Victoria Herche: The adolescent nation: Re-imagining youth and coming of age in contemporary Australian film

Australian national identity is not fixed, it is ever-changing and always contested. Even the national anthem, in most countries a reasonably stable and secure symbol, has proven ephemeral in Australia. When Peter Dodds McCormick first penned ‘Advance Australia Fair’ in 1878 he called for “Australia’s sons” to rejoice because they are “young and free”. In 1984 the Hawke government changed the phallocentric opening line to “Australians all”. The anthem remained unchanged for nearly four decades before the Morrison government acknowledged the ancient history of Australia’s First Nations and changed “young and free” to “one and free”. It was not a mere cosmetic change. Australia’s national identity has long been tied to the idea of youth. In ‘The Adolescent Nation: Re-Imagining Youth and Coming of Age in Contemporary Australian Film’, Victoria Herche traces the history of the enduring cinematic trope of youth and coming of age and links it to national identity in Australia. She contends that youth and coming of age has been “a defining narrative of Australia’s national cinema” (15).