Forgotten Voices: The Female ANZAC and Male National Identity

Abstract

This essay analyses in how far modern, female-centred, Australian productions in the wake of the 2015 centenary of the Gallipoli landing in WWI deal with the legacy of this landing and the ANZAC myth. It starts with an examination of what the ANZAC legend has become in contemporary Australia and its status as a cultural memory based on male ideals. The second part is devoted to a close reading of two examples which take as their focus the stories of Australian nurses in WWI, ANZAC Girls and Through These Lines. With the help of these examples, the essay shows that modern productions are highly indebted to the post-memory of Peter Weir’s Gallipoli instead of to original accounts and that those which take a female- centred focus do not challenge the male ideal promoted in Gallipoli but rather strive to be included in the very same context.