What is Wilderness? Different Views in the Movie "Crocodile Dundee" E-Book

Kathrin Metzger

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,3, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, language: English, abstract: In short, the United States Wilderness Act of 1964 defines Wilderness as “[…] an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammelled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”. However altogether it took ten pages to describe and define Wilderness in said Wilderness Act. Roderick Nash, the author of Wilderness and the American Mind states that the “[…] usual dictionary sense of the word implies hostility on man’s part […]”, and looking at the definition of Wilderness in Webster’s Dictionary supports this statement: “a tract of land, or a region, uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings, whether a forest or a wide, barren plain […].”. Both definitions define wilderness as a place where humans are absent. The movie Crocodile Dundee, although displaying the bush as a dangerous place also has numerous scenes in which they film the beauty of the bush. So wilderness no longer has to be dangerous, but can be anything people want it to be. Crocodile Dundee and the extreme change of environment in the movie - from the bush to the city - is an example that can show how different people have different perceptions of wilderness, depending on how and where they grew up: a New York City girl versus a man born and raised in the Australian outback.

Leseprobe

Impressum:

Copyright (c) 2013 GRIN Verlag GmbH, alle Inhalte urheberrechtlich geschützt. Kopieren und verbreiten nur mit Genehmigung des Verlags.

Bei GRIN macht sich Ihr Wissen bezahlt! Wir veröffentlichen kostenlos Ihre Haus-, Bachelor- und Masterarbeiten.

Jetzt beiwww.grin.com

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Australia (Part 1)

2.1. Mick Dundee

2.2. Sue Charleton

2.3. Hunters

2.4. Aborigines

3. New York (Part 2)

3.1. Mick Dundee

3.2. Sue Charlton

3.3. Richard, the Boyfriend

3.4. Gus, the Driver

4. Conclusion

Works cited

1. Introduction

In short, the United States Wilderness Act of 1964 defines Wilderness as “[…] an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammelled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”(Wilderness Act 121). However altogether it took ten pages to describe and define Wilderness in said Wilderness Act. Roderick Nash, the author of Wilderness and the American Mind states that the “[…] usual dictionary sense of the word implies hostility on man’s part […]” (Nash 4), and looking at the definition of Wilderness in Webster’s Dictionary supports this statement: “a tract of land, or a region, uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings, whether a forest or a wide, barren plain […].” (Link 1). Both definitions define wilderness as a place where humans are absent.

Etymologically speaking wilderness, deriving from the Anglo-Saxon word wild-deor, means the place of wild beasts (Nash 2). So describing wilderness, the place of wild beasts, as an area that humans are absent from is definitely not wrong, but there is more to the term wilderness than the etymological meaning. For example Michael Lewis, the author of American Wilderness- A New History, tries to distinguish wilderness from wildnis, by claiming, that it has to be “large on a human scale” rather than merely a few plants or animals in the backyard (Lewis 6). So according to him, wilderness is not just a question of what is in the area, but also how large an area has to be in order for it to be defined as wilderness, an aspect also regarded in the United States Wilderness Act of 1964 which states that in order for an area to be defined as wilderness it has to have “at least five thousand acres of land [or be] of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition”(Wilderness Act 121). So the Wilderness Act takes both the size of an area and the etymologically implied meaning of the word wilderness, namely the absence of humans, into consideration. An aspect neglected by this act however, is the most relevant one. It is an aspect that diminishes the definitions given above, best described in the words of Nash: “One man’s wilderness may be another’s roadside picnic ground”(Nash 1), implying that wilderness is not something that can be defined by its size or the absence of humans, but by how different people consider different areas or environments to be wilderness. Originally in Western civilization wilderness was depicted as being a threat, a “place of exile [and even] associated with Satan”(Gerard 61).

The movie Crocodile Dundee, although displaying the bush as a dangerous place also has numerous scenes in which they film the beauty of the bush. So wilderness no longer has to be dangerous, but can be anything people want it to be.

Crocodile Dundeeand the extreme change of environment in the movie - from the bush to the city - is an example that can show how different people have different perceptions of wilderness, depending on how and where they grew up: a New York City girl versus a man born and raised in the Australian outback.

2. Australia (Part 1)

2.1. Mick Dundee

“[…] wilderness was conceived as a region where a person was likely to get into a disordered, confused, or “wild” condition. […] The image is that of a man in an alien environment where the civilization that normally orders and controls his life is absent.” (Nash 2).

This quote gives an image that seems to perfectly describe Michael J. ‘Crocodile’ Dundee and his mates in the pub in Walkabout Creek. To someone from the city like in this case Sue, these men may seem ‘wild’, like animals and definitely in a disordered condition compared to New York’s high society that Sue is used to.