldressed adventuress and spy exemplified a new attitude towards women. Although she was a sexually provocative pin-up, Wanda the War Girl presented a form of female representation necessitated by the Second World War, which differed from earlier styles. The female character was powerful and productive: her bravery and attraction derived from her presence in male spheres. It is argued that by providing an interesting mosaic of 1940s attitudes, creator O’Brien’s support for the war effort has become a valid cultural record of the period.

In the period of reconstruction that followed World War II, Australians experienced a severe housing shortage. The Commonwealth Government's own wartime estimate was that there would be a shortage of over 300,000 dwellings in 1947. While it collaborated with state governments to build public housing, chronic shortages of materials, of labour and an increasing population, meant that the demand could not be met. As a result, many Australians found that the only way they would get a home was to build it themselves - up to 30 per cent of all new houses in the 1950s were owner built.

DIY home construction provided a tangible representation of a husband and father's capacity to provide shelter. While women became involved in planning, sourcing materials, labouring and project-management, men undertook most of the heavy construction. At the same time, a significant shift occurred in the way manual labour around the house was viewed. DIY activity became seen as a pleasant and meaningful contribution to family life and part of the solution to the potential feminization of the suburban father.

The values associated with DIY and the practices of a new kind of suburban masculinity were promoted in popular taste-making publications such as Australian Home Beautiful, Australian House and Garden, and ephemera published by the manufacturers of building materials, tools and other commodities. This article uses these sources and interviews with people, most of who were traced from articles about their DIY homes, in local magazines.

The gender politics of horror cinema are ambiguous and ideologically complex. In 2007, film-maker Eli Roth generated considerable debate when he claimed that his film Hostel Part II (2007) was a feminist horror film. More recently, awardwinning screenwriter Diablo Cody generated a similar uproar when she likewise claimed that her film Jennifer's Body (Kusama 2009) was feminist. In both cases, the attacks directed at Roth and Cody stemmed as much from animosity towards their very public personas as from their films' content. These attacks also stemmed partly from long-standing prejudices against horror films as vehicles for violently reinforcing patriarchy, and from the fact that these film-makers, in speaking about feminism, were speaking on behalf of a generalized, unified and coherent entity that most feminists would argue does not actually exist. This article analyses the claims made by Roth and Cody and the outcry generated by these claims. Moreover, this article considers whether the contemporary horror film can legitimately serve as a vehicle for forging feminist statements, given both the nature of the horror film and the many competing and contradictory ideas of what constitutes feminism.

In recent years, the outfit post - a defining feature of personal style blogs - has changed the seeing and being seen of dressing. What was once primarily a corporeal and temporal social practice has developed into a performed virtual reality in which style bloggers literally fashion their identity on their blogs. Style blogs thus become both the space in which bloggers realize their own fashioned self and the site at which their readers experience them as stylish. These blogs have become a place for the display of the new and a realization of the imaginary, as well as a site to record 'what I wore'. This article explores the phenomenon of outfit posts, focusing on the interanimation therein between bloggers' styled selves and their clothing. Central to this discussion will be a consideration of the ways that outfit posts are both performative and expressive presentations of self.

It has been claimed that writing is not directly 'gendered'; that all, or at least most, subjects are universal and can be written about by anyone. Regardless of this, novels written by men, those seen to emphasize 'men's' values, have traditionally been granted more recognition and respect. So-called 'women's fiction' - arguably some of the most commercially successful fiction in recent decades - is often criticized and ridiculed, though the reason for this may be as simple as the fact that, particularly in the case of male critics and reviewers, they simply may not comprehend women's fiction, with its natural and understandable emphasis on woman-centred values and experiences, and, as such, feel uncomfortable in a strange, woman-centred environment. This raises an interesting point: whether typically woman-centred fiction would gain more respect and recognition if it were written by men. This article will examine the situation of male writers of woman-centred fiction; it will discuss the reception these authors have typically received; and it will explore the work of Andrew O'Connor - also known as A. O'Connor - something of a rarity as a male chick lit author, with the aim of revealing whether a man can effectively and convincingly write about women and their experiences.

For the last 50 years, the ubiquitous shopping mall has been a staple of everyday American life. Victor Gruen, credited with creating the blueprint for the contemporary shopping mall, envisioned the mall as 'the nucleus of a utopian experiment', a space where 'shoppers will be so bedazzled by a store's surroundings that they will be drawn - unconsciously, continually to shop in a master- planned, mixed-use community'. According to Ellen Dunham-Jones, '20 percent of the 2,000 largest malls in the United States are failing'. As a result of oversaturation, the current economic situation and changing shopping habits, many of Gruen's 'utopian experiments' are being replaced with 'Big Box' stores such as Target and Walmart, spaces that offer none of the communal aspects of Gruen's retail vision. Although the decline of the American shopping mall may be seen as a triumph to many, one cannot discredit the cultural importance of the shopping mall and the imprint that it has left on the average American consumer. This article explores the shopping mall as a symbolic construct and reflects on how its decline is affecting the American public.

This article presents a broad overview of the Australian presence in American popular culture since 1995, focusing on a variety of cultural productions, including television, film, restaurants, beer advertisements, clothing and music. I argue that Australia and Australians are depicted in American popular culture in an exaggerated, exoticized manner. The representations of Australia and Australians in American popular culture usually consist of exaggerated stereotypes that are constructed in order to serve commercial interests, and thus the representations serve to perpetuate stereotypes, such as the Ocker image that is so dominant in American popular culture, rather than to increase knowledge of Australia and Australians within the United States.

'La Toilette d'une Femme' is a series I produced in 2010 in which I photographed women getting dressed at their homes. The inspiration for the work is paintings from the 18th and 19th century that represented women dressing. I have reinvigorated this genre by creating portraits of women for whom getting dressed is an important ritual, creative process and statement of their identity.

In some images I appear in the reflection of the mirror. This celebrates the shared ritual of dressing with other women. It also draws attention to the construction of the photographic image, by the photographer and the relationship between model and photographer. Rather than representing a finished look, 'La Toilette d'une Femme' continues my interest in transition and time by representing my subjects in the process of creating a look for the outside world.

As the women compose themselves in the mirror, the expression on their faces and their body language speak variously of joy, anxiety and satisfaction. In a world where we are constantly exposed to images of fashion and semi-naked women, these photographs reveal the reality of women's experience of clothing.

THE COLLECTED BONY BULLETINS: ORIGINAL AND COMPLETE, COMPILED BY CLAUDIA STONE (2007) Tucson, Arizona: Corgi Publishing, 225 pp., ISBN: 0979286603, 9780979286605, Paperback, Copies of The Collected Bony Bulletins are available from the compiler, Claudia Stone: 500 N. AvenidaVenado, Tucson, AZ 85748 USA; email: c.stonecox.net

THE BEACH OF ATONEMENT, ARTHUR UPFIELD ([1930] 2007) Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com, 298 pp., ISBN: 9781430325383, Paperback, US$40.00

ARTHUR W. UPFIELD: LIFE AND TIMES OF BONY'S MAN, ANDREW MILNOR (2008) Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 245 pp., ISBN: 1847185576, 9781847185570, Hardback, GBP34.99, US$52.99

UP AND DOWN AUSTRALIA: SHORT STORIES, ARTHUR UPFIELD, EDITED BY KEES DE HOOG, (2008) Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com, 300 pp., ISBN: 9781847994134, Paperback, US$24.96

UP AND DOWN AUSTRALIA AGAIN: MORE SHORT STORIES, ARTHUR UPFIELD, EDITED BY KEES DE HOOG (2009) Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com, 300 pp., ISBN: 9781445229843, Paperback, US$24.95

UP AND DOWN THE REAL AUSTRALIA: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ARTICLES AND THE MURCHISON MURDERS, ARTHUR UPFIELD, EDITED BY KEES DE HOOG (2009) Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com, 248 pp., ISBN: 9871409255840, Paperback, US$22.97

WHEN BONY WAS THERE: A CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE AND CAREER OF DETECTIVE INSPECTOR NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, KEES DE HOOG (2010) Raleigh, NC: Lulu.com, 47 pp., ISBN: 9781445766195, Paperback, US$11.95

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR NAPOLEON BONAPARTE: HIS LIFE AND TIMES, MICHAEL DUKE (2010) Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 262 pp., ISBN: 1443823759, Hardback, GBP39.99, US$59.99

GRIPPED BY DROUGHT, ARTHUR UPFIELD ([1932] 2011) Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com, 292 pp., ISBN: 9781446627341, Hardback, US$42.95

A ROYAL ABDUCTION, ARTHUR UPFIELD ([1932] 2011) Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com, Forthcoming

APPLY WITHIN: STORIES OF CAREER SABOTAGE, MICHAELA MCGUIRE (2009) Carlton: Melbourne University Publishing, 208 pp., ISBN: 9780522855890, Paperback, AUD $27.99

IMPACT OF THE MODERN: VERNACULAR MODERNITIES IN AUSTRALIA 1870S-1960S, ROBERT DIXON AND VERONICA KELLY (2008) Sydney: Sydney University Press, 308 pp., ISBN 9781920898892, Paperback, Aus$49.95

GLAMOUR: WOMEN, HISTORY, FEMINISM, CAROL DYHOUSE (2010) London and New York: Zed Books, 198 pp., ISBN 9781848134072, Hardback, Aus$44.95, ISBN 9781848138612, Paperback, Aus$19.95