Gendered and racialised discourses of national identity in Baz Luhrmann's Australia

Nations are more than geopolitical bodies. They are, to quote Benedict Anderson, 'imagined communities,' constituted in part by cultural representations of national belonging, or discourses of national identity. These are the stories that all nations tell themselves: stories about the nation's origins, its character, its values. Such stories are found in a wide range of cultural texts, from parades to t-shirts to popular music and film, and they often carry meanings about gender and race. This article examines Baz Luhrmann's 2008 film Australia for gendered and racialised discourses of Australian national identity. It argues that such discourses are underpinned by material relations and potentially have material consequences for the nation.