ENGSEMIO-220 Semiotics of Culture I

MOVIE REPORT
THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER

Introduction

The movie was produced in 1982, based on the poem of the same name poem of Banjo
Peterson written in 1890. To clarify, the movie was inspired by the marvelous scenery
described in the poem, but the content of the movie goes further than just what the poem
mentions.

To be specific, about the movie content, the story is about Jim Craig, a skilled horseman,
who loves Jessica, a girl from a wealthy family with an oppressive father, named Harrison.
The plot is when his expensive colt escapes from the father’s cage, which forces Jim to
capture it. On the way, he copes with wild horses and wields hostile mountains. The film
ends with Jim successfully capturing the stallion, proving his true value, and making a
promise to return to win Jessica back.

The movie was a commercial and critical success, as highly regarded for its marvelous
cinematography, especially the horseback riding scene. Hence, the movie has become a
timeless Australian classic, especially for its depiction of horsemanship (Buckmaster, 2014).

Reflection

1. Social context:

As the movie is inspired from the 1890’s poem, its cinematography depicts the scene of
people of the time, with horse camps, horsemen, straw, and gold mines, highlighting
occupation of people of the time, when the specialization of “occupation” was vague. To
further illustrate, character Harrison, the oppressive father, is an entrepreneur who owns
lands, cattles, and horses, meanwhile his twin brother, Spur, is a miserable gold digger
living in dream of finding a prosperous gold mine, Jim the protagonist and other men as
cattlemen, horsemen, and servants, and a feminist protester aunt.

Besides, the background setting of the movie also signifies the huge social gap among
characters. To clarify, Harrison’s house has the look of a mansion, with luxurious items like
a vintage piano, rooms with gold embroidered mattresses and velvet curtain. The rooms in
the house seem to be bright and spacious, with people having their private rooms, which is
opposite to those of their servants, as well as the poor Spur in his slum. In detail, the house
of servants, where Jim lives in, is a collective bedroom with no privacy, being covered in
dust, and poorly constructed of timber slab. Meanwhile, Spur’s house is always in the dark,
furnished by cracked plates and an old rusted wooden table. This setting emphasizes the
great distinction in their social status, thus leading to the discrimination of Harrison
towards Jim, as only seeing him as an effective cattleman, but not as an equal human to
him, and to his daughter. .

Lastly, the movie depicts regional discrimination, as the characters frequently mention him
as the “mountain boy” in disgreeting manner. Specifically, from the first 30 minutes of the

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movie, when Jim moves to the city to find a job, he is usually doubted by his co-workers, in
terms of ability to accomplish tasks, because he is from the mountainous areas. This
regional discrimination, together with the social gap mentioned above, goes on throughout
the movie, when Harrison scolds Jim for not being financially and socially unsuitable for
Jessica, and when Jim himself tells his girlfriend that their story is not possible, due to his
origin. Even to the very end of the movie, when Jim gains his name for his action, the father
still does not accept Jim to be with his daughter, Jessica, because he does not deserve her,
despite his effort to help her and save her life.

2. Feminism
As the movie was produced in 1982 with vast details being curtailed in this period, as well
as feminism being one of the main ideas of the movie, it is crucial that feminism in Australia
of the 1970 to 1980 period should come under the lens. To elucidate, in the 1970s,
Women’s Liberation Movement occurred, with personal demands of women being on a
cry-out against men’s ideology and politics (Magarey, 2018). Then, in the early 1980s,
women set up peace camps to protest against the threat of nuclear war, for the desire not
only to create a peaceful society, but also to make the society more justful, as they believed
male power and violence tendency should have been challenged (Murray, 2010).

This movie includes the notion of feminism through the character Aunt Rosemary, a
progressive feminist who supports Jessica and Jim's love story, regardless of their social
gap, as well as advocating Jessica on her pursuit of passion, disregarding restricted gender
roles. In the movie, the woman, though having dinner in the same table as the other men in
the house, her voice of feminism is usually ignored by her brother, Mr. Harrison. This
reflects the dominant male’s attitude of the time, implying their ridicule towards her idea,
though this contemplation leads Jessica’s mindset and action.

The movie also signifies Harrison, Jessica, and Jim relationship, which in father and
daughter relationship, Harrison oppresses his will on Jessica, suppressing her to obey his
order due to his “love”, meanwhile, Jim harmonizes with her desire and protects her.
However, sarcastically, these both men treat Jessica the way they treat their precious
stallion, because they all yearn for her as an object to be possessed. Hence, it can be seen
that though Jim, a representative of the new generation male’s attitude towards women, is

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quite positive and affectionate, when it comes to comparing with Harrison, the old
representative full of hatred, they still have the common belief of objectifying women.

Besides, concerning Jessica, despite being portrayed as a girl whose hobby is the same with
that of men of the time, it seems that from the beginning to the end of the movie, she is
incapable of successfully accomplishing any tasks on her own, thus in need of men’s
existence to save her life. The portrayal of Jessica’s seemingly uselessness, yet being
noticeably stubborn and reckless, tends to suggest viewers an anti-feminist outlook of the
producer, rather than one’s advocacy towards the time’s social movement, as mentioned
above.

To conclude, though the movie has feminism details, I see those as being subtle enough to
be ridiculous, rather than supporting gender equality. Hence, personally, I perceive the
movie is quite behind the movement of that current time, in terms of feminism.

Reference

Buckmaster, L. (2014). The Man from Snowy River: rewatching classic Australian films. The
guardian. Retrieved from:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/australia-culture-blog/2014/may/02/the-man-from-snow
y-river-rewatching-classic-australian-films

Magarey, S. (2018). Beauty becomes political: Beginnings of the Women’s Liberation

Murray, S. (2010). Taking the toys from the boy. Australian Feminist Studies, 25(63), 3–15.
Retrieved from: doi:10.1080/08164640903499893