Pedagogical moments: affective sexual literacies in film

Abstract

This paper considers three pedagogical moments in the film Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010), contemplating the way in which they open a space for conversations about feelings, sexuality and gender. Tomorrow, When the War Began follows the plight of 17-year-old Ellie who returns to her rural town from a camping trip with her friends, to find Australia has been invaded. The film combines the chaos and confusion of war with the happiness and confusion of intimate relationships. In this way, the film both engages viewers and encourages them to recognise and explore their feelings. In Australian and New Zealand schools, emotions and pleasure are often absent from sex education. Considering a film, the relationships it portrays, and the way it makes an individual feel, can go some way to reducing this gap. This paper considers the sexual literacies developed while watching the film and explains how the intersection of affect and film can assist in the identification and critique of heteronormativity by considering the relationships portrayed.

Keywords:

• pedagogy
• film
• heteronormativity
• affect
• embodiment

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Alison Bartlett, Chantal Bourgault du Coudray, Anna Hickey-Moody, Kane Race and the anonymous reviewers for their generous and thought-provoking comments regarding revisions to this paper.

Notes

^1. All quotations from the film have been transcribed by the author.

^2. A pinkie swear occurs when a promise is sealed by the participants linking their little fingers. It is usually performed by children.

^3. Moving to the classroom would entail serious issues, particularly pertaining to the formalising of informal education (see, e.g., Bragg 2006). With regards to ‘queer uses of popular culture’ in the health classroom, see, for example, Quinlivan (2012, 512).

^4. According to Screen Australia (2012), these films are ‘ranked by total reported gross Australian box office at January 2012’.

^5. It is beyond the scope of this article to consider the complex and problematic issues surrounding race and the invasion of Australia depicted in Tomorrow, including the experience of Aboriginal Australians.

^6. While film is often a pleasurable medium, the affect produced will not necessarily be enjoyable. As Probyn notes, ‘careful consideration needs to be paid to providing safety structures for students for whom a triggered affective response may be deeply disturbing’ (2004, 30).

^7. In Hersey (2007), the way in which romantic comedies can diverge from the typical ending of the female protagonist kissing the love interest is considered, namely in the form of a public speech. While Ellie may embrace Lee, this is followed by a conclusion presented in Ellie's voiceover, further subverting the heteronormative ending.