Oh my god Darlene....

you realy are in a world of your own arnt you.

listen to yourself, and what you got out of the comments above:

"if people respond with such enmity, one must have touched on a truth that people don’t want to concede."

lol. you wish Darlene, we are angry because you dont know what your talking about and this story is merely a vehicle to push your own left wing agendas. It is disturbing you interpret people thinking your off with the fairies with your article striking a chord and having a grain of truth to it. lol.

"I come from a working-class background" well if you do, you would truly have an insight into the material you have worked with, therefore i find this a little hard to believe.

Other movies like Boyz in the hood didnt have any white people in it, is this something worth jumping up and down about? no, because it is about African Americans, just like th bra boys movie is not about women.

Why dont you do your own movie, Bra Chicks, with the other working class girls in your 'hood'.

Darlene,
I have been involved in many sports, and the least class orientated sport I have ever been involved in is surfing, and the most class orientated sport was yachting.

Women have been allowed to compete in men’s surfing competitions and possibly win prize money from that competition, but men have not been allowed to compete in women’s competitions, and possibly win the prize money from that competition.

There is a surfing magazine for female surfers only, available from your local newsagency. There have also been a number of women’s surfing films produced, that hardly had a male in them.

So far as surfing is concerned, the biggest problem would probably be overcrowding, which does not fit your definition of it being a class orientated sport.

Basically, you don’t know what you are writing about, but your article is just another thinly disguised attempt to make males feel guilty of something or other

This could have been a great article. It would have helped if the writer had hang out at Maroubra for a day or so. The article seems totally informed by the film, which is a bit like understanding Vietnam by going to a film travel night.

It's not a feminist issue. It's not Puberty Blues in reverse. It's one of poverty, gangs and survival.

Cheryl, the post originally appeared on Larvatus Prodeo as a short review of the documentary, Bra Boys. I don't think David Stratton has to chuff off to every location that appears in a film before he reviews the movies.

The notion that it's not a feminist issue is absurd. There is a reason that women are virtually invisible in the film.

HRS, I think surfing is a great sport. Unless the Bra Boys were fibbing, they see themselves as belonging to (or coming from) a particular class, and let's face it, there are no women in their gang.

Realist, I didn't realise I had to walk around with a tattoo saying "working class". Grandpop was a shearer; dad was a mailman turned bar tender; lived in public housing, I left school originally at 15 or 16 (went to university as a mature-age student).

There's a reason I mentioned other movies in the piece (e.g. Once Were Warriors) because such films show that there are victims of such "tribes" or "gangs".

Also, please note that my last article for this site was about the Megan Meier case. The Meier case was an example of the negative feminine. That is, young girls banded together in a group can be very cruel

Darlene - with respect your article is based on a couple of false premises. Despite the film trying to make out otherwise, Maroubra is not even remotely working class - its at the upper end of the upper middle class populated entirely by professionals and prosperous tradies. Its close enough to UNSW to have a couple of student dives that double as surfie dives (contrary to your suggestion, they do blend quite seamlessly) and there is some government housing left over from the 70's (when it was a bit closer working class), but in 2008 we are talking the posh end of Sydney with a lifestyle to match. The kiosk at Maroubra does a mean Allpress soy latte and the newsagent sells out of Financial Reviews every weekend. Its that sort of place.

Nor is Maroubra an enclave from which locals cannot escape (though the queue for buses into town on a weekday morning can make it feel that way), condemning them to some fictional subculture centred on the "bra boys". Its one beach in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.

The 'bra boys "image" is mostly an invention of the Daily Telegraph, written by creative journos to fill pages and exploited by the lads concerned in order to fund their legal defense, surfing lifestyle and now to get into parties and the style pages.

More relevant to the points you make though is that girls (and boys) from Maroubra tend to have things rather good. The schools are good, every type of extra-curricular activity is to hand, they are from rich homes and if one doesn't like the 'bra boy subculture, one can hang out with another of the zillion or so cliques in Sydney's eastern suburbs and inner city.

Ultimately, I think the responses to your article are based not so much on your "touching on a truth", but your promoting a fiction that the 'bra boys hold some special place of relevance in eastern Sydney - or even Maroubra.

Hope that helps your understanding.
Cheers
md-

Pseud prole-fagging pieces like this contribute zilch, xcept p'haps to the ego of the blogger who gets to indulge his/her camp obsession, tip a bucket, ignore contra-indication, depth and fundamental facts, and con and/or comfort idiotic, like-minded others.

No mention either of Aboriginality of many Bra Boys.