The Stolen Generation and The Australian Freedom Riders In Rabbit Proof Fence And Blood Brothers

For hundreds of years now films have been used to tell stories of several historical events and through these have been able to teach generations about what happened before they were alive. Many films have the purpose of entertainment but are still able to draw on evidence from real life events, although some events are exaggerated their reliability of them can still be quite high. Amongst films like Rabbit Proof Fence and Blood Brothers the reliability of them are high and are used throughout schools as teaching tools to create conversation about The Stolen Generation and The Australian Freedom Riders.

Rabbit Proof Fence is a well–known Australian motion picture/drama and tells the story of three young sisters who are taken from their family to be put in a “white mission” where they are forced to live like white people through the process of Assimilation and the White Australia Policy. This drama draws on Australia’s dark history and the removal that half cast Aboriginal children received due to the colour of their skin which is today known as The Stolen Generation. This film takes the audience on an emotional journey as the girls escae the government-run camp and travel through the outback of Australia for several days to reunite with their family, navigating their way back with the Rabbit Proof Fence. Whilst this motion picture is based on a true story, a film like a documentary may be relied on more heavily as a historical source. Blood Brothers is a four-part documentary and talks about Charles Perkins life as an Australian-Aboriginal civil rights activist and the journey in which he went on to fight for Aboriginal equality. This short but in – depth documentary shows real life footage, accounts and interviews of the Freedom Ride Movement when Charles Perkins leads a group of Sydney University students through several towns in rural and outback Australia to escalate the level of public awareness of racial intolerance in Australia. This film documents their journey and talks to those who were part of the Freedom Ride, charting one of the most significant civil rights campaigns in Australian history.

The Rabbit Proof Fence being a motion picture/drama takes a real-life account of events and turns them into an entertainment piece that the audience is drawn to and leaves them wanting more. How these children were affected within the film shows a harsh reality and may make the audience question whether the events that occur throughout Rabbit Proof Fence are true and reliable. This film is advertised as a true story and can therefore be trusted to a certain point however certain scenes within the film may be exaggerated and dramatized to create a more interesting movie. As this movie does not include primary sources and is all based on what the actors are portraying the reliability of this could be seen as quite low however when further researching what happened during the time of The Stolen Generation, with primary sources, its evident that this film is accurate and trustworthy to a certain extent. In comparison the documentary, Blood Brothers includes firsthand accounts of the Freedom Rides Journey such as footage, images, articles etc and also shows interviews with people who were actually involved. This evidence shows that this documentary is very trustworthy and can therefore be relied on heavily as a historical source. In comparing these two films I believe a documentary like Blood Brothers can be trusted more than a motion picture like Rabbit Proof Fence as Blood Brothers includes first-hand accounts on what happened and includes real – life conversations with people who were involved in the movement.