Fighting for legitimacy: masculinity, political voice and Ned Kelly

‘[Ned Kelly has] given me the courage to stand up and be true to what I believe in’ (Heath Ledger). ‘Young men are acting self- destructively and I wondered what hopelessness or rage would lead them to act like that’ (John Marsden). According to Katherine Biber, ‘violent white men are the backbone of [Australian] culture.’ In terms of dominant cultural narratives of the twentieth century and beyond, no other violent white man has occupied more space than Edward “Ned” Kelly (1855-1880), underdog, bushranger, outlaw, murderer and hero. It comes as no surprise, then, that in 2003 Kelly yet again made an appearance on the Australian cinema screen. Gregor Jordan’s Ned Kelly renders the historical figure of Kelly (Heath Ledger) visible through a narrative of violent struggle against an oppressive political order. In doing so, this film resurrects those all-too-potent tropes of ‘struggle, courage, and survival, amidst pain, tragedy and loss’ that Ann Curthoys has identified as shaping white Australian national identity. Of course, an historical film about Kelly is always going to interact with understandings of national identity. From Australia’s first feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang (Charles Tait, 1906), to the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympics – and hundreds of books, films, paintings, poems, ballads, websites and exhibitions in between – Australians have demonstrated an enduring preoccupation with the figure of Kelly. As Kelly historian Graham Seal has noted, ‘(n)ational hero or national villain, Ned just won’t go away’.