Response to the film “Rabbit-Proof Fence”

The movie “Rabbit Proof Fence,” based on a true story, is about three “half-caste” aboriginal/white girls from the town of Jigalong in Australia. They are taken away from their home to a Christian camp/settlement, because the white settlers think the aboriginals are savages. They escape the camp and walk back to their home, which is over a thousand miles away. The people who take the children away think they’re saving them, because they think they’re superior beings to the aboriginals and that their way of life is better. It’s wrong that one person thinks that they’re above another person, because it’s disrespectful to their culture           

            Neville is the leader of the camp that the girls are taken to with the aboriginal children. He thinks he’s saving the children. He thinks he’s saving the children by isolating and taking them away from their culture. He thinks that he’s saving them but he’s actually not because they’re treated poorly. They’re brought to the camp in cages, beaten, forced to speak English, and forced to pray to a Christian god. They’re treated like animals. The fence that divides the settlement territory and the aboriginal territory is called the rabbit-proof fence. Ironically, even though it’s supposed to keep animals out it also keeps the aboriginals on the other side of the fence. The fence is a symbol for racial division and how the settlers feel about the aboriginals.

            The girls then escape the camp and since they know how to hunt they also know how to hide their tracks from the trackers. They try to walk their way back home, and then they find the rabbit-proof fence. Although the fence is a symbol for racial division, it ends up guiding the girls back home.

Before the girls are taken away, their mother tells them that the hawk will watch over them. I found throughout the movie that the hawk was a symbol for hope. For instance, when the girls are being taken to the camp they see the hawk above them, and also, when they are exhausted from walking and fall down, the hawk flies over them. They get up again and realize they are very close to their home. The hawk was urging them not to lose hope. Although the fence was a symbol for racial division it guided the girls back home, and although the hawk is a bird that preys on rabbits, it protects the girls and gives them hope.

I felt angry when I watched this movie because the racism and paternalism caused harm to a culture and took away a generation of children, and this movie is a lesson that shows that racism and acting superior over another person, or group of people always ends badly. There have been many issues with racism recently for instance the Ferguson case and a lot of people could learn the lesson of this movie and end racism.