How Is The Sapphires Historically Accurate

“’The Sapphires’ is an inaccurate portrayal of Indigenous Issues and the Vietnam War”.

“The Sapphires” is a movie that follows the story of four Indigenous singers who were entertained during the Vietnam War. Though the film does accurately depict certain aspects of the Vietnam war and Indigenous issues, the complex nature of both is often romanticised or used as a backdrop for the adventures of the main characters. The film serves as a nuanced and dramatized commentary on the time and through its portrayal of the stolen generation, Vietnam military camps and systemic racism we gain an insight into why certain events are inaccurately or accurately depicted.

The lifelong reverberations caused by the Stolen Generation were explored through

In saying this, certain aspects of the Stolen Generation were inaccurately portrayed in the movie. For example, in one key scene, Dave and the band are stopped by Vietnamese soldiers on an isolated road, in an attempt to gain the soldiers sympathy, she begins speaking in her tribe’s Yorta Yorta language. The stolen generation was essentially a movement to eradicate Aboriginal culture, so when children were stolen, they were strictly forbidden to speak their language and often punished if they did. 2 With this in mind, it is highly unlikely Kay would have been able to speak Yorta Yorta so fluently after so many years of exclusively speaking English. This discrepancy between the true effects of the stolen generation and its portrayal in “The Sapphires” may just be for complete cinematic purposes, but this scene supported the storyline of Kay re-integrating with her community as seamlessly as she did. Furthermore, it is also a really heavy topic thus making the movie far less marketable to younger audiences, thus lowering the potential profit made. This inaccuracy may also stem from the fact that this period of Australia’s history wasn’t

Through the treatment of the Aboriginal main characters, we gain an accurate insight into the hate and prejudice that Indigenous Australian’s were forced to live with on a daily basis. The earliest example of this in the movie is when the girls lose their local talent competition, despite their clear superiority. This blind favouritism of the white competitors is a realistic portrayal of the inherent and systemic bias that did and still continues to plague the music industry. Another explicitly clear depiction of racism in the movie is a scene in which a white soldier is being treated on a helicopter by Gail and another soldier. The dying soldier shouts, “Get your fuckin’ hands off me. Keep that black dog away from me”, this quote places an emphasis on just how deeply entrenched racism towards Aboriginal people was in that time. The fact that the dying soldiers unwavering hate for the race transcended his will to be saved is a confronting, but accurate representation of just how badly Aboriginal people were treated. Overall, racism directed at the Aboriginal characters was both a prominent and consistent theme in the film, accurately mirroring the constant and blatant mistreatment Indigenous Australians did and still continue to suffer