‘Does My Bomb Look Big in This?’ Representing Muslim Girls in Recent Australian Cultural Texts

Abstract

Since 9/11 there has been a spate of cultural texts for young people which attempt to move away from the sensationalised connotation and reductive stereotyping of the Muslim as the homogenised, dehumanised, violent and/or exoticised pariah/other, and to represent Muslim characters sympathetically instead of as potential terrorists (see, for example, Nadia Jamal and Taghred Chandrab's 'The Glory Garage' (2005), and Morris Gleitzman's 'Boy Overboard' (2002) and 'Girl Underground' (2004)). One of the first of these was John Doyle's 'Marking' Time, which was shown on ABC television in 2003, and which the promotion material describes as 'a Romeo and Juliet story set in a rural Australian town. Told with warmth, humour and acute observation, 'Marking Time' traces Hal Flemming's journey from boy to man [It] is the coming of age of a boy and a nation' (http://www.abc.net.au/markingtime/). 'Marking Time' shows a changing Australian society, with the innocent euphoria brought about by the Sydney Olympics distorted into fear and distrust following the Tampa incident. Literally Hal is 'marking time' until he goes to uni, spending an aimless gap year in the company of lowlife friends. Indeed, the text's strength lies in the comic depiction of young Australians like Hal's friends Bullet, Shane and Belinda, whose rowdy, raucous, partying behaviour is also a response to terminal boredom; in this case it seems to be the only recourse of those not bright enough to make their way out of this small town.