MovieChat Forums > Quigley Down Under (1990) Discussion > The dumbest portrayal of Australia since...

The dumbest portrayal of Australia since the Simpsons

posted 17 years ago by down_under_birdy
25 replies | jump to latest

If this movie was set in the 1870s, they have some serious problems to deal with. In fact, the whole movie was rife with utter crap.

1. VERY few of the actors had an Australian accent. I heard alot of Americans, English and Irish, and only one person with an Aussie accent. The Australian accent was well and truly established by the 1870s, and the station owner (guy who plays Sherrif of Nottingham and Snape) was supposed to be (at the very least) a second generation Australian, and yet he had an English accent.

2. Stealing women from the towns? How backward do they think Australians were? If they wanted women to settle on the stations, men would either marry or hire women to work. They were not kidnapped....not white women anyway.

3. People considered themselves to be British. There was not burning resentment towards English colonial forces, because people considered themselves to be English. The only person in that movie who had any justification in hating the English was the Irish bloke, and maybe Quigley himself. Even the convicts considered themselves to be English. In the 1870s a movement towards independent federation was only just beginning and even then it was about economic and military independence - not a resentment towards British rule. Australians considered themselves to be essentially 'English' right up until the First World War.

4. They travel three days on foot away from Fremantle and are suddenly smack bang in the middle of the outback? Are they serious? The 'outback' as it is depicted in this movie is (at the ABSOLUTE LEAST) about 500km from any coastline (and at the most, 1000kms)- meaning at least a few weeks of walking. The footage in this movie actually reminded me of the center (and i've lived there) - which is at LEAST 800kms away from the coast. I would also like to know which desert they were walking through, because any station owner who tried to set up shop in the middle of an ACTUAL desert, would have failed before he even started. Cattle stations are on semi-arid land, not deserts.

5. Aborigines - they have very rigid gender codes, as well as 'secret' business that is disclosed to initiated men/women only. There is no way in hell Quigley and Cora would have been allowed to see the ceremonies, hunting tactics, etc... They would have been left with the children or very old folk. The desert people also did not play the didgeridoo, or perform coroborees as depicted in this movie. The rock art shown behind alot of the scenes is also utterly ridiculous. I'm assuming that Quigley wandered on to another Aboriginal 'nation' too, as the people who lived around the station were obviously at war with the station owner and, naturally, all white people. They wouldn't have been friendly to Quigley. The reactions of the Aborigines towards Quigley are feasable, however, if they wandered onto another nation that had had limited contact with white people and little reason to distrust or be hostile towards them. What is not feasable, however, is being able to wander accross the borders of two Aboriginal nations in the outback in a period of one day. That is some pretty fast walking.

I could bore you with the rest, but i wont.

[–] snikt_snakt 17 years ago

Too late.

"What the f-ck is the internet?" -Jay, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back

[–] midnightsun79 17 years ago

Sorry, but the movie was made for North American audiences who more than likely have never travelled to Australia. Even if they did, its just a freackin' movie! And I think it did a lot better portraying Australia by giving the country a sense of respect. Meaning that you don't just go to Australia and go into the outback un prepared because you are some kind of crazy outdoors eco warrior. Australia can kill. I live in Alaska, and every summer we get the outdoor adventurists who think they can tackle our state easily because they are in great shape and savvy about the outdoor. They then end up geting hurt, killed or raped by a moose. But I think QDU did a better job of talking about Australia than say I don't know what was that piece of garbage from the late eighties, oh yeah Crocodile Dundee. They then went furher and made a Crocodile Dundee II and then Crocodile Dundee in L.A. WTF! I would think the portrayal of Australia down in that movie would be quite offensive. Especially the parts where Dundee was attempting to assimilate to life in New York City. I am suprissed the Australian Parliament didn't decide to declare war on the US.

[–] down_under_birdy 17 years ago

You have obviously never been to Australia. Croc Dundee did a better job of portraying aussie culture than Quigley. QDU was offensive. It completely bastardized our history. That part of our history is extremely sensitive - even we can't talk about it amongst ourselves without it turning into some HUGE political event that the media hypes up and up and up. It was a piece of *beep* and if you ever bother to come to Australia and learn about it for yourself you might begin to understand what an utter pile of crap this film truly was.

[–] Homer-Jay 16 years ago

Well, I cannot say much on Australia...
but it is obvious that there are a lot of logical mistakes in this film
(even if one does not know any history, etc).

That's Hollywood.
What do you expect?!

I really want to know:
Which film about Australia or filmed in Australia would you suggest instead?

And pleeeeaase...
you could at least look up the names of the artists involved
even if you do not care much for the film.
Alan Rickman might not have a huge talent for accents or maybe he thought it would have been too ridiculous to try but he is still a good actor who owes a bit of respect. He does.

Yours, Bruce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE7Fe1cGLPk

[–] down_under_birdy 16 years ago

I would recommend The Proposition - a western aimed at men. good one.

[–] bugfatty 16 years ago

VERY few of the actors had an Australian accent. I heard alot of Americans, English and Irish, and only one person with an Aussie accent.

This was the top of your list? Geez.

American, Irish, British accents did not exist in Australia in the 19th century? When immigrants and prospectors from around the world got off the boats did they immediately drop their old accent for an Australian one?

[–] down_under_birdy 16 years ago

If the makers of this movie were working off that logic, there would have been alot more Aussie accents (which were well established by then), and a few dotted English/Irish/German/American. Like i said - i only heard ONE Aussie accent.

Also - most of the people with the English/Irish accents were trying to pass themsleves off as Australian - which is an absolute joke - even Australians didn't consider themselves to be 'Australian' until the early 1900s. Until then, we were British.

[–] c-huddleston 16 years ago

I don't know about anyone else but I could care less.

England/The UK/Islam/Pretty much anywhere outside of the USA have been so misrepresented over the years that another (Australia in this case) doesn't matter.

Incidentally I notice that there was no comment on the extermination of Aborigines. Presumably that did happen...

[–] porfle 16 years ago

"QDU was offensive."

No, it wasn't.

"you might begin to understand what an utter pile of crap this film truly was."

Wrong.

http://www.bumscorner.com
http://www.myspace.com/porfle

[–] Conagher_1880 10 years ago

Westerns do that to our history, too...as well as to the culture of our Natives.

Welcome to Hollywood.

"It's a hard country, kid."

[–] smokehill retrievers 9 years ago

The political correctness of QDU is rather obvious, and no doubt because of Hollywood's obsession with portraying all whites as bad, and all Indians as good. Hollywood knows nothing about history, of course, and doesn't care, as long as the film makes money and flatters the filmmakers into believing they are progressive heroes.

In truth one Indian tribe was NOT the same as another; in fact there was little in common between many of them, other than their stone-age culture and penchant for stealing from other tribes, slaughtering most of their men, and turning the remainder into slaves. Comparing the Shoshone or the Navaho, for instance, to degenerate, murderous savages like the Comanche, is just plain stupid. In truth, we did use some pretty vile tactics against the Indians, but none that were any worse than what they did to whites (or other tribes).

On the other hand, as far as I know the Australian aborigines didn't rapaciously attack the British settlers in Australia. They just were in the way, and used up valuable land and resources the ranchers and farmers wanted for themselves. Not a pretty picture, but based on my admittedly tiny understanding of Aussie history, the aborigines come off a lot more innocent than our American Indians.

No doubt the politically correct morons will attack my portrayal of Western history, based entirely on what Hollywood tells them and not one bit upon actual history.

Not that I give a damn.

[–] murpur-190-455809 9 years ago

There were fights between the tribes and the settlers for over 100 years. I'd suggest Henry Reynolds' The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European invasion of Australia.

Overall though QDU got more right of the era than wrong, and the TC is unaware of a lot of details that impact on why they're wrong themselves. A lot of colonials homeschooled their kids, it's quite possible for Marston to have only grown up with his parents accents in hearing to develop his own in northern Western Australia for instance the majority of work was done by natives coopted or hired by European settlers, as to the workers and port members not having Australian accents, TC is obviously unaware of WA's specific history as most of the expansion beyond the Swan River colony didn't occur until the 1870s, even the Pilbara settlements didn't begin till the 1860s. 1850s WA became a penal colony... honestly there's little reason for there to be evidence of Australian accents there until the 1880s when the gold rush began and people swarmed westward as a result.

[–] Texas-Jack 16 years ago

No need, you already have.

[–] Captain_Augustus_McCrae 14 years ago

Most of Marsden's henchmen were transported felons from England, Scotland or Ireland, so your observation on accents is basically a pile of crap, wouldn't you say?

"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's living!!!"
Augustus McCrae

[–] Nutscalp 13 years ago

I tip my hat at your nitpickedness.

[–] Captain_Augustus_McCrae 13 years ago

If refuting the OP's #1 point is nitpickedness, what does that say about the quality of the original posting overall?

"She was a long, tall, authentic blonde. I loved her as much as I loved my .45..."

[–] peekablue 13 years ago

Being an Australian, I noticed the weird lack of Australian accents too. However, I don't think Alan Rickman's accent was as out of place as the OP seems to.

As the OP pointed out (rightly so), Australians considered themselves loyal to Britain and more or less English right up until about WW1. That's when the solid Australian identity emerged, that of the mate and the larrikin. Anyway, even in the early parts of the 1900's, there were plenty of people who were born in Australia (upper class people, like Rickman's character) who cultivated an English accent to keep faithful to their roots and to distinguish themselves.

I assumed the other characters were all ex-convicts (early in the movie, two army deserters appeared and offered to work for Rickman's character in exchange for not being sent back, saying they were better than the convicts he had working for him). One guy with an Australian accent is said by the Irish character to have been there for '12 years', and since he had an Australian accent, that suggests to me the others have been there for much less time.

The rock art was total BS too. I've studied Aboriginal rock art at uni, and while I'm by no means an expert on the subject, it was basically totally meaningless because it was not right for the area where the movie was set. I wouldn't expect a movie to hire an expert on Aboriginal rock art unless it were a major plot point, though, so it doesn't bother me.

Anyway, I had a bigger issue with the incredible insensitivity of making a movie based on a man being invited over to commit genocide. All Americans know about the slaughter of Native Americans, and I'm pretty sure a lot of them would be unhappy if Australians made a movie where an Aussie was sent over to America to kill off Native Americans (even if they didn't end up doing it). Most Americans are not aware of it, but in Australia, the British actually succeeded in wiping out every last Aborignal person in Tasmania (partially through illness, but they were also hunted down specifically) so genocide was a real and horrible thing here.

It struck me as somewhat insensitive, but in the end it is just a movie, and it wasn't made with the intention of offending anyone.

[–] robble-1 13 years ago

That part of the movie about genocide made me more curious and therefore more knowledgeable, but it didn't make me think badly of Australia. No country has a pure historical past.

Rickman's character was so obviously a bad guy, but I never took him as a stand-in for the whole country. I guess making a film for entertainment about the issue could be seen as insensitive however.

I can understand how you feel. As you pointed out, Americans have their share of painful, shameful events that even today still have repercussions in society. Based on some news stories I've read and some Australian or New Zealand films I've seen, I'm guessing it's no different in those countries to a certain extent.

When a man is wrestling a leopard in the middle of a pond, he's in no position to run.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Koosh_King01 12 years ago

The only Australians stealing women from the towns and shown hating the English were Marston's thugs. Bad guys and general ne'er-do-well types. The movie never claimed they were representative of all Australians and their attitudes towards women and/or the English.

"I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?"

[–] noobzilla 11 years ago

and..

Luke Skywalker REALLY didnt kill the entire deathstar with one shot..

its a movie, jeez...

-- 'I dont mind a reasonable amount of trouble.' Humphrey Bogart, The Maltese Falcon

[–] liberius 9 years ago

Sure, accuracy is nice. Hell, in some contexts it's essential.

But I'd like to make the observation that we Antipodeans (I'm a Kiwi) tend to be more than a little thin-skinned if we feel we've not been portrayed with a sufficient degree of accuracy or that we've been idly besmirched.

Other people, particularly Americans, tend to be a bit more philosophical about this, acknowledging that movies and TV take place in a twilight zone that bears little relation to reality, or if it does, only so far as it serves the story. That's simply the result of making thousands of shows and movies over more than a century. It's also a function of population, cultural confidence and even political correctness--I've heard at least one politician proclaim the necessity for a law that requires accurate depiction of indigenous cultures.