Love Serenade (1996): Ecofeminist Myth-making or Hetero-normative Wish

Love Serenade (1996): Ecofeminist Myth-making or Hetero-normative Wish

Set in Sunray, a backwater town on Australia's Murray River, there's little to do but fish or listen to the local radio station, Shirley Barrett’s Love Serenade infuses Magical Realism to invoke what could be seen as an ecofeminist message. Although the story seems to focus primarily on the drive for romance and marriage in a patriarchal community, the fishing images and references suggest something more: a literal connection between humans and nature that merges Sunray with the river at its edge. 

On one level, the narrative of Love Serenade seems to perpetuate a patriarchal status quo. This normative plot’s conflicts begin when D.J. Ken Sherry (George Shevtsov) arrives from the hustle of Brisbane to run the small town radio station, where he plays 1960s and 70s love songs from Barry White and Glen Campbell that reinforce his ideology. Although he is in his mid-40s, detached, thrice divorced, and hatchet faced, two sisters living next door find him irresistible: Dimity (Miranda Otto) is an awkward twenty year-old, who works in a Chinese restaurant with few patrons and nudist owner Albert Lee (John Alansu). Vicki-Ann (Rebecca Frith) is a perky hairdresser with a hope chest who invents a happy future with Sherry based on little but his arrival. First Dimity then Vicki-Ann spend the night with Sherry, one concluding he's her boy friend, the other her fiancé until both discover their mistake.

On another level, however, the film explores masculinity through an ecofeminist lens that draws on fish and fishing as metaphor. From this perspective the narrative reverses stereotypical alliances between women and nature, suggesting that at least one man’s “nature” aligns him more with the Marlin on his living room wall than with the “human” characters represented by Dimity, Vicki-Ann, and Albert Lee. 

To demonstrate this focus, the opening fishing scene compares the sport to the angling associated with romantic relationships. After close-ups of carp under water latching onto a hook, Dimity and Vicki-Ann reel it in, stringing it up with a comment, “some fish mate for life.” To amplify the angling metaphor, Vicki-Ann even offers the carp to Sherry, plying him with food for affection. His claim that he never eats seafood, however, takes the metaphor further, moving it into the realm of Magical Realism in which Sherry logically grows gills as he manifests the traits he attributes to the Marlin on his wall. 

Multiple scenes hint at Sherry’s transformation. Although he won’t eat them, he questions Dimity and Albert Lee repeatedly about the freshness of the restaurant’s prawns. To lure in Dimity, he asks her if she would like to see his fish, the giant stuffed Marlin on his wall. To illustrate his view of love, Sherry points to the Marlin, telling Dimity he is like the Marlin. For Dimity the fish is dead. For Sherry it’s free, unlike a pet fish in a tank or a lover in a committed relationship. Sherry even quotes the cliché, “to love something, set it free.”

The alliance between the hyper-masculine Sherry and the Marlin grows stronger when Sherry seduces Vicki-Ann. Dimity begins to notice gills on Sherry’s neck that foam when he gargles. Later Dimity sits in Sherry’s living room while Sherry and Vicki-Ann “mate” and watches the Marlin from the couch. The Marlin jumps from the wall, crashing to the floor and foreshadowing Sherry’s future fate. Sherry rejects both Dimity and Vicki-Ann and meets a violent death in a fall from a grain silo, but the film ends not on shore but on the river, where, after the sisters drop him into the water, Sherry completely transforms into the fish he emulates. The sisters scream as he swims away, trailing an “I wuv you” balloon behind him. In Love Serenade, Shirley Barrett complicates the romantic revenge plot by exploring it beside and in the Murray River. It’s still unclear, however, whether that choice perpetuates patriarchy or (re)creates an ecofeminist myth.