“What we see and what we seem are but a dream - a dream within a dream,” states Miranda, a teenage character in Picnic at Hanging Rock. In the narrative, what begins as an afternoon excursion filled with a sense of curiosity and overtones of risk soon gives way to intense fear as several students and a teacher from an all-girls boarding school wander away from the other classmates and then, inexplicably, disappear. This is more than just a mystery tale, however. Throughout Picnic there is a sustained tension between the imagery of Enlightenment thought and the imagery of the Mythic that plays out in the embodiment of the adolescent girls. In numerous ways, the girls become central to a nexus for norms of, and challenges to, femininity and emergent sexuality. Since the publication of Joan Lindsay’s novel in 1967, Picnic has undergone various stage and cinematic adaptations. Among the most notable iterations is Peter Weir’s 1975 film, which received critical praise and developed a loyal cult following. More recently, the story has been reprised as an Australian mini-series, broadcast in 2018 and widely released through Amazon.com. This paper utilizes a feminist, postcolonial lens to consider how the portrayal of adolescent girlhood has changed from Weir’s version to the recent series. In particular, I examine the ways in which contemporary sociocultural fears and anxieties are mapped onto the very bodies of the female characters, shaping how girlhood is viewed both onscreen and off.
