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- Volume 9, Issue 1, 2020
Australasian Journal of Popular Culture - Volume 9, Issue 1, 2020
Volume 9, Issue 1, 2020
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The neo-pin ups: Reimagining mid-twentieth-century style and sensibilities
More LessAbstractPin Up style has made a comeback with dozens of pin up competitions featuring at retro car festivals and events across Australia. A sub-culture has grown up around this phenomenon, with boutiques, celebrities and online influencers celebrating its aesthetic. I refer to this group as ‘neo-pin ups’ to differentiate them from the pin ups of the mid-twentieth century. Despite heralding the style and beauty of 1940s and 1950s pin ups, these neo-pin ups bear little resemblance to their mid-century counterparts. Researchers such as Madeleine Hamilton have investigated the era of the original Australian 1940s and 1950s pin up, finding an image deemed to be both ‘wholesome’ and ‘patriotic’ and suitable for the troops on the front lines. Ironically, this social approval resulted in pin up evolving in a more explicit direction throughout the 1960s as epitomized by Playboy magazine and the Miss World competitions. During this time, the increasingly influential feminist movement challenged the way women were viewed in society, particularly in regard to objectification and the male gaze. This critique continues today with the #metoo and gender equality movements. This article investigates how and why Australian women are transforming the image of the 1940s and 1950s pin up. Drawing upon interviews and observations conducted within the Australian neo-pin up culture, this article demonstrates how neo-pin ups draw on contemporary mores, rejecting the social values of their mid-century counterparts and reclaiming women’s place in society and history, from a female point of view. Neo-pin ups are not looking to return to the past, instead they are rewriting what pin ups represent to the present and future.
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‘A friend who stabs you’: Abjection, violence and the female clique in film
More LessAbstractThis article establishes a unique subgenre of film (the ‘female clique film’) in which the clique (and its disruption) is central to the film’s plot. It discusses four female clique films – Heathers (1989), The Craft (1996), Jawbreaker (1999) and Mean Girls (2004) – in order to consider their depiction of physical rather than relational aggression: extraordinary and even sociopathic violence occurs both within and outside these female relationships as part of the ritualized identity of the clique. It uses the logic of abjection to analyse the figure of the outsider as well as the female body, showing how social abjection and abject bodies are linked by the clique when they commit both relational and physical aggression against other girls. The article argues that the female clique film must be understood in terms of Alison Yarrow’s ‘bitchification’ – the failures of feminism in the later decades of the twentieth century.
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Learning to cook the Chinese way: Australian Chinese cookbooks of the 1950s
More LessAbstractThe history of Chinese migration to Australia and in particular the impact of discriminatory legislation has been the subject of considerable scholarship. Less well documented is the contribution of Chinese immigrants to Australia’s food culture. Chinese cooks had been at work in Australia since at least the 1850s, and cafés and restaurants were serving Chinese food in both urban and rural centres by the 1930s. The first cookery books devoted to Chinese recipes were written by Australian Chinese and published after the Second World War. They provided the curious and the adventurous with information that allowed them to both confidently order food in restaurants and experiment with cooking at home. An important and neglected source, this survey of these publications suggests some of the ways in which Chinese cooks adapted and adopted to produce an ‘Australianized’ Chinese menu.
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Tête-á-tête: Popular representations of the romantic dinner in post-war Australia
Authors: Jillian Adams and Donna Lee BrienAbstractThis article examines the notions of the romantic dinner in post-war Australia, using material culture in the form of Australian food writing and advertisements in cookbooks and popular magazines from the post-war period (in this case, 1945–68). It investigates three closely related aspects of the ‘romantic’ dinner for two: the similarities and contrasts between the courtship restaurant ‘date’ and a specially prepared dinner at home; the way in which gendered roles are performed, confirmed and contested in these events; and the influence of American advertising, and its promotion of American cuisine and lifestyle, on the way the domestic meal was conceptualized and presented to housewives at this time. Bearing in mind that the social importance of food is reinforced because its preparation occurs on a daily basis and that the informative power of food and the material culture around food production is as yet only partially tapped, this analysis attempts to answer the question: was the romantic dinner for two an opportunity for romance, or was it a creation that reinforced post-war gender roles in Australia?
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Wildflowering culture: Kathleen McArthur and creating a popular wildflower consciousness
By Susan DavisAbstractChanging people’s hearts and minds requires courage, conviction and creativity. To change attitudes and reach the public consciousness, a diverse range of communicative and cultural tools need to be employed. Australian artist and conservationist Kathleen McArthur rose to the challenge using all the forms that were available to her. Working with others such as renowned poet Judith Wright, she sought to change the way Australians regarded our native plants and landscapes. Kathleen understood that to protect the precious environments that remained would require reaching out to ordinary Australians. Therefore, she utilized a suite of arts and communication forms, ranging from postcard campaigns to weekly newspaper columns, public talks, slide presentations, paintings, exhibitions and published books. Inspired by natural forms and utilizing cultural forms, McArthur was able to promote a form of ‘nature culture’ and public consciousness to protect and promote the nature that she loved.
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Indigenous approaches to the past: ‘Creative histories’ at the Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney
More LessAbstractThis article discusses a recent art project created by the Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi artist Jonathon Jones, which was commissioned to commemorate the opening of the revitalized Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney in early 2020. Jones’ work involves a dramatic installation of red and white crushed stones laid throughout the grounds of the barracks, merging the image of the emu footprint with that of the English broad convict arrow to ‘consider Australia’s layered history and contemporary cultural relations’. This work was accompanied by a ‘specially-curated programme’ of performances, workshops, storytelling and Artist Talks. Together, these elements were designed to unpack how certain ‘stories determine the ways we came together as a nation’. As one of the speakers of the Artist Talk’s programme, I had a unique opportunity to experiment with what colleagues and I have been calling ‘Creative histories’ in reference to the way some artists and historians are choosing to communicate their research about the past in ways that experiment with form and function and push disciplinary or generic boundaries. This article reflects upon how these two distinct creative history projects – one visual art, the other performative – renegotiate the complex and contested pasts of the Hyde Park Barracks. I suggest that both examples speak to the role of memory and creativity in shaping cultural responses to Australia’s colonial past, while Jones' programme illustrates how Indigenous artists and academics are making a profound intervention into contemporary understandings of how history is ‘done’ in Australia.
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Perfidious Albion, Sam Byers (2018)
More LessAbstractPerfidious Albion, Sam Byers (2018)
London: Faber & Faber, 384 pp.,
ISBN 978-0-57133-630-2, p/bk, AUD 20
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Star Wars after Lucas: A Critical Guide to the Future of the Galaxy, Dan Golding (2019)
By Adam DanielAbstractStar Wars after Lucas: A Critical Guide to the Future of the Galaxy, Dan Golding (2019)
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 264 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-51790-542-2, h/bk, AUD 30.95
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