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Things to Do with Jane Campion's Beach
Howard McNaughton, Department of English, University of Canterbury
| [ Go to this paper in the timetable ] |
H.McNaughton@engl.canterbury.ac.nz
Within two months of Cannes, Melbourne tourist offices had window displays promoting 'Jane Campion's beach' as a premium destination. As 'off-sight markers' of the beach proliferated in the form of souvenirs, posters, brochures, websites, and even other films, so the beach acquired an aura of uncanniness, which itself became the object of replication. This paper considers two instances of the mediatised beach: a Maori hip hop music video which 'cleanses' the beach of the pakeha 'contamination', but also enacts the website promise that revisiting the pa site you 'can still mount your own assault on the summit up the steep track around the rockface.' By contrast, in the postmodern feature film Topless Women Talk about their Lives, the script of the worst film anyone has ever seen is thrown into the waves, only to be found by a Piano tourist, who decides to make the film, which is in fact the film we are watching. But within what terms is the rap musicians' project of decontamination possible once Campion's Karekare Beach has transmuted into junk mail?
