Margaret Langton Film Analysis

Langton (1993) claims that due to the lack of understanding of aboriginality, critics find it hard to comment on Aboriginal content (23). Langton goes further to insinuate that the lack of critique is linked to racism as it results in Aboriginal film been invisible. Langton supports this when she says, “the easiest and most ‘natural’ form of racism in representation is the act of making the other invisible” (23). This position by Langton contradicts her earlier point. On one hand, she argues that the lack of critique is due to a lack of understanding as a result of no substantial literature. But on the other hand, she also says that it is a form of racism (23-24). It could be said that this is due to a lack of interest in white society to understand Aboriginality however this is subjective and not supported be any evidence.
When it comes to the topic of representation of Aboriginality in the media, most of us would agree with Langton (1993) that the issue is not of racism but of representation. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of censorship. Where some are convinced that over censorship
This could relate back to Langton’s earlier point (23) relating to peoples lack of understanding of Aboriginal culture. Owen and Westoby in their book “Community Development” (2012, 306) maintain that the approach of building “good local-level relationships” prior to engaging in the action will assist with mitigating this risk in community engagement. A position held by all three authors is that the lack of literature is a key contributor to issues of engagement. In the scenario where there as a substantial body of literature around dialogue in practitioner manuals the scenarios quoted by Langton e.g. “some ignore, supress or censor the problem “could be avoided