Directed by Aussie legend Rachel Griffiths in her debut behind the camera, and starring Teresa Palmer as Michelle Payne, the Melbourne Cup drama Ride Like A Girl has topped the box office on its opening weekend in Australian cinemas.
The sports biopic tells the true story of Payne’s ground-breaking win of the 2015 Melbourne Cup against 100-1 odds and as a female jockey, one of only four to ever race in the Cup. Since opening at number one on Thursday, the film has raked in around $2,377,731. It is on track to become 2019’s highest grossing Australian film.
Considering those numbers, it feels like most Australian audiences have an appetite for high-energy, empowering drama. So why was the film’s premiere at South Yarra’s Jam Factory targeted by impassioned protestors?
The animal rights group Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses rallied outside the film’s premiere with graphic placards of horses being slaughtered, before forcing their way into the screening and halting speeches by Griffiths and Payne herself. The activists contended that the film’s progressive social message of gender inequality was being prioritised over the rights of the animals which are so pivotal to the film’s story, and to the racing industry in general.
Kristin Leigh, a spokesperson for the protest group, argued that industry-sanctioned animal abuse is “not something for women to be proud of,” and that there is ‘nothing to celebrate’ about women being awarded in a typically male-dominated field when those awards glorify a corrupt industry.
It’s hard to say whether this fierce opposition from animal rights activists has been a concern for the filmmakers. In a feature interview in The Big Issue, Rachel Griffiths only spoke vaguely on the protests, stating that, for her, “this story was such a universal, amazing story of celebration. That is the part of the story I wanted to embrace.”
During the production of Ride Like A Girl, Payne’s former trainer Darren Weir was charged with using electric shock devices on racehorses, and was banned from the sport by Racing Victoria. Early, positive reviews of the biopic make little mention of this news.
If it’s being left to Australian movie-goers to vote on the issue with their wallets, it would seem things are definitely looking up for Ride Like A Girl and for Griffiths, who is otherwise best-known for her role as Rhonda in Muriel’s Wedding and Brenda Chenowith in Sex Feet Under.
If Ride Like A Girl does become a patriotic, female-driven classic in the same vein as Muriel’s Wedding, it will be fascinating to see how future generations view the film’s position amidst the animal rights debate.
