Reclaiming the Wasteland: Samson and Delilah and the Historical Perception and Construction of Indigenous Knowledges in Australian Cinema

It was always based on a teenage love story between the two kids. One is a sniffer and one is not. It was designed for Central Australia because we do write these kids off there. Not only in town, where the headlines for the newspapers every second day is about „the problem,‟ „the teenager problem of kids wandering the streets‟ and „why don‟t we send them back to their communities‟ and that sort of stuff. Then there‟s the other side of it. Elders in Aboriginal communities have been taught that kids who sniff get brain damage, so as soon as they see a kid sniffing they think „well they‟re rubbish now, they‟re brain damaged.‟ So the elders are writing these kids off as well, as in „they are brain damaged so they‟re no use now, they‟ll be in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives.‟ This is not true, it‟s just information for elders that hasn‟t been given to them. That is the world I was working with. I wanted to show two incredibly beautiful children who have fought all their lives just to breathe and how incredibly strong they are and how we should be celebrating them and backing them up. I wanted to show that to Central Australia, and if the rest of Australia or the world get involved that‟s fantastic. (Thornton in interview)