Australian 'Sapphires' protest 'disrespectful' US film cover

Published August 5, 2013
"The Sapphires" movie poster. — Courtesy Photo
"The Sapphires" movie poster. — Courtesy Photo
"The Sapphires" movie poster. — Courtesy Photo
"The Sapphires" movie poster. — Courtesy Photo
"The Sapphires" movie poster. — Courtesy Photo
"The Sapphires" movie poster. — Courtesy Photo

SYDNEY: The Aboriginal Australian women whose lives inspired the acclaimed movie “The Sapphires” have protested at the film's US DVD cover, saying its portrayal of a white male actor as the lead disrespects people of colour.

The feel-good flick about four Aboriginal singers sent to entertain troops in Vietnam has the women on its DVD cover in Australia.

But in the US version they are “blue washed” and placed in the background while Irish actor Chris O'Dowd - who plays their manager - is front and centre in full colour.

The original Sapphires - Naomi Mayers, Beverly Briggs, Lois Peeler and Laurel Robinson - have written to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the US to complain.

The women, in a letter written on their behalf by the Aboriginal Medical Service, say the DVD cover completely missed the trauma that people of colour experienced in Australia and the United States. ''The US cover of the DVD... in fact reinforces precisely the sort of bigotry that Naomi, Beverly, Lois and Laurel fought so hard against,'' it said.

''We're hopeful that the NAACP - with its long and proud history of advocating strongly for the interests of people of colour - will add its significant voice to calls for the DVD cover to be changed.'' Mayers, who works at the Aboriginal Medical Service in inner Sydney's Redfern suburb, described the cover as disrespectful.

''What has upset us is that the DVD cover appears to miss that point (of the film) entirely,'' she told The Sydney Morning Herald.

''It's disrespectful to the very talented young Aboriginal actors in the film, and it's disrespectful to us as a group.

''But in particular, it's disrespectful to women of colour everywhere who have stood up against this sort of thing all their lives.”Mayers said the women were proud of their work with the Sapphires and of the film.

“We hope that the US distributors of the DVD stop and think about how their depiction of that work might be received, and that it motivates them to reconsider the cover artwork before the DVD is distributed,'' she said.

The US cover has already caused a storm on social media, with O'Dowd himself tweeting in response to a question that it was “ridiculous, misleading, ill-judged, insensitive and everything the film wasn't”.

Opinion

Editorial

Trump 2.0
Updated 07 Nov, 2024

Trump 2.0

It remains to be seen how his promises to bring ‘peace’ to Middle East reconcile with his blatantly pro-Israel bias.
Fait accompli
07 Nov, 2024

Fait accompli

A SLEW of secretively conceived and hastily enacted legislation has achieved its intended result: the powers of the...
IPP contracts
07 Nov, 2024

IPP contracts

THE government expects the ongoing ‘negotiations’ with power producers aimed at revising the terms of sovereign...
Rushed legislation
Updated 06 Nov, 2024

Rushed legislation

For all its stress on "supremacy of parliament", the ruling coalition has wasted no opportunity to reiterate where its allegiances truly lie.
Jail reform policy
06 Nov, 2024

Jail reform policy

THE state is making a fresh attempt to improve conditions in Pakistan’s penitentiaries by developing a national...
BISP overhaul
06 Nov, 2024

BISP overhaul

IT has emerged that the spouses of over 28,500 Sindh government employees have been illicitly benefiting from BISP....