Why ned kelly is important

If you require any further proof you need only look at the abhorrent abdominal tattoo of former professional footballer Ben Cousins and see where that got him. If you have a debate you want to see resolved in Farrago, email us at farragomagazine gmail.

Breaking News. Recent Posts. Study a little at a time. Get sleep. Take breaks. UniMelb staff and students! It easy to imagine how values such as defiance, mate-ship, the underdog, courage, and the anti-hero shaped the lives and sustained such Australian forebears as Ned Kelly through harsh, colonial conditions. However, why were such values, embodied in Ned Kelly, still upheld as the Australian ideal at the Sydney Olympic Games? Absent a reasonable explanation, the theory that Ned Kelly is simply a product of government propaganda appears to be reasonable.

Collective memory establishes a frame of reference for viewing the world. The explanation that convict beginnings became a part of the Australian world-view might also explain why a Australian Survey of Social Attitudes by sociologists Bruce Tranter and Jed Donoghue found that many of Australians who constitute the middle classes identify with the collective memory of a convict heritage.

This is in spite of the theoretical and empirical impossibility for over 20 million people to be descended from the original convict inhabitants of the penal colonies. The cultural groundwork has been laid as to why a nation might accept a criminal as a national hero. The question is who chose Ned Kelly—the Australian government or the Australian people?

Historical documents provide objective evidence concerning the issue of the popularization of Ned as a national icon and a definitive answer to whether his iconic status is the result of nationalistic propaganda or the natural process of oral traditions and collective memory.

We thin their ranks, We rob the banks, And say no thanks, For what we do. Oh, the terror of the camp is the bold Kelly Gang.

A petition to the governor for a stay of execution collected over 31, signatures, a sample of which can be found in Appendix E. Far from fading into obscurity after he was hung, the legend of Ned grew with each retelling. While other bushrangers were discussed mostly in an historical context, Ned was predominantly associated with the arts and culture.

What was the government doing during this time? Contrary to using Ned as propaganda, the Australian government initially discouraged propagation of his myth. In , after a rash of bushranger movies was released, the New South Wales law enforcement officially banned the bushranger genre of movies due to the romanticization of bushrangers and the poor portrayal of police.

The source of this governmental change of heart towards Ned can be traced to the strong, nationalistic movement that began in Australia in the s. A new identity was needed to fill the void. Ward suggests that the overly used adage of projecting an image to the world that started in the s was dogged by the insecure notion that the imaginary world would look down on a culturally barren backwater.

We can show the rest of the world what Australia is, how its people live, and impress them with the fact that there are other things than avant-garde kangaroos or Ned Kellys in this great country of ours.

The main character of the film even made fun of the government committee that funded the film stating:. They harboured a deep suspicion of the British establishment, and brought with them their staunch Catholicism. It was a potent and inflammatory combination, and it is often argued that this fiery anti-authoritarianism was at the heart of Kelly's insurrection against colonial forces in the s and the final showdown at Glenrowan in Today, the police in Victoria still insist that he should not be revered as a folk hero.

Bruce McKenzie, the assistant secretary of the state's police association, accuses Kelly of committing one of Australia's worst atrocities. He was According to some historical documents, his last words as he went to the gallows were 'Such is life'. Jagger later claimed he had never seen the film in which he starred. Aged 16 left , Kelly cut an imposing figure. Your Email Address. Send Email. Greta Baumgartel How do we define a hero?

Is it the things he achieves that makes a man a hero, or the fact that he tries to do what he thought was right? Can you still be a hero if you make mistakes trying to right wrongs? Share this Article Like this article?

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