Profile: Rachel Perkins

The soft power of Rachel Perkins, bringing Aboriginal stories into the mainstream

By: MEGAN LEHMANN

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

June 07, 201412:00AM

 

   

Rachel Perkins: “We’re trying to start a conversation.”. Picture: Rhett HammerstonSource: Supplied

THE little boy wriggles his toes in the devil-red dirt as a convoy of honey ants swarms up his heel.

He sweeps the central Australian landscape with his gun’s sniper scope, brushing past ghost gums, picking out rocks vivid as ignited flames and scanning the mountain ranges of his ancestors’ Caterpillar Dreaming. He locates his target and shoots. Orange foam darts scatter across the spinifex like alien fruit and his mother looks sheepish as she bends to scoop them up. “I stupidly bought him a Nerf gun,” Rachel Perkins sighs. “I know I shouldn’t have bought him a gun, but boys… What can you do?”
FULL STORY: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-soft-power-of-rachel-perkins-bringing-aboriginal-stories-into-the-mainstream/story-e6frg8h6-1226941967768