Author | Gabrielle Carey Kathy Lette |
---|---|
Country | Australia |
Language | English |
Genre | Novel |
Publisher | McPhee Gribble |
Publication date | 1979 |
Media type | |
Pages | 144 |
ISBN | 978-1-742759-28-9 |
OCLC | 50270616 |
791.4372 |
Puberty Blues (1979) is a novel by the Australian writers Gabrielle Carey and Kathy Lette. It is their first published book. It has long been controversial with adults but much sought out by teenagers for its depictions of adolescent sex. A film based on the novel was released in 1981. A television series based on the novel began airing in 2012.
The novel is set in Sutherland Shire, in southern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia in the 1970s. Deb and Sue are thirteen-year-old high school students whose lives are about male surfers, panel vans, straight-leg Levis, skipping school, getting wasted and fitting in. The girls strive to become "surfie chicks", the groupies that hang around the surfer-boy gangs of Sydney. Adhering to rules that prevent them from eating or going to the toilet in the surfers' presence, the girls manage to become members of a surfing gang from Sylvania and are assigned boyfriends but, to the boys, they are just sexual objects. After Deb suffers a surprise miscarriage and the introduction of heroin takes its toll on their social group, the girls finally become disillusioned with the sexism and narrow-mindedness of their crowd and leave the group.
Puberty Blues addresses the sexism of surf culture and youth culture in general in Australia in the 1970s. It also deals with what would become common young adult themes such as love, sex and identity. [1]
The novel was the third to be published by McPhee Gribble and thus occupied a special place in the development of Australian literature. [2] There were strong reactions to the depictions of underage sex, rape, pregnancy, drinking and drug-taking. Many were scandalised, while others defended it as a feminist work, [3] [4] with Germaine Greer calling it a "profoundly moral story". [5] As the book was largely autobiographical, it also drew attention from those whom it was based on. [6] But Kylie Minogue spoke for many when she said, "I don't recall reading Puberty Blues so much as devouring it. I was about thirteen, alone in my bedroom with the door firmly shut. I was fascinated." It is now regarded as a classic. [7]
The pressures of public attention caused Carey and Lette to go their separate ways. [8]
In 1982, the novel was adapted to the film Puberty Blues directed by Bruce Beresford from a screenplay by Margaret Kelly. The lead actors were Nell Schofield and Jad Capelja. The film has been criticised for removing or downplaying some of the more controversial content from the novel. [9]
In 2012, the novel was adapted to the television series Puberty Blues , starring Ashleigh Cummings and Brenna Harding. [10]
Kathryn Marie Lette is an Australian and British author.
"It's No Secret" is a song by Australian singer-songwriter Kylie Minogue taken from her debut studio album Kylie (1988). The song was written and produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman, who were also the producers of Minogue's first four studio albums. The song was intended to be released as the fifth single from Kylie, but due to the success and longevity of Kylie's massive selling duet with Jason Donovan, "Especially for You", over Christmas 1988 and the following new year, it was only released in a handful of countries. In the United States, "It's No Secret" was released as Kylie's third single where it reached the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100.
Puberty Blues is a 1981 Australian coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Bruce Beresford, based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey.
"Did It Again" is a song by Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue, originally featured on her sixth studio album Impossible Princess (1997). The song was released as the album's second single on 24 November 1997 through Mushroom, Deconstruction, and BMG. Minogue had written the track with Steve Anderson and Dave Seaman, and it was produced by Minogue in collaboration with Brothers in Rhythm. Backed by guitars and drum, "Did It Again" is a pop rock track in which Minogue sings about her self-consciousness and self-hatred.
The 16th Annual Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards were held on 15 October 2002 at the Sydney SuperDome.
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Gabrielle Carey was an Australian writer who co-wrote the teen novel, Puberty Blues with Kathy Lette. This novel was the first teenage novel published in Australia that was written by teenagers. Carey became a senior lecturer in the Creative Writing program at the University of Technology Sydney, studying James Joyce and Randolph Stow.
The Beautiful Boy is a book by radical feminist academic Germaine Greer, published in 2003 as The Boy in the Commonwealth by Thames & Hudson and in the rest of the world by Rizzoli. Its avowed intention was "to advance women's reclamation of their capacity for and right to visual pleasure". The book is a study of the youthful male face and form, from antiquity to the present day, from paintings and drawings to statuary and photographs.
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer and public intellectual, regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminism movement in the latter half of the 20th century.
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Moll, mole, or molly in Australia and New Zealand, is a usually pejorative or self-deprecating term for a woman of loose sexual morals, or a prostitute.
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The Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, from 2024 the South Australian Literary Awards, comprise a group of biennially-granted literary awards established in 1986 by the Government of South Australia, announced during Adelaide Writers' Week, as part of the Adelaide Festival. The awards include national as well as state-based prizes, and offer three fellowships for South Australian writers. Several categories have been added to the original four.
Diana Mary Gribble was an Australian publisher, book editor and businessperson. A feminist, Gribble was one of the most influential figures in the Australian publishing scene and wider cultural life between 1975 and 2010.
Puberty Blues is an Australian coming-of-age comedy-drama television series broadcast on Network Ten. It is based on the 1979 book by Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey, which was also the inspiration for the 1981 film Puberty Blues. Set during the late 1970s, the series revolves around the family and friends of Debbie and Sue, two inseparable teenage friends who are coming of age in Sydney's Sutherland Shire. The first series of eight episodes began airing from 15 August 2012. A second series was later confirmed and premiered on 5 March 2014.
Joan Long was an Australian producer, writer and director best known for Caddie (1976). She was awarded as a Member of the Order of Australia in 1980 for her services to the film industry.
Puberty Blues may refer to:
Australia has a long-standing association with the protection and creation of women's rights. Australia was the second country in the world to give women the right to vote and the first to give women the right to be elected to a national parliament. The Australian state of South Australia, then a British colony, was the first parliament in the world to grant women full suffrage rights. Australia has since had multiple notable women serving in public office as well as other fields. Women in Australia with the notable exception of Indigenous women, were granted the right to vote and to be elected at federal elections in 1902.
Brenna Harding is an Australian actress, best known for her role as Sue Knight in the television series Puberty Blues, and her role in "Arkangel", an episode in the anthology series Black Mirror.
Town Bloody Hall is a 1979 documentary film of a panel debate between feminist advocates and activist Norman Mailer. Filmed on April 30, 1971, in The Town Hall in New York City. Town Bloody Hall features a panel of feminist advocates for the women's liberation movement and Norman Mailer, author of The Prisoner of Sex (1971). Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker produced the film, which stars Jacqueline Ceballos, Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston, Diana Trilling, and Norman Mailer. The footage of the panel was recorded and released as a documentary in 1979. Produced by Shirley Broughton, the event was originally filmed by Pennebaker. The footage was then filed and rendered unusable. Hegedus met Pennebaker a few years later, and the two edited the final version of the film for its release in 1979. Pennebaker described his filming style as one that exists without labels, in order to let the viewer come to a conclusion about the material, which inspired the nature of the Town Bloody Hall documentary. The recording of the debate was intended to ensure the unbiased documentation, allowing it to become a concrete moment in feminist history.