Meat pieWestern, also known as Australian Western or kangaroo Western, is a broad genre of Western-style films or TV series set in the Australian outback or "the bush". Films about bushrangers are included in this genre. Some films categorised as meat-pie or Australian Westerns also fulfil the criteria for other genres, such as drama, revisionist Western, crime or thriller. The term "meat pie Western" is a play on the term Spaghetti Western, used for Italian-made Westerns. Since Westerns are a genre associated with the United States, the food qualifiers indicate the origin of other cultures that play with the characteristics of the genre.
History
Terminology
The term "kangaroo Western" is used in an article about The Man from Snowy River in that year, and Stuart Cunningham refers to Charles Chauvel’s Greenhide as a “kangaroo Western” in 1989. Grayson Cooke attributes the first use of the term "meat-pie Western" to Eric Reade in his History and Heartburn, referring to Russell Hagg's Raw Deal. This term is again used in 1981 in an Australian Women's Weekly column by John-Michael Howson. Howson compares the term to the "Spaghetti Western". Historian Troy Lennon says that meat pie Westerns have been around for more than a century. Cooke posits that the Australian Western genre never developed a "classic" or mature phase. He lists the following as broad categories: "the early bushranger and bush adventure films; Westerns shot in Australia by foreign production studios; contemporary re-makes of bushranger films; and contemporary revisionist Westerns, noting that most fall into the bushranger category. Other recent films, such as Ivan Sen's Mystery Road, a crime film, also uses some of the Western themes. Emma Hamilton, of the University of Newcastle, refers to the Australian Western, kangaroo Western and meat-pie Western as alternative terms, in her exploration of the development of the Western genre in Australia comparing film representations of Ned Kelly. She refers to the work of Cooke and other writers, paraphrasing Peter Limbrick's view that the Western is basically "about societies making sense of imperial-colonial relationships", and considers the parallels between American and Australian histories. Hamilton lists a number of films which can be termed Australian Westerns by virtue of being set in Australia but maintaining elements of American Western conventions. The list includes, amongst many others, Robbery Under Arms, Captain Fury, Eureka Stockade and The Shiralee.
Films
The Story of the Kelly Gang could be said to be the first in the genre, with "good guys, bad guys, gunfights horseback chases". In 1911 and 1912, the state governments of South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria all banned depictions of bushrangers in films, which lasted for about 30 years and at first had a significantly deleterious effect on the Australian film industry. Films in the Western genre continued to be made through the rest of the 20th century, many with Hollywood collaboration, and some British. Ned Kelly and The Man from Snowy River were the most notable examples of the genre in the second half of the century. Some films in the genre, such as Red Hill, The Proposition, and Sweet Country, re-examine the underbelly of colonisation and expose racism in early Australian history, with the latter two of these being successful with both critics and box-office.
