ABSTRACT

This article argues that Razorback’s self-aware play with cinematic Australian Gothic tropes infuses the aesthetic with an environmentalist sensibility that resonates in the Anthropocene. The limited scholarship addressing Razorback typically positions the film as a crude expression of the same anxieties found in New Wave Australian Gothic cinema. This interpretation misunderstands the role industrial maleficence plays in Razorback’s horror. In order to reassess Razorback, I situate this creature feature in the history of the Australian Gothic, a sensibility grounded in the country’s settler colonial identity and focused on the unsettling qualities of the imposing natural landscape. Razorback draws on common tropes in Australian cinema – cultural anxiety around Americans, the tendency to idealize white rural life, and a fascination with the Outback – but it tweaks standard elements. Razorback offers a surreal take on the Outback, but it identifies its horror as stemming from human mismanagement and pollution of the natural world. The Outback becomes warped by the activities of the Baker Brothers, whose business breeds a monstrous manifestation of rapacious colonial capitalism and environmental degradation. This reassessment of an overlooked cult classic identifies Razorback as an important text to study in order to understand genre cinema’s role in engaging environmental concerns.

摘要

本文认为Razorback对电影澳大利亚哥特式比喻的自我意识游戏为美学注入了一种在人类世中产生共鸣的环保主义敏感性。针对Razorback的有限奖学金通常将这部电影定位为对新浪潮澳大利亚哥特式电影中相同焦虑的粗略表达。这种解释误解了工业恶意在Razorback的恐怖中扮演的角色。为了重新评估Razorback，我将这种生物特征置于澳大利亚哥特式历史中，一种基于该国殖民者殖民身份的敏感性，并专注于壮观的自然景观的令人不安的品质。剃刀背借鉴了澳大利亚电影中的常见比喻——围绕美国人的文化焦虑、理想化白人农村生活的倾向以及对内陆的迷恋——但它调整了标准元素。Razorback为内陆提供了一种超现实主义的体验，但它认为它的恐怖源于人类管理不善和对自然世界的污染。贝克兄弟的活动使内陆地区变得扭曲，他们的生意滋生了贪婪的殖民资本主义和环境退化的可怕表现。对一部被忽视的邪教经典作品的重新评估将Razorback确定为研究的重要文本，以了解类型电影在参与环境问题方面的作用。