UAP The Floating Brothel Worksheet PDF

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UAP floating brothel worksheet assessment task...

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Australian Studies November 14, 2020

The Floating Brothel Worksheet

The Floating Brothel is a dramatized documentary based on the book of the same name by Siân Rees (Hodder, Sydney, 2001). It tells the story of the Lady Juliana, one of the ships of the Second Fleet. We see three modern-day Australians finding out about the stories of their ancestors who were aboard the ship. As we share in their discoveries the film reveals the background of the female convicts who were on the ship, the nature of their crimes, the society in which they committed those crimes, the hardships and surprising benefits of their voyage to Australia, and finally the impact of this ‘human cargo’ on the new society.

Convict Victims? One of the historians featured in the film, Professor Marilyn Lake, suggests that we can have the wrong impression of convicts – as being only victims. She argues that we should rather see these women as active characters in their own story, as ‘rational opportunists’. 1 What does she mean by this? That people think the female convicts are stupid and are only there serve the men as prostitutes and to quell their sexual desires. By making women their own main character she shows that they were able to make the best of a bad situation and profit off their circumstances, even though they were forced into it. /10 3 Professor Lake also argues that knowing about these convicts challenges our stereotypes about convicts, and especially female ones and their role in early Australian society. What is this ‘stereotype’? The stereotype was that the women convicts were stupid, dumb and immoral. That they were sent over to Australia to make babies and to have a good family, to raise children and make good wives. By knowing about the struggles these people overcame, the stereotype is challenged by showing that the convicts overcame these hardships and a few women even thrived in the new environment. /10

Australian Studies November 14, 2020 4 Do you agree that knowing about the Lady Juliana convicts challenges the stereotype? Explain your ideas. I do agree that showing what the convicts had to do, and the suffering they had to endure challenges the stereotype. By knowing how the Lady Juliana was considered necessary to the betterment of the future of Australia, it shows that the women convicts were essential, though it wasn’t in the way the government thought, but it still helped with hardships the women faced. /10

Creating an Argument Look at the following quotation from the film. Put the argument it is presenting in your own words. Within days of their arrival, the new settlers [of the First Fleet in 1788] were battling to survive. Stranded in an alien world, wracked by starvation and disease, the settlement was in dire need of rescue. But help would come from an unlikely quarter – a motley collection of whores, shoplifters and canny con-artists would breathe life into the dying colony. Two centuries later their descendants will unearth the story of the women who crossed oceans to save a colony and redeem themselves. This is the extraordinary tale of the Lady Juliana, the floating brothel, and the true founding mothers of modern Australia. [They] crossed the world to rescue a dying colony. But … the women of the Lady Juliana … gave Sydney and the nation of Australia something much more. A future.

This is a strong claim in the film. Argument has to be based upon evidence. What evidence does the film present to support this argument? Look in particular at the letter written by Nepean in response to news from New South Wales, and what happened to the women in Australia. The argument that Australia was an unforgiving land was shown by the evidence of governor Phillips letter to Evan Nepean asking for food, skilled labour and more women. This can be used to show how the convicts really were struggling to survive in Australia. The evidence of Nepean’s reply was only “recently” uncovered, a set of instructions that was sent with the Lady Juliana. Stating that the women aboard that the ship should be married off to men and be used to keep the peace in the new colony. While this did happen to the women of the Lady Juliana, there was a few women like Ann Marsh, who ended up running several businesses, and even started a business that is still going till this day.

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