Decolonising Ngannelong: A Geocritical Approach to Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock and Its Visual Adaptations

ABSTRACT

The study involves close readings of Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock¹ and its visual adaptations from a postcolonial feminist and geocritical theoretical framework to analyse how the space operate as a hegemonic tool in reproducing dominance based on gender, race, caste, class, and ethnicity. The comparative study will help to understand the ways in which adaptations of a source narrative to different media modify the landscape and space thereby shifting the gender equations as well. Lindsay’s novel has adaptations (all eponymous) produced during different time periods. The narratives, however, focus on the ‘white vanishing’ trope² and fail to acknowledge the Aboriginal significance and sacredness of the space (Ngannelong). By focusing on such fictional disappearances, the trauma of real displacement of the First People got overlooked. This has even resulted in organised campaigns like ‘Miranda Must Go’,³ against publicising Ngannelong based on the fictional narratives and to restore the Aboriginal sanctity and relevance of the space. Through geocritical approach, the study aims to highlight this manipulation of history with special emphasis on gender and social location by paying attention to the ways in which space and place influence the story, characters and incidents.

KEYWORDS:

• Australian aboriginal displacement
• feminist geocriticism
• literary geography
• fictional space
• comparative literature

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock (Vintage, 1998).

2 Elspeth Tilley, White Vanishing: Rethinking Australia's Lost-In-The-Bush Myth (Rodopi, 2012).

3 Amy Spiers, Miranda Must Go: Rethinking the Generative Capacities of Critique, Discomfort and Dissensus in Socially Engaged and Site Responsive Art (The University of Melbourne, PhD Dissertation, 2018).

4 William Blandowski, Anneyelong. 1855–56. Wikimedia Commons. <commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Blandowski%27s_%27Diogenes_Monument_%22Anneyelong%22_looking_Sth_towards_Mt_Macedon%27.png> (accessed August 13, 2021).

5 Hanging Rock Strategic Plan Draft. Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Victoria State Government, August 2018.

6 “Ngargee”. City of Port Philip, Neighbourhood Ngargee. <https://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/people-and-community/health-and-wellbeing/neighbourhood-ngargee> (accessed August 13, 2021).

7 Peter Weir, director. Picnic at Hanging Rock (McElroy & McElroy Picnic Productions, 1975).

8 Amanda Brotchie, Larysa Kondracki and Michael Rymer, creators. Picnic at Hanging Rock (Fremantle Australia, 2018).

9 Robert Tally, translator. Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces (By Bertrand Westphal, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

10 Robert Tally, editor. Geocritical Explorations: Space, Place, and Mapping in Literary and Cultural Studies (PDF, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

11 Tiffany Kaewen Dang. “Decolonising Landscape,” Landscape Research 46.7 (Oct. 2021): 1004–16. Taylor and Francis+NEJM,

12 Amy Spiers. “#MirandaMustGo: Contesting a Settler Colonial Obsession with Lost-in-the-Bush Myths through Public and Socially Engaged Art,” Art & the Public Sphere 8.2 (Jan. 2020): 217.

13 Ingrid Huygens, “Developing a Decolonisation Practice for Settler Colonisers: A Case Study from Aotearoa New Zealand,” Settler Colonial Studies 1.2 (Jan. 2011): 53–81. Taylor and Francis+NEJM, <https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2011.10648812>.

14 Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, “Decolonisation is Not a Metaphor,” Decolonisation: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1.1 (1 Sept. 2012). <jps.library.utoronto.ca>, <https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630>.

15 Jason Tamiru. “Producer Jason Tamiru Shares the Yung Balug Perspective Of Hanging Rock,” Malthousetheatre.com.au, 2 February 2018. <https://www.malthousetheatre.com.au/engine-room-blog/jason-tamiru-the-yung-balug-perspective-of-hanging-rock/>.

16 Jane Stadler. “Atopian Landscapes,” A Companion to Australian Cinema (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2019), 336–54. Wiley Online Library, <https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118942567.ch16>.

17 Gerry Turcotte, “Australian Gothic,” Faculty of Arts – Papers (Archive), Jan. 1998, https://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/60.

18 Kathleen Steele, “Fear and Loathing in the Australian Bush: Gothic Landscapes in ‘Bush Studies’ and ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’,” Colloquy, no. 20 (2010): 33–56. search.informit.org (Atypon), <https://doi.org/10.3316/informit.608390849368075>.

19 Kathrin Bartha, “Must Miranda Go,” Kill Your Darlings, 14 February 2017, <killyourdarlings.com.au/2017/02/must-miranda-go/> (accessed August 13, 2021). <https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2021.1935820>.

20 “Hanging Rock Macedon Ranges’ Most Famous Landmark,” Macedon Ranges Naturally Cool, Victorian State Government, 9 August 2021. visitmacedonranges.com/see-do/the-great-outdoors/hanging-rock/.

21 “About Hanging Rock Reserve,” Macedon Ranges Naturally Cool, Victorian State Government, 9 August 2021. <visitmacedonranges.com/tourism-listing/hanging-rock/>.

22 Heritage Victoria, Database Report, Hanging Rock Reserve, Report generated 26 July 2016.

23 Hanging Rock Vision Paper. Forest and Reserves, Victoria State Government, 2018.

24 @Norma en busca de Zion Golan. “Terrible Movie with Retrograde Beauty Standards,” Youtube, 9 August 2021. <youtu.be/-ueVib29wg0>.

25 @Banquozghost. “ … I seek a people/ dark-skinned of Earth and Sun/once they lived here/now they’re gone/ dispersed by sickness/and the gun/their songs/forgotten in a roar of white wind – #MirandaMustGo #HangingRock,” Twitter, 26 December 2019, 4:23 am, <twitter.com/Banquozghost/status/1209970389922668544?s=19>.

26 @NotAnAngryUXer #WearAMask #CovidIsOutOfControl. “Enquiry into what happened to Aboriginal people … remains under examined and under resourced. Ironically, this is in stark contrast to the obsessive archival work and investigation that has been dedicated to verifying if Picnic at Hanging Rock is based in fact,” Twitter, 19 April 2022, 5:47 pm, <https://twitter.com/NotAnAngryUXer/status/1516390477272027139?s=20&t=JS6TmJHLvwObgr_QuvGRRQ>.