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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Merle Oberon was one of the biggest movie stars of the 1930s and 1940s. Studio publicists said she was born into a wealthy family in Hobart, Tasmania - Australia's island state. Yet rumour was that the exotic almond-eyed actress concealed her true past. It was said she was actually 'oriental', perhaps Anglo-Indian, and born in Calcutta. In Tasmania, many remain convinced she was their island's most famous daughter, born not to wealthy parents but to a Chinese hotel worker and her married employer. The Trouble with Merle looks at celebrity, memory, identity, race and class...and at why Merle Oberon's origins mattered to people on a tiny island, in a country at the bottom of the world.'
(Source: Film Australia, http://www.filmaust.com.au/)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Is the Trouble in My Place the Same As The Trouble with Merle ?
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , June vol. 38 no. 2 2014; (p. 220-232) 'This article addresses Sally Morgan's My Place(1987) and Maree Delofski's The Trouble with Merle (2002). A key similarity between these texts is a confusion surrounding the racial identities of their female protagonists. In Morgan's book, the narrator discovers that she is Aboriginal, and not (as she had been led to believe) Indian. The subject of Delofski's documentary is the vintage Hollywood film star Merle Oberon. Oberon claimed to be born in Tasmania, presumably of Anglo-Saxon parentage. Following her death in 1979, however, it was revealed that Oberon was actually born and raised in India and had Anglo-Indian parentage. Yet, some Tasmanians still claim that she was born in Tasmania and was, in fact, Anglo-Chinese. I suggest that a useful and compelling way of reading these texts is through Judith Butler's multivalenced concept of “trouble”. The protagonists of My Place and The Trouble with Merleare “trouble” to the extent that they are both situated outside an idealised white Australian femininity. On another level, both texts “trouble”—as in, they pose a challenge to—understandings of race and gender. (Publication abstract)
-
Is the Trouble in My Place the Same As The Trouble with Merle ?
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , June vol. 38 no. 2 2014; (p. 220-232) 'This article addresses Sally Morgan's My Place(1987) and Maree Delofski's The Trouble with Merle (2002). A key similarity between these texts is a confusion surrounding the racial identities of their female protagonists. In Morgan's book, the narrator discovers that she is Aboriginal, and not (as she had been led to believe) Indian. The subject of Delofski's documentary is the vintage Hollywood film star Merle Oberon. Oberon claimed to be born in Tasmania, presumably of Anglo-Saxon parentage. Following her death in 1979, however, it was revealed that Oberon was actually born and raised in India and had Anglo-Indian parentage. Yet, some Tasmanians still claim that she was born in Tasmania and was, in fact, Anglo-Chinese. I suggest that a useful and compelling way of reading these texts is through Judith Butler's multivalenced concept of “trouble”. The protagonists of My Place and The Trouble with Merleare “trouble” to the extent that they are both situated outside an idealised white Australian femininity. On another level, both texts “trouble”—as in, they pose a challenge to—understandings of race and gender. (Publication abstract)
Awards
Last amended 24 Oct 2012 09:37:08
