ABSTRACT
The iconic Peter Weir film Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) is emblematic of Australian cinema, signifying among other things emerging cultural unease at ongoing colonial violence. The film is remembered primarily for the unexplained disappearance of girls on a school excursion, encapsulated by the haunting loss of the most beautiful victim, Miranda. This figure of the missing child is key to the Australian Gothic, and the twist of Weir’s interpretation lies in the way the Australian bush figures in the film are both an incitement and a threat to white girls’ sexuality. In this chapter, we focus on Foxtel’s 2018 serialized reimagining of the film for television. We extend previous interpretations of Picnic by viewing it through the contemporary cultural-legal lens of systemic institutional failure, exemplified by revelations of abuse by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2013-17). Here, we provide an interpretation of the 2018 version of Picnic that reflects on the drama of the contemporary, colonial, Gothic institution, rather than on the drama of the missing child. We argue that the Foxtel serial foregrounds the institutional irresponsibility of the school to a larger extent than the film does, explicitly giving Mrs Appleyard a fraudulent background and viewing the school itself as a colonial, Gothic character - not only the building, but also its leaders, finances and policies. The series provides a deeper exploration of the rituals and punishments of the school environment, depicting a site of helplessness and trauma for its students and the complicity of its employees and structures.
